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?

Your frustration is misdirected and rooted in a strong belief that the state is responsible for the mess we are in. Are there cases of mismanagement of inefficiency? Absolutely! The more important question is though, do we as a population want to fund the healthcare system to anywhere close to the level you seem to think should exist to provide all the resources, early intervention and care that we currently 'need'? No, we don't and never have done in all our history as a country! This isn't because we are evil or don't care but because so many people are struggling to afford to live right now and simply cannot carry anymore of the tax burden. It currently costs the equivalent of 2/3rds of the NHS budget each year to service our debt. This is because we have been living beyond our means for decades and it is crippling us.

We have to look at things like PIP and the exploding number of people claiming benefits on the grounds of ill health and disability. It is hugely expensive and something we simply can't afford anymore. The rapid spiralling of claims needs to be investigated and the reality is that we need to start to allocate what resources we do have to those that need it most. People need to be encouraged to take more responsibility for themselves and their own health and we need our expectations managed as a nation about what is normal (if suboptimal) human health looks like and how we can't expect the state to step in to resolve all our issues anymore just because things are hard. I know this sounds much more callous than simply being 'kind' and believing what everyone says without any scrutiny or questioning but in the long run we will end up with even more debt that needs servicing and all the budgets (including the health and benefits budgets) getting squeezed further.

I think we have become a nation who:

• Has had its health service run into the ground by the last government
• Can't get a GP appointment
• When you get a GP appointment they don't take you seriously
• When you get a GP who does take you seriously and you get referred to another specialist it can be a long wait.
• When you have seen a specialist it can be a long wait for treatment
• Has a lot of its citizens living in poverty and sub-standard accommodation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c897d0l97jko
• Has a severe lack of mental health services
• Has a massive health divide between rich and poor

But yeah, continue to blame people for being a bit of a hypochondriac.

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?

My dd has chronic pain and chronic migraines and works self employed from home. It means she can at least work as if she had to go to an office or somewhere out of the house, her pain would prevent her from being able to do so and she would no doubt end up losing her job. When something is classed as chronic it doesn't mean general aches and pains, it means long term and debilitating.

Disabled people can't win. You don't work because a reasonable adjustment of WFH can't be implemented then you are a lazy benefits scrounger. Work full time but from home then you are lazy and a hypochondriac because it's not that bad.

There are millions of disabled people that want to work, why would we not allow them to WFH to enable that? And no OP, migraines are not just a headache.

This thread is unpleasant.

Haven't rtft but it's problematic to make these statements when access to healthcare has become so difficult and expensive.

You are basically asking people to triage themselves.

Nobody is disabled through their own negligence. How can you take responsibility over something you can't control? You're acting as though disabled people are just sitting at home not doing anything to help themselves. Also, the reason pip claims are "spiralling" is because workplaces refuse to make adjustments and will not hire you if they even have a sniff of any type of disability, also covid, a vascular disease, has left millions of people chronically ill. Maybe if the government intervened in helping disabled people get and stay in work, and actually did something to reduce covid spread, then we wouldn't be where we are now.

Just editing to add, maybe if our society cannot cope with disability, that's a problem with society and it needs restructuring. I am so sick of everything being blamed on the most vulnerable people in a society that doesn't work for us in any way.

there are small parts of this that I agree with, but I have suffered with chronic pain and fatigue for years now and it is nothing like having a few aches and pains and feeling tired. It is absolute hell on earth and it never lets up. Have a think about how you feel at work when you’re coming down with flu - you struggle through the day feeling worse and worse, then go home and collapse in bed and phone in sick for the next few days. When you recover you are back to full health fairly quickly. But when you have a chronic illness it is like that day when you’re coming down with the flu every single day and it never goes away.

I manage to work part time (from home - going into an office would result in me being off sick for weeks afterwards) and I try to get outside every day even if it’s just for a 5 minute walk when the pain is too bad. The willpower it takes to do these two things is enormous and I can see why so many can’t take it any more and stop and rely on benefits because it is no way to live and at least then you can have a tiny bit of a life. My life is work and lying down. I can’t even cook a meal 80% of the time. I can’t drink, go to the pub, go to the gym, go for long walks, I can just about catch up with a friend for an hour if I lie down afterwards. I’m not exactly living the life of Riley and having fun here. I would give anything to be able to live a normal life working full time, seeing people, doing things I enjoy and so on. It’s not a choice to live the way I have to.

What a mean spirited post filled with ignorance. I haven't experience 'x' so therefore all other alternative experiences are invalid.

The thing about chronic conditions is that they can arise at any time in your life. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition in my early 40s which came as a shock. Oh and once you have one autoimmune condition you're more likely to pick up others. It can happen to anyone including people on this post.

Is it possible that your friend's pain increases when she goes out? And that may be why she doesn't?

I didn't trouble the NHS much (apart from them saving my life when I had sepsis as a child) until I had children. Even then I had straightforward pregnancies and births.

Then in my 30s I had pre-cancerous cells removed from my cervix, and at 39 was diagnosed with endometriosis - which until I had surgery to remove a cyst they were not quite sure whether it was ovarian cancer. Fortunately with the cyst removal and ablation, and management with hormones since, I have not had any painful symptoms in ten years.

Endometriosis is rather common but proper management and treatment of it is actually quite rare. I was taken seriously and got treatment straight away, but many women are waved away for years and dismissed, or have a long time to wait for surgery. With the worst symptoms I thought I had a stomach ulcer. I couldn't have worked with the pain at those levels. Two thirds of women with endometriosis have had to take unpaid time off work and one in six women give up work because of it.

I am and have always been a fit and healthy person but endometriosis stopped me running because of the pain and urinary issues. It has also made it hard for me to maintain a healthy weight or lose weight. In the last two years I have been able to do high impact exercise again but before then I always got ill and tired if I did anything but walking and yoga.

I do everything I can to look after myself, and I'm lucky as I have been ok, it hasn't affected my career adversely and I am working and earn a good salary, and coming into menopause I feel super fit and well.

But it has given me an insight as to how other people are not so lucky and are living with chronic conditions that give them day to day pain.

You should be blaming the food industry producing cheap, addictive foods. And you should be blaming poverty and the sense of hopelessness.

Also the constant cancer awareness stuff...that's a terrible thing for people prone to health anxiety...I personally think it does more harm than good.

That said, I think it is unwise to identify too strongly with any sort of diagnosis. There has to be a balance. I'm autistic and have GAD and awful health anxiety but I don't tend to talk about it much because it just reinforces it. I have to give myself permission to pace myself and forgive myself for my anxiety because my nervous system is very over-active. But if I dwell too much on all this it isn't helpful.

But I don't think it's up to you to judge because you have no clue what it's like. That recognition comes with age and experience. Twenty years ago I didn't have a clue how messed up my brain and body would be so you need to be a bit more self aware and realise that you're saying all this from your own perspective and don't really have a clue how others are feeling.

I'm just sick of people blaming "the pandemic" on their ailments/life. Staff who worked in A&E and the wards fucking lived it.
I don't know any of my colleagues who blame the pandemic for their life as it is today.
Aside from the younger kids who missed so much of their formative years learning/socialising and the minority of people who were left with illness as a result of catching coved.

Am getting ready!!

I get sick of listening to the same people whinge about their health when they don't take any responsibility for it. I know people who eat utter shite, don't leave the house for days, do no exercise, smoke and drink, then talk about how awful they feel and how they think they are depressed. And of course they feel that way, anyone in that situation would. But they don't want to change any of it, they just want to whine and moan.

The impact will be very different though depending on age and circumstances . I understand what the poster means. Lockdown rules about testing and a legal framework for people to stay at home for two weeks, even if they only had a sniffle (plus the panic that that sniffle will magnify and result in hospitalisation or killing their elderly relatives) will have a much bigger impact upon someone who went through this as a young teen compared to an adult who already had years of resilience to build on.

My sister is like this. She gets obsessive over it. She said I had to take DD to the doctor's when she had chicken pox. Me- why do I need to take her? We know she has chicken pox there's nothing the doctors can do unless she gets really poorly. Taking them to the doctor's will just risk spreading to other people.Her-Oh don't you need to let them know? Me no.

If someone gets an illness she says I've had that or I think I've had that. Nobody could possibly be suffering as much as her.

I don't wish to downplay illness or disabilities - visible or hidden - at all.

She says...proceeding to call having chronic pain and chronic migraines the same as having aches and pains or headaches from time to time.

My God, the level of cognitive dissonance here is quite astounding.

Great post.

i stopped reading the OP at 'resilience' (tbf she didn't use it until near the end of the post...). There's a broad misconception - saw it on another thread this morning about a Y7 child suffering at a bootcamp secondary - that 'resilience' = 'toughing it out'. It really doesn't. One academic definition of resilience is 'using one's resources to maintain wellbeing'. If those resources are denied or frustrated (as in the post I quoted above), people can't develop resilience.

It's a difficult subject to discuss because for every person with a made up condition you got someone else who's really suffering. That's what medical professionnals are for. But with cases of long covid and ME the science hasn't always been helpful. I know people who are really struggling for "valid reasons"; medical reasons MH included. I also know people who listen to themselves far too much (my dh for ex) which is highly irritating.

I think that this doesn’t apply to anyone that is feeling pain, no matter how big or small and they are being ignored.

And it does not apply to people who are managing diagnosis.

This is what I think is happening. I know plenty of people from my parents generation who are in pain, who have health diagnosis but they get on with it. I knew two older people who ran a community shop - one had sever arthritis in the winter and the other was developing Parkinson’s. I guess they are from a generation where you keep going (a majority of the time). I have an aunt who is partially blind and you would never ever know! She has an amazing social life and does her best.

BUT I don’t think it’s 100% healthy to be like this all the time but I respect people that can.

Now we have a generation of people who cant get help for preventative medical issues and there are too many stories of minor symptoms being unnoticed and turning into something more serious.

HOWEVER I am noticing more people that overplay their issues. It seems some downplay what’s wrong with them. Whereas now, I remember a colleague really making things difficult for needing “additional access” requests but for the sake of argument, and then not turning up for work and we wouldn’t know why. There is a difference between following protocol and taking the time off you need - no need to disclose ins and outs, vs feeling like everyone else has gone at your service.

We just seem to be sicker - and it won’t surprise me if it’s linked to all of the radiation we take, obsessions with screens and minimised socialising.

Actually when DD1 had chickenpox we did call the GP and see if they wanted her to come in. They did, but we stuck to their procedures - waiting outside, coming in a different door straight to the GP's office.

I had chickenpox when I was 7 (which led to the sepsis I mentioned upthread, and it was extremely serious, I was very ill from the infection and could have died). I was ill for the entire summer holidays and missed the first term of Y3. So I wasn't messing about with DD1 and wanted to confirm it was in fact chickenpox.

Fortunately both DDs had it much earlier than I did and it was a mild dose, but I think you sometimes do need to confirm the diagnosis, particularly with your first and when you might not know what you are looking for.

Inequality has been shown in countless research to increase physical and mental ill health. The inequality in Britain has widened dramatically over the last few decades.
There have been countless threads on MN with people arguing that growing inequality does not matter. Well it does, and you are seeing the impact now.

I'm still here, thank you - apologies that I'm not able to respond to everyone individually. 😂

Plenty of interesting posts. Although it appear I have touched a nerve with a few of you. But aren't forums supposed to be for discussion/debate? No need to take things so personally...

This was just a personal observation. It feels like I know more previously fit and healthy people who now seem to spend most their lives complaining about various ailments. Definitely agree with the person who said about coughs and colds always now being 'the flu' or a chest infection or whatever.

It's definitely a lot more prevalent post-Covid.

Exactly this, I get them too - though not quite as bad as you describe. I get a blinding headache and just cannot look at night (and I get the aura beforehand which pretty much leaves me blind for half an hour). Also occasionally get numbness down my life side. All of this means that when I have a migraine, there's no physical way I can work.

I am self employed WFH so am lucky enough to be able to make up my hours when it's gone - sometimes up to 3 days later, meaning I have to work evenings and weekends. But a lot of people don't have that flexibility and get them much more regularly than I do - so yes, they may well not be able to hold down a job.

Trust me, I know there is A LOT of BS around these days and everyone seems to have a medical condition. But there are some that seriously do (and always have) impact on your ability to work.

This, good post.

Yes, I'd love to know how we can be resilient and push through when we literally can't see, but you know, just a headache!