Cyberchondria

Cyberchondria is a kind of hypochondria caused by looking up medical information on the Internet and getting misinformed.

People generally have little or no faith in the doctors or the test results, and so in their free hours devote their time to surfing the internet in search of a disease that matches their symptoms.

Unfortunately most of the Internet sites are misleading and most of them are not authenticated by the medical profession.

The ease of authoring a webpage encourages many to put up their own pages so others may visit it and feel a sense of relief that they have been diagnosed. However, this usually does more harm than good. Some life-threatening diseases such as HIV or others have very general flu symptoms. Hence people who stumble across pages like these, may now be convinced that their condition is not a mere bug, but a crippling disease.

This leads to anxiety, guilt and depression. And soon the person may actually get sick from believing he is sick, making it a self-fulfiling prohecy.

When in doubt, never ever scourge the Internet for information as the Internet is by far the worst tool for an objective diagnosis. Instead visit a licensed medical practitioner, and ask him/her the best course of action to treat your symptoms