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It’s incredibly easy to freak out about your health. A slight cough. A tiny bump. A strange rash. Even feeling slightly off-key. All of these things can force even grownups (or was that especially grownups?) to panic. Even more so if they start googling their symptoms.

When Twitter user Mark shared his personal embarrassment after he went to the ER when his leg turned blue from his jeans, others joined in with their own medical freak-out stories. We’ve collected some of the best, so scroll down, upvote your faves, and read on for Bored Panda's in-depth interview with a psychologist. And be sure to share your own moments of panicking about your health in the comments.

After you’re done reading through this post (which, hopefully, helped you calm down), have a read through our article about one mom’s post going viral after she explained the importance of having your sick kids stay at home. Oh, and check out our post about the most absurd patient stories.

Image credits: MShrayber

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I’m Foxxy and I know it 😉
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

haha this reminds me of my first camping trip with my dad and brothers. We were eating banger sangas and I said that the bread tasted like citronella and that my tongue was a bit numb. They looked at me like I was an idiot and losing my mind. That was until my dad had his seconds and tasted it too. It turned out that the citronella had leaked all over our chopping board so when my dad was buttering the bread the citronella seeped in.

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Becca Gizmo the Squirrel
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I was a new baby my mom took me to the Dr because I wouldn't stop screaming. The doctor took my socks off and I was fine. There was a ring around my fat baby ankle where the sock was way too tight. She has told me she let me go sockless til I was getting ready to start walking and needed shoes because it scared her so bad.

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Adrienne Early
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's actually super common (and super scary) that babies are screaming because of hair being wrapped around fingers and toes, cutting off circulation. So always check the baby over, don't assume it's just colic!

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Chantel Atwell
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My grandma, as a brand new mom, was checking on her sleeping baby girl when she noticed her skin was blue! She immediately picked her up and slapped her thinking that her baby wasn't breathing and this would make her cry/breathe - well, she cried, but there was nothing wrong with her. It was the blue nightlight making her face blue.... :-| Needless to say, my grandma got rid of that night light and never used a blue one ever again.

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tuzdayschild
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

26 years later and you know they are still talking about you at that hospital.

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Bella Langston
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Better to ask a "stupid" question than not and have something go terribly wrong.

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Pretty Pangolin
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Apparently I was screaming bloody murder and my mom discovered I was being jabbed by a safety pin (this was back before diapers had Velcro).

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Brivid
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I love that last line. I guess there is hope for my daughter after all.

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Elizabeth James
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I called 911 at the age of 14 because the still in diapers baby I was sitting pooped orange. That was the day I found out that carrots are the same color at both ends of a baby, once the EMT stopped laughing.

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Marlene Ricker
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Don't be so hard on yourself! I think every mother has at least one dumb Mom moment with their babies. We were new at this baby stuff when our first born arrived. By the 2nd child, we were so much more relaxed and these dumb Mom moments either decrease or end totally.

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Elsker
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The first night I had my newborn baby at home,I googled the sleepstages to make sure that the absence of body tension while sleeping was normal

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While the internet is wonderful (it’s full of pictures of cats and dogs, after all), it’s not a very nice place for hypochondriacs—people who excessively worry about their health. It’s incredibly easy to read too much into your symptoms and make mountains out of molehills.

Most of us have fallen prey to this at least once or twice in our lives, even if we’re not hypochondriacs. Human beings tend to look at the worst in most situations, so when we see that our symptoms may be caused by cancer, we immediately fear the worst.

This leads to lots of stress, sleepless nights, promises to be better people and trying to make amends. Then we head on over to the doctor, they tell us that we’ve got a slight cold or something utterly benign. We finally relax and forget our promises to be better people. Until the next time that we open up Web MD that is.

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Louise Gerathy
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yep when I first discovered beetroot chips, loved them and ate a huge pack. Next day I thought I'd had some kind of haemorrhage!!!!! Literally thought I was dying

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Bored Panda reached out to M.V., a psychologist working in the healthcare system in Lithuania, to hear her professional opinion about hypochondria and why some people tend to panic when checking what their symptoms might mean online.

"First of all, when people read about symptoms on the internet, they exhibit 2 fallacies: they personalize the information they get and they draw conclusions too quickly."

She continued and explained exactly what she meant about personalization. "Firstly, when a person feels pain and other unpleasant sensations and doesn't know what causes them, they feel anxious. That's why they try to find a logical explanation for what's happening and how they can feel better."

"That's why they become open to any and all information. When they read information online, their anxiety won't let them rationally evaluate the situation. They become suggestive. You can see that in how some of the symptoms manifest only after reading them."

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M.J.
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That could so be me! Once I got paranoid because my sight was completely blurry... realized that I had my lenses AND my glasses on.

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WillemPenn
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

LOL! I've been there with my cats. Turns out when a cat eats grass, the digestive system pulls out all the chlorophyll and they come out the other end looking like (to me at least) a whip worm.

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glowworm2
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It was kind of her to check though. You can never be too sure. I'm cracking up at "demon kitten" though.

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The psychologist then told Bored Panda about the problem with making hurried conclusions. "When a person applies an illness' symptoms to themselves, they tend to make hurried conclusions and either accept or reject the fact that they have a particular illness. Often, after personalization comes confirmation when one's imagination creates a dreary scenario of how the supposed illness will progress. This further encourages people to read about that specific illness and its harm to the human body."

"When someone hoards information about an illness, they also imagine what it will be like living with the illness. Most often, the person imagines losing their health and starts feeling very strong negative emotions. That leads to a fear of death which even further reduces their ability to rationally evaluate their condition."

She added: "It's likely that destructive emotions only accelerate how quickly the person shows symptoms. The person feels bad and might even feel worse until their understanding of the illness is denied in an objective manner (i.e. consulting a doctor or having tests done)."

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glowworm2
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Depends what scent the air freshener was. I would have ruled it out if my urine smelt like lavender. 🤣

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The psychologist told Bored Panda about the proper way to deal with panic upon reading too many terrifying descriptions of what your symptoms might mean. "First of all, you should evaluate the reasons for your symptoms and monitor how you feel until you meet with your doctor. You also ought to critically assess all of the health-related information you get from your surroundings (including your family members and friends) and the internet."

"You should also avoid coming to hurried conclusions on the basis of just your symptoms since similar symptoms could point to very different health problems. Also, remember that diagnoses should only be made based on test results conducted by doctors."

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Giovanni
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For those who would like to know, if you have a stomach bleeding your vomit looks like coffee grounds (because the blood gets partially digested)

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Orillion
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Please tell me you weren't driving yourself to the hospital when you think you're about to have a heart attack. If you would have gotten one behind the wheel, you put even more people at risk.

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Ironically, Web MD agrees with the conclusion that the internet exacerbates hypochondria. Talk about being self-aware! “Hypochondriacs researching an illness used to have to scour books and ask doctors for information. Now a universe of information is available with a few mouse clicks.”

According to Dr. Brian Fallon, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, hypochondria costs billions of dollars each year in unnecessary medical tests and treatments.

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Meanwhile, Dr. Arthur Barsky from Harvard Medical School states that hypochondriacs aren’t pretending to get attention. “They’re absolutely not fakers or malingerers. They really feel the distress they're talking about. It's just that their feelings don't have an obvious medical basis."

"What hypochondriacs have trouble accepting is that normal, healthy people have symptoms," Barsky explained. That means that hypochondriacs are super-aware of bodily sensations that most of us either live with or ignore. So what an upset stomach or a headache is to most of us, to a hypochondriac, they’re signs of cancer.

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Lenka Smetanová
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not in hospital, just me as a kid in school. They send me to school psychiatrist with principal and my class teacher. Start telling me that injuring myself is bad and If I need some help with my mental health I should go and tell it they would help me.... Well they was just about to find out that I dont trim my cats claws and we played a lot, so that cuts on my hands are from her and not from some knife or something

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YoyoSthlm
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

But why wouldn't she wash it? If she thought it was a birthmark it wouldn't have gone away! I call bs on this one.

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Magpie
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Still better to panic and assess and treat FAST in little kids....even if you feel a bit stupid later.

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Katy F
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Since when do tongues turn black after drinking pepto bismol? I dont get it :/

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Rissie
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well. Clothing shouldn't give off that much dye anyway. Can't be very healthy :)

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Ceredwyn Ealanta
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oddly, I've had the reverse of that. It hit in Russia - It was about -20C outside, and the place I was staying heated to a ridiculous 35C or so inside, so the temp difference was about 55C over a few seconds. My whole body came up in itchy, painful hives, and I felt awful until I got cold again.

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Karen Johnston
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same thing happened to me with a birthmark on my face. Finally had it removed at 50. Done with people staring.

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Lisa loves cats
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was wearing boots with red fabric and they dyed my socks blood red after I had gotten them in the snow...

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Magpie
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

WHAT!!!! wearing jeans!!! I am no skier and know that is a recipe for cold injury.

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Alexander Brior
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4 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I’m in the shower, there’s one mark on the wall that I always think is a spider. It always gets me multiple times per shower.

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aurora50
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In the olden days, we would cold wash our new Levis and put white vinegar in the rinse cycle to set the dye...don't know if that would work with the current industrial dyes?

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#32

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Parmeisan
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You sure? I had a pulmonary embolism and everyone said I should have had a DVT first. Never noticed one. Maybe I just wrote it off as something else.... I'm honestly lucky to be alive. Sometimes it's really super important to listen to your body.

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Marcellus the Third
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is an incomprehensible tweet. Sickle cell means a specific gene is broken, which gives a partial malaria-immunity by chance if you have one faulty gene, so there's some populations where it is on average beneficial even though it has a high mortality (in those with two faulty copies). Meaning it's far MORE COMMON (not exclusive) in black populations... And then there's enough lily-white people that turn out to be 1/8 or 1/16th black.

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