5 Ways to Treat Hypochondria

It is not currently known specifically what causes hypochondria. The human body undergoes minor pains and aches on a daily basis, which the majority of us dismiss or treat as minor ailments. A person with hypochondria, however, thinks that these minor aches and pains are signs of a deadly disease. This is what makes hypochondria treatment difficult, but there are 5 things you can do to help the situation.

1) Before going to treat hypochondria, you should eliminate other possibilities first, like other mental disorders or even physical causes. These can be determined by a thorough medical examination. Hypochondria is associated quite closely with panic disorder, and some professionals consider it to be part of an obsessive compulsive disorder, rather than a disorder on its own. Depression and anxiety are also linked with hypochondria, so it’s important to treat these as part of the hypochondria treatment.

2) Try supportive care. It’s important to understand that this is a serious mental illness and in severe cases it can be very disabling. People who suffer from hypochondria often do not even realize that it is a mental disorder. If they are convinced they have a deadly disease, even doctors and medical tests may not persuade them otherwise. So, if your loved one is a hypochondriac, try to talk to this person about his way of thinking and why he thinks he may be suffering from a serious illness. Try to convince the person that it isn’t real and hypochondria is a mental disorder. This is something called “talk therapy”, which can help the hypochondriac cope with physical symptoms that are bothersome. It can also be helpful in making those symptoms appear less frequently. In less severe cases, discussions like these can be quite helpful to treat hypochondria.

3) When the hypochondria case is too severe to be persuaded into thinking differently, medication may be the answer. There are no medications targeted specifically at hypochondria treatment, but keeping in mind hypochondria’s close link with anxiety and depression, doctors may prescribe something to treat these disorders, which may in turn help hypochondria. A type of drug called SSRIs can be used to decrease levels of obsessive worrying by means of adjusting neurotransmitter levels, which has shown to be an effective way to treat hypochondria in some cases.
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The information supplied in this article is not to be considered as medical advice and is for educational purposes only.