We all have a dislike for diseases and ailments since it disrupts our health and throws our health out of gear. The disorders can cause numerous problems in our body, which can be quite unpleasant and uncomfortable too.
Disease and health disorders can be anything ranging from headaches, minor colds, and cough to serious health issues like cancer, heart disease, and renal problems. Though we all hate falling ill but sometimes it turns into an irrational fear and develops into a phobia for diseases. It is known as nosophobia.
People with this phobia have severe anxiety towards any disease, and even minor health issue makes them panic and feel it will convert into a fatal health disorder.
It is common to get anxious when affected by any health issue, but nosophobia can make this anxiety overwhelming and can affect a person’s daily life.
Symptoms
The main symptoms of monophobia are excessive fear and anxiety around developing diseases. Generally, it for the well-known one and possibly life-threatening ones like cancer, HIV, and heart disease. The worry keeps on persisting even after the doctor examines you.
The phobia makes you feel that you must see your doctor frequently or even conduct tests, though the specialist has given you a clean chit on health issues.
You get anxious frequently and experience symptoms like:
- Dizziness
- Sweating
- Rapid breathing
- Nausea
- Increased pulse
- Trouble sleeping
Nosophobia can also cause avoidance. You may try to refrain or avoid knowing anything about the diseases. Hearing about health issues in others can trigger distress in you. It can go to the extent that you might even avoid public transportation, public places, and grocery stores. It is currently seen in people more after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In case anyone in the family has a certain type of disease that is serious, you may even go out of the way to avoid the disease from affecting by the disease and even the risk factors. Besides, people with nosophobia can spend hours reading literature or information about the serious diseases and news of the outbreaks.
Nosophobia is sometimes confused with hypochondria, which is also an illness of anxiety disorder. Nosophobia mainly denotes the fear of developing a specific disease, whereas illness anxiety disorder means more worries and illnesses. There are various factors that can contribute to the issue of nosophobia.
In case someone close to you develops a serious condition, you begin to worry that the same can happen to you. It happens more if you are taking care of that person. It gains strength more when you live through a disease outbreak. Your fear grows with news footage and social media postings that are updated about the disease outbreak. The information available on the internet about the disease can also spike the nosophobia in the person.
You find more details about the symptoms and complications that are linked with disease online. Nosophobia is a type of mental disorder, and you need to see a mental health specialist if you see such symptoms growing in you and start interfering in your life.
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