I've been afflicted with eczema and allergies; appendicitis, gingivitis and tendonitis; carpal tunnel syndrome, Bell's palsy, essential tremor, heart irregularities, macromastia and hypoglycemia.

Readers without a medical background may wish to know that macromastia means "large breasts." And who hasn't been "afflicted" with gingivitis at some point in time?

I'm skeptical of most of her other claims. Picking up scabies 3 time in a year in the U.S. is highly unlikely; more likely, a time-strapped doctor treating her decided that healthcare dollars would be saved by handing out a prescription and moving on to the next patient. Perhaps the author announced that she had scabies in the office, and the doctor decided not to second guess her (scabies looks distinctive and a patient who has seen it will recognize it) and neglected to do a thorough exam (because it's a highly contagious, itchy condition caused by mites). Unforthunately, giving out an unneeded prescription, even when physical harm is unlikely, may validate the patient's fears and further fuel her hypochondriasis.

"I received both a Physicians' Desk Reference and Stedman's Medical Dictionary for Hanukkah, I mostly use them to diagnose other people."

Please say it isn't so! Throw them away or donate them to the library. You don't know how to use them. Using them to diagnose other people would be cruel.

How sad that her family would encourage her illness this way.

Also, somatoform disorder and hypochondriasis are very different conditions; perhaps the author can look that up in her copy of the DSM IV.

I understand, on an intellectual level, that hypochondria is a mental illness. However, on an emotional level, it's hard for me not to hate hypochondriacs. They've done me so much harm.

I lived for ten years with a diagnosis of hypochondria. At one point I literally broke down in hysterics, went on my knees to a doctor sobbing, and BEGGED him to please take me seriously and just consider there might be something systemic wrong with me that was responsible for all of my seemingly unrelated symptoms. His response was to say coolly that he wasn't a psychiatrist and offer me a referral.

Well, what I had was lupus. All it took to get the doctors to take me seriously, it turned out, was ONE LITTLE TEST - a sed rate - which one doctor ordered "just to hush you up." Normal is about fifteen. Mine was fifty-five. Finally, finally, the doctor had to consider that maybe he was mistaken. You know what? Lupus really does affect every system in your body. It really can cause random grievous illness that comes and goes without other explanation. And there is medication for it, which in my case has already saved my kidneys and probably my life.

The problem is that, not being a doctor myself, I didn't know where to start looking for help. I didn't know what tests to order. I couldn't do the job of someone who spends years in medical school myself. And the actual doctors were not any bloody help at all.

Since my diagnosis I've read that the average lupus sufferer will go ten years without a correct diagnosis. So I got off about even. That really, really is not good enough. Lupus is not a rare disorder, so why don't doctors look for it?