Friday, June 20, 2008

Hypochondria

Jenni Prokopy, Editor of Chronic Babe wrote an interesting post about hypochondria:

Am I a Hypochondriac?

I think that many of us with chronic illness can relate to this, as our symptoms (and/or diseases) are often met with skepticism from our family, friends, and even our doctors.

I know that when this has happened to me, it has been a very degrading experience. Especially when you live with an invisible illness, it’s often hard to “prove” to people that you are “truly” ill. You could shove your medical records in their face, but that might just scare them away.

I think it’s also easy to become obsessive about every little symptom when you have a chronic illness. For my own body, I really am unable to gauge what is normal anymore. But Jenni has a really practical and easy solution to this, that she dubs “The 24-hour rule.” She only calls her doctor if symptoms last longer than 24 hours. I think that’s a pretty good maxim to have.

2 comments:

  1. Hey, Leslie! I don't think you are a hypochondriac. My aunt is the very explanation of that word. She gets every illness known to man several times a year. What makes her different than us is that she calls everyone she knows to tell them about her illnesses. The fact that she does it to get attention makes it different than you and me. We suffer pretty much in silence. When you go around advertising every ache and pain (real or imaginary) then you have hypochondria. As a matter of fact, she called me this week because she was "down with her back" she went on for an hour about the details of this affliction. I could only hold the phone and say "uh-huh" many times. Which by the way, if I hold the phone for very long my fingers start to ache. But, did I mention that? Of course not. I don't want to sound like a hypochondriac! lol

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  2. hey there, thanks for the comment/post! i'm glad babes out in the blogosphere can relate - that's what i hoped would happen. i think it's so common for us to feel confused about how to handle our symptoms and how to watch for them, and the system - and society - aren't set up to support us in the best way. so i'm glad that together we can keep some dialogue going on this topic! :) thanks again - be awap (as well as possible)... jenni

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