CyberChondriac

I had a little medical scare last week. I went to the doctor last week for a couple of issues. During the course of the appointment, my doctor found something that led him to believe I may have an aorta aneurysm. Needless to say, I kind of freaked out.

Now don't worry, everything checked out normal. My doctor was just being extremely cautious, which I think is a good thing. But after he mentioned an aneurysm, I turned into a total CyberChondriac.

CyberChondria is defined as follows:

"A colloquial term to describe the behavior of individuals who use the Internet to gather information on health or healthcare, for themselves or people in their care."

I instantly went and Googled Aneurysm and Aorta and all kinds of horror stories came up. I started manifesting symptoms in my head, and had a restless night of sleep.

There is an interesting article here about how CyberChondria is spreading. I now find the whole thing kind of amusing, as worrying over your health is rarely beneficial, although I don't want to belittle the struggle of some people dealing with chronic illness and disease.