Cyberchondriacs

By | February 3, 2004

Here’s an interesting phenomenon: cyberchondriacs. Cyberchondriacs are people who convince themselves they have a disease they read about on the internet. While this seems relatively harmless, it is drastically increasing the workload for General Practitioners. “Over the course of six months, Fiona reckons she visited her local [GP] 10 times with different ‘illnesses’. ‘In the end my GP told me I had a panic disorder and that placated me,’ she says.”

I can see both sides of this issue. On one side, family doctors really don’t need to have their time monopolized by people who only think they might have a disease because they read about it. On the other hand, it is possible to find out that one really does have an ailment after reading about it. This is how I found out that I had sleep apnea. After reading about SA, I knew that I needed to go see my doctor.

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