To think we are becoming a country of hypochondriacs?

[YellowTulips25]

Firstly, let me preface this by saying that I entirely sympathise with people who have to live with serious long-term medical conditions. I don't wish to downplay illness or disabilities - visible or hidden - at all.

However, does anyone else feel like we're rapidly becoming a country of hypochondriacs, where an increasing number of people let seemingly minor health issues dominate their life?

For example, an article on the BBC this week features a woman who talks about having 'chronic pain, migraines and travel sickness' as reasons why it's impossible for her to work in an office. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9x0819417o

I think most of us suffer from aches and pains and headaches from time to time? What'd happen if we all started using this excuse?

And I know plenty of friends who always seem to have some ailment or other troubling them, whether it's being in pain, being tired, having a cough or cold, etc etc. It seems almost as if constantly being ill is part of their personality, a badge of honour?

I know I'll probably get flamed for this, but surely I can't be the only one to feel like rolling my eyes at some people's lack of resilience?

I have health anxiety diagnosed by a psychiatrist years of therapy . So i don't understand why you think people with health anxiety don't go to the drs that's like saying people with social anxiety or gad don't go to the drs

Another goady as fuck thread by a brand new poster who then buggers off.

MN sinks lower everyday.

Yep and @mnhq just allows it

I’ve been travelling on the tube for 50 years and never once seen the emergency button used.

Couldn't agree more. People don't have enough to do so self diagnose every ache and pain and then clog up waiting rooms and A&E. Don't get me started on the whole "is it safe to eat" brigade!

Two things at play here I think:
Firstly, our advertising used to focus on products making us more attractive, smell better and live a better life. Now the sell is that their stuff is the only way to avoid erectile dysfunction and incontinence pads.
Secondly, offices used to be freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer - many of us remember having to sit next to the chain-smoker as the office junior - but poorly configured air conditioning and LED lighting do aggravate conditions. At an office (before lockdown) someone had an epileptic seizure due to the lighting and many staff took to wearing green eyeshades like a small army of poker players to combat the migraines.

It's an interesting premise... I do think that people seem to want medicalise things to a far greater degree than in previous years, but I don't think it's a lack of moral fibre or some other personal failing. I think it's a combination of:

1. people's health is worse, due to more sedentary lives and typically more processed diets.

2. when you feel a bit crap now, you can easily google the 1million possible medical causes. Or see people who have similar issues on social media talking about how they solved it with XYZ branded item!

3. it's very difficult to be able to see an actual doctor and get tests etc to see what is going on - which is not me slagging off the NHS, but my own experience of how emergency medical issues vs chronic medical issues are dealt with.

4. i think there's a huge prevalence of low level depression these days - and little wonder given how the shittyness of the world is shoved into your brain through social media.

I think it's just human nature - people want to believe they have something medical rather than it's just the world they live in is shit, as that means maybe there is a way to feel better!

I usually only get the migraine aura, the first time it happened I thought I was going blind. It leaves me feeling spaced out and tired. When I do get the nausea and headache it wipes me out.

Never self diagnosed in my life i have a range of congenital and chronic conditions all diagnosed by drs. Being disabled isn't a choice

I'm in my late 40s, and when I was a child, people went to the GP far more than they do now. I remember my Mum taking me when I was off sick from school (with just normal bug type stuff) - and if anything, my parents were more on the neglectful side than most. You had far more contact with your doctor, and a family could have the same doctor for years. Now, I very rarely visit the GP, and only if absolutely necessary - not due to resilience, but more because it is such a ballache to get an appointment. They also used to hand out antibiotics more - I remember we had several types of them on multiple occasions, whereas I'm not sure that my kids have ever had antibiotics (apart from eye drops). Maybe having the knowledge that your GP was easily accessible and familiar was comforting, and lessened people's anxiety about their health. Any worries could be reassured very quickly, and you always knew that treatment wasn't far away.

I get where you are coming from but don’t group chronic migraine in that. I’m a sufferer and it’s hell. I have to take daily anti epilepsy drugs. I’m no snow flake, run my own business and about to publish a book. But it’s a real neurological disease - crept up on me 18 months ago, I was bed ridden! I’ve stopped alcohol and that helps. Migraine is horrendous and its not a headache, it’s a collection of hideous neurological disabling symptoms, very unique to each individual.

I have chronic migraines and still have to work! Migraines are not 'just a headache' and no two people's symptoms are the same. Often I 'have a migraine' without the actual headache, but get all the other symptoms like flashing lights, dizziness, vomiting etc. It's difficult to manage but thankfully there's many treatments to help now.

Such a surprise that an illness that even when mild doubles your risk of a cardio vascular event and disrupts every system in your body would lead to a massive increase in people unable to work. This was entirely predictable and predicted.

Have you ever tried to get help for health anxiety? It’s non existent and what does exist not particularly useful for many sufferers. I’ve paid thousands of pounds to private therapists over the years and have only managed to get my health anxiety down to a manageable simmer. I’ve never had any help from my GP about it. It isn’t as simple as you’re saying.

You will not have seen it - they just make the announcement " we are being held at this platform as we have a customer alarm on this train/train in front" I have seen it a couple of times over the same 50 years but heard the message at least weekly up until 2020. Twice in one journey even.

There is an ‘illness’ culture in the UK which just isn’t present elsewhere. I’m not from the UK and I am amazed by the sheer number of people with life limiting illnesses I come across. Whether the UK has higher instances or whether it’s just more normal to identify as having these issues I am not sure

A migraine is not a headache.

I have a mate like this, pays for private blood tests after the standard ones from the GP come back clear, always researching stuff and diagnosing not just themselves but their child and their friends. Doctor suggested she might have an element of hypochondria and she was outraged. I pulled a muscle in my back once and she bombarded me with worst case scenarios, how to take pain killers, started researching chiropractors, told me all about her chronic back pain (which was news to me as she had never mentioned it before) and advised me how to plan for a life with mobility issues.

That was nice of her to offer you so much help with your injury

I think you have a general point but I don't think the article you shared is one.

When I had to work in an office, I was having 3 migraines every single month which took me out for 3-4 days per time. Working from home allows me to manage my pain, manage my triggers and I now have 1 migraine a month, maximum, sometimes not even that.

People who get 'the odd headache' do not understand. You really have NO idea. I have a friend who thinks that headaches are 'mind over matter' - because for her they are. For me, I vomit because the pain is so bad.

I think if you're the type of person who can be in the office with no ill effect, brilliant! Go for it - it must be better for you for your mental health and socialising.

But don't assume you understand when you don't suffer from a medical issue.

I think this is a far more complicated issue and it's about more than pure hypochondria.

I do think Covid has shot to bits many peoples immunity and health with regards to viruses and they appear to be on the increase and the general problems in society as a whole ( not just a uk thing ) has impacted on many people's ability to plan, be satisfied, take care of themselves and family has caused far more mental health issues and mental health impacts on physical health and the reverse is true too. The ladies on here on multiple drugs and minimum wage and constant pain relief - I would struggle to work at all to be honest- I had a bad neuro reaction to Covid ( possibly the vaccine too - couldn't say) and I must have come over as a hypochondriac to others as I 'looked' ok - but was having buzzing in various places, constant pins and needles, a heady dizziness, neck pain, burning eyes- I was never off Google and did GP for first time in 22 years- plus several rounds of bloods, saw neuro consultants etc - and neuro told me she had seen multiple people with similar - it's hard not to keep bringing it up because the anxiety is through the roof with it.

There are So many with housing issues, , living in areas that feel unsafe , working in stressful places be it sales targets or understaffed places- more pressure on the 'doers' in companies to keep the money coming in - a lot more isolated people due to WFH ( suits many but not everyone depending on your personal situation.

There really is a lot of genuine illness around- physical or mental and a great deal of apathy too I think has sent in because of how difficult it is to get assessed or treated

There sadly is also a smaller bunch of people who have learnt that having some kind of diagnosed condition can keep them in a job a lot easier than just being lazy and crap at the job - or indeed gets them out of having a job at all and enhanced benefits- I wish that wasn't the case but it sadly is and I know a fair few like this . The enhanced benefits isn't the actual draw for the ones I know, it's more the fact they no longer have that drive or confidence to feel comfortable in many jobs and have got out the habit. .

The sickness absence rate has jumped post covid back to its 2004 levels. It had been on a downward trend before then. So there is a recent change which needs explaining but it is not a generational thing as it is still much lower than 30 years ago . Sickness absence in the UK labour market - Office for National Statistics

I'm one of those who doesn't go to the doctors for minor ailments, I treat at home. My very minor ailments turned out to be cancer, if I'd gone to the GP sooner I'd be in a much better place now.
We are being gaslit by the NHS and in turn by people on this thread. We should be getting minor ailments checked and have regular tests. Healthcare should be preventative and not about firefighting. The NHS fails hugely with preventative medicine, despite the fact that it would save money and lives in the long run. We don't have the GP capacity, so people are being blamed for using services inappropriately.
We need to stop putting the NHS on a pedestal. It does not deserve to be there.

👏👏👏👏

IDK anyone who goes to the GP for every minor thing. I do know a lot of people who are struggling with social issues like poor employment conditions or no job at all; insecure, expensive housing; expensive childcare; the cost of living.

Maybe people were more resilient in the old days because the fabric of society felt more stable than it does now.