Xiao Yang, a university student in Suzhou, has posted 39 numbers at a health center near his school in the last month, an average of 1.3 per day.
When he went to the hospital for the first time, Xiao Yang did not have any symptoms, but suddenly thought of his father who died of leukemia and planned to seek peace of mind. As a result, a certain indicator of the blood routine deviated slightly from the normal range, and from then on, he could not stop.
He began to repeatedly verify the fact that he did not have a blood disease.
During that time, he was Xi, originally only hung up on weekends, and later evolved into taking leave to see on weekdays, and finally did not take leave, took a taxi directly to the hospital during the lunch break, and came back two or three hours later.
I had four or five routine blood tests, and more than one full-body ultrasound to examine the lymph nodes in various parts. He showed the report to different experts, and they all said there was nothing wrong. Walking out of the office, the anxiety seemed to subside, but it didn't take long for it to return.
He has been a frequent visitor to the hospital since his junior year of high school
I did all kinds of checks
It's not the first time Xiao Yang has done this, he has been paying special attention to his body since the fall of his junior year of high school. At first, the focus was on the digestive system, but later he became suspicious of the lymphatic tissue in the neck, and once or twice a week, he wanted to touch the neck of the male classmate to see if it was different. There were even three or four times when the teacher was lecturing and he ran straight out of the classroom and went to the hospital near the school for a check-up.
At that time, the results of the examination were not abnormal, but Xiao Yang's fear of suffering from stomach cancer still did not dissipate. His mother had enough of his chatter and agreed to take him for a gastroscopy. Everything turned out to be normal, not even superficial gastritis. The doctor complained: "Such a young child, just 17 years old, why do you want to take him for a gastroscopy under general anesthesia?"
Xiao Yang later mentioned in his self-analysis that at that time, the academic pressure was relatively high, and the emotional management was not very successful. "It's probably an escape. It was as if a voice was saying to itself, "I'm not feeling well right now, so I can stop facing these things." ”
Xiao Yang does not trust the results of ordinary routine tests, and only "gold-standard examinations" can dispel his doubts, such as cutting out a part of the tissue for a biopsy, but this kind of request will not be accepted in a patient with no symptoms.
I think I was weak since I was a child
The frequent deaths of his loved ones made him even more afraid
Xiao Yang tried to explore the source of this way of thinking, when he was a child, he did not get sick many times, and he never had a serious illness. But he always thought that he was "frail", he was very short and thin when he was a child, he was in the second year of junior high school, and he was asked what grade he was in elementary school.
It turned out that he was born prematurely, seven and a half months ago, and weighed less than 4 pounds at that time. The family occasionally mentioned this past, but it was also unintentional, and they never thought that they would bury more or less hidden worries about Xiao Yang who heard it at that time.
In his freshman year, Xiao Yang's grandfather died of lymphoma, and in the years that followed, several relatives and friends died of illness. Including Xiao Yang's father died of leukemia later, and the relatives around him left intensively during this time, which made Xiao Yang very afraid, afraid that the disease would find him next.
At that time, Xiao Yang had a faint discomfort in his throat, and he actually had a slight hand tremor all the time, but he hadn't noticed it before, and now it was suddenly magnified. From lung cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer to Parkinson's and other diseases, Xiao Yang has doubted it. He began to go to the hospital for chest surgery, respiratory, otolaryngology, psychiatry, etc., and after a long time, the doctors and nurses in the hospital knew him.
"You should probably go to the psychiatric department"
Diagnosed with hypochondriasis
In the fourth year of hypochondriasis, for the first time, a doctor explicitly reminded Xiao Yang: "You should probably go to the psychiatric department to see it." ”
Before the start of his senior year, his hypochondriasis reached its extreme. At that time, ALS was suspected, first I felt that my calves were thinner, and then I noticed a flesh jump. One of the symptoms associated with ALS is fasciculations, and fear strikes instantly.
Xiao Yang fell into a similar situation several times, but the type of disease he was worried about was different, and after going to the mental health department, he was diagnosed with hypochondriasis.
Before he started taking the medicine, he had some doubts. He is willing to believe what the doctor said, it is a psychological problem, but he is still muttering, is it really not that he has not found out?
In the first week of taking the drug, he noticed that it seemed that the frequency of the flesh beating decreased, and in the second week, some of the symptoms disappeared. He increasingly recognized the doctor's diagnosis: "The fact that psychotropic drugs are effective proves that this is indeed the problem." ”
What is hypochondriasis?
It cost $170,000 to suspect that he had cancer
According to Wu Wanzhen, deputy chief physician of the Department of Mental Health of Zhejiang Hospital, hypochondriasis (hypochondriasis), also known as hypochondriasis, refers to patients who worry or believe that they have one or more serious physical diseases, and the patient complains of somatic symptoms and repeatedly seeks medical treatment.
With the development of the times and the popularization of the Internet, more and more people tend to search for disease-related information on the Internet when they encounter health problems. This has also given rise to "cyber hypochondriasis":
A study of 12,262 people from 12 countries (China, the United States, Russia, India, etc.) found that 60% of Chinese Internet users use the Internet to search for health, medical and disease-related information, 56% use online health information for self-diagnosis, and about 40% increase anxiety after searching for health information online.
People tend to focus on severe, rare disease information, magnify common symptoms, or make negative irrational explanations, which consumes a lot of time and energy online, and causes people to suffer from negative emotions such as anxiety.
Researchers in Saudi Arabia have reported an extreme case that illustrates the burden on healthcare facilities for patients with disease anxiety disorder: a male patient who began suspecting cancer at the age of 48 and continued for 25 years. During this time, he visited the doctor several times a week, performing a total of 18 abdominal CTs, 11 chest CT scans, 7 head CT scans, 6 lumbar MRIs, and 4 chest MRIs, and even persuaded several doctors to perform biopsies of his kidneys, prostate, and stomach. His family was mediocre, but he spent $178,000 on it.
Manifestations of hypochondriasis:
1. The patient is overly concerned about his or her health and any slight changes in his body, and makes hypochondriacal explanations that are inconsistent with his actual state of health.
2. Patients often feel that they are generally unwell, or pain or dysfunction in a certain part, such as headache, chest pain, nausea, diarrhea, palpitations, dyspnea, etc.
3. Some patients will suspect that the facial features are abnormal, especially the nose and ears, and they also complain of sweating and body odor.
4. Patients are often accompanied by symptoms such as anxiety, depression, fear and autonomic dysfunction.
5. The patient focuses most or all of his attention on health problems, so much so that it affects daily Xi, work, life and interpersonal communication.
Causes of hypochondriasis:
1. Personality factors: withdrawn, introverted, sensitive, self-centered, stubborn, and suggestive personality traits can become personality traits for the onset of hypochondriasis.
2. Social and environmental factors: Affected by the surrounding environment, patients will unconsciously cover up their psychological and emotional problems, and instead feel that it is physical discomfort, such as knowing relatives and friends who have a serious disease, they will feel that they will also have it. At the same time, excessive medical examinations and unnecessary treatments may contribute to the development of hypochondriasis.
3. Physical factors: people in adolescence or menopause are more likely to have mood swings, which leads to physical changes and symptoms of autonomic instability, and due to the patient's unreasonable cognition, it will contribute to the generation of hypochondriacal ideas.
How is hypochondriasis treated?
Wu Wanzhen said that after the physical illness is ruled out and the diagnosis is clear, psychological treatment and drug treatment are generally carried out.
Psychotherapy: Supportive psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy are the main treatments to guide patients to correctly understand the nature of the disease, help patients change their perception of symptoms, and then divert patients' attention through environmental and lifestyle changes to help patients improve their symptoms.
Medication: Hypochondriasis patients are often accompanied by symptoms such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, etc., and can be treated with anti-anxiety, antidepressant drugs, and antipsychotic drugs according to the patient's condition.
(In order to protect the privacy of patients, the names of patients in this article have been changed)
Source: Metro Express
