This is something that everyone has experienced before. Once we sense pain, mood irregularity, increased heart rate, diarrhea, headache, backache or something else, instantly our mind thinks that there is something seriously wrong with our health. Immediately our thoughts and fear consumes us regarding our health and life, which may lead us thinking and fantasizing that we might have some of the most difficult and dangerous known diseases, such as a heart attack, stroke and cancer or something else.

Usually what follows is the gathering of information from the Internet or by asking friends, acquaintances and family about our symptoms. Confusion and anxiety can become even more prominent is this case because the information we gather whilst being under the effects of stress and fear which will make it more difficult to make us feel more relaxed and sooth our suspicions. Most probably, when receiving information whilst feeling intense anxiety and fear, it will help promote these emotions instead of comforting them.

If you have a meeting with a doctor and the basic requested procedures have been completed such as examination of blood samples, urine samples, x-rays, tomography or anything else that has been asked for and when informed that there is nothing serious with your health but still you are not convinced and start asking for a second or third or fourth doctor’s opinions in order to get a diagnosis that quite fits your belief system and the thought that there is something very serious with your health persists then you might be a ‘hypochondriac’, which in the recent publications (DSM 5) has been renamed to ‘Illness Anxiety Disorder’.

This diagnosis suggests that we tend to have obsessively exceeded stress regarding our health in an illogical way. Basically we are getting worried and overreact about something that we do not actually have.

In such situations where stress and anxiety have control over us, it can easily disturb our sleep, ruin our mood, make us incapable of keeping focus and releasing our minds from the repeated and intrusive thoughts about an imaginary disease that might suggest our own death.

It is estimated that globally, 10-15% of the world’s population experienced at least once such a hypochondriac episode where the worry about one’s health is prominent. In a relative small percentage of the world’s population, this illness is very much prominent which eventually can become part of someone’s personality and fairly enough among his social cycle gains the description of a ‘hypochondriac’.

In order to avoid such stigmatizing descriptions that in turn can make the case of a ‘hypochondriac’ even more severe the illness has been renamed into ‘Illness Anxiety Disorder’.

This diagnosis is strongly hinted in the presence of extreme anxiety regarding a disease and is accompanied by strong behaviors to control their symptoms via requesting constant tests and analysis.

The difference found in ‘hypochondriacs’ is that their stress and anxiety are not based in the absence of an illness, in some cases we accept that stress and anxiety usually accompany illnesses and the focus is directed on the illness but if an illness is not that serious and still being accompanied by strong emotions of anxiety, then the focus redirects on controlling the anxiety levels of a patient.

If an individual from our environment is indicating such kind of anxiety, then we must be very thoughtful and caring on how to be there for them, assist them along the way and help them discover all of their concerns and worries.

When there is a request to explore the symptomatology of an individual, we try to help that person reach their own personal doctors. Once there, everything should be recorded thoroughly via the use of tests and analysis, if their own personal doctor for any reason cannot complete this task, then the patient should be referred accordingly.

We must be honest and clear with the patient from the initial meeting on how to complete A or B and we wait for the outcome patiently. This will help us determine if the disease is present or absent and explain it to them. We asked the patient to take part in the diagnosis procedure and his or hers current situation using laboratory results or any other requests their personal doctor might have.

It is crucial for the doctor to maintain a steady control over the situation in order to convince the patients of his diagnosis. To do so, a doctor should not act mechanically or automatically when the patient requests new tests or analysis because this will end up in a loop, with the doctor ordering endlessly new tests.

If the above-mentioned procedures have been completed and yet the patient insists, then the doctor should disagree with the patient and remain within the logical senses of their conversation between them.

A basic point of this procedure, either being followed by a friend or a specialist is that in no point of our interaction with the patient we must indicate that we belief that we view their symptoms as imaginary.

Even though we might have suspected as much from an early stage of the interaction, a correct approach to this situation requires a thoroughly analysis and study of each symptom mentioned and form a sensible way to communicate our agreement or disagreement with the patient until we reach an acceptable conclusion from the patient’s perspective.

For example, a patient mentions chest pain in the area of the heart that is being expressed as a fear of having a heart attack but in reality, the doctor quickly realized that it is simply a superficial neuralgia on the surface of the chest. In this case, the doctor should never say ‘’this is nothing to worry about’’ but instead should mention something like: ‘does not seem to be something to worry about but still we will explore the matter by doing A and B’, specific steps.

If the doctor emits seriousness with his or her approach, it might be even more helpful than a dozen of psychological interventions.

Basically, a doctor’s concrete approach regarding the scheduling of tests, organizing regular meetings or even making phone calls to his or her patients when they receive a satisfactory result, then this can help the patient which usually they anxiously await regarding their cases, this can be very reassuring and help them relax so they will not feel the need to ask for more tests or second opinions.

We must also avoid making a diagnosis to exclude other diseases.

The thing that matters for our worrying sick patient is that, by contemplating the reality surrounding their clinical symptoms and laboratory findings, along with their own use of logic thinking and judgment, to feel convinced of what the doctors are explaining is true.

When the doctor is convincing towards the patient that searching for any illness will be futile or that the illness that the patient is exhibiting is not as serious as they though and the patient is convinced, then discussions regarding their own anxiety and stress levels should initiate.

If this becomes acceptable by the patient as well, meaning that they believe that they do not experience any form of serious somatic illness, then we can describe to them that most probably their own stress levels and belief system have created this perception. Another explanation can be that a form of psychosomatic illness is present which in turn makes symptoms derived from stress and anxiety to form physically such as back pains.

Everything mentioned thus far can help a patient to minimize their own stress levels and at the same time to accept the possibility that their own health concerns is what causing the extreme form of anxiety. This might be able to make the patient relax and work on how to minimize their obsessive concerns regarding their health.