That's just plain wrong. As most well informed people know, coffee is medicine.

To some degree and for some people, you are correct. My anxiety and occasional hypochondria was made worse by a period in my life a few years back when I suffered from PTSD after a traumatic illness nearly killed my wife. My PTSD primarily manifested as a pathological terror of the idea of death, for which I'm now grateful, because I get to be a healthy 43-year-old guy who's never had a life-threatening illness but still has the sense of the joy, beauty and preciousness of each day of living without having had to develop a brain tumor to have that awareness. But the lingering anxiety and periodic fear is the toll I pay for that awareness, I suppose.

To the LW who wrote about her doctor being her hypochondriac friend, we're deeply dysfunctional in this country in our attitudes not only toward health, but toward doctors. A friend of mine who is a psychiatrist (and completely off her own rocker), told me that one of the worst aspects of medical training in the U.S. is the surety that young docs are given that the body of knowledge they are gaining is definitive, when it is ANYTHING but. What we don't know about the body and mind, or what we think we know that proves to be incorrect or incomplete, vastly outweighs what's consistently proven to be correct over, say, 100 years.

The trouble comes when a) docs internalize this sense of being the one source of all knowledge and let it swell their egos, and b) when patients abdicate responsibility for their health and passively say, "Fix me." My friend told me, "You can't treat doctors as gods or sages. We're technicians, and the best of us are also wise counselors, but those are few and far between." In other words, most docs are going to look at you like a mechanic looks at a car. My mechanic once told me, "I can't fix it if there's nothing broken." Doctors are trained and paid to find broken things and fix them with solutions that allow companies to profit. Sometimes this works extremely well. Other times, they listen to your transmission, the one you SWEAR makes that noise, and tell you you're dreaming. They're just as human as anyone else, just as subject to their biases and egos and prejudices, and as harried and stressed as they are with the "disease care" system and constant insurance fiascoes to deal with, probably more likely than most professionals to throw a quick scrip at a problem that doesn't have an obvious solution and send you on your merry way.

This is why, in my humble opinion, anyone with sense approaches their health in the following manner: a) Take responsibility for it and make sure you're doing everything you can to keep yourself healthy and to know your mind and body; b) Use a variety of healthcare providers from traditional to CAM, because you never know what's going to work, and sometimes less is more (I have a friend who had double rotator cuff surgery and a year later was still in agony, then got an herbal supplement from a chiropractor and in two weeks was pain-free and remains so two years later); and c) Trust your own wisdom and the wisdom of those around you, even if they're not medical professionals. That's not to say you should substitute your mom's judgment for that of your cardiologist, but also don't dismiss decades of experience and observation. If you really think something's wrong, be a pit bull until you get answers. If someone you know is deeply intuitive or just really smart suggests a health answer that makes sense, investigate it.

Don't let doctors or insurance companies stonewall you. They're often looking for pat answers so they can feel right, make money and get you out of their offices. Make yourself a pain in the ass if you have to be. That's your job. Oh, and know a good auto mechanic.

You're not alone, of course. I have faced this with my wife. It places a terrible strain on a relationship -- one finds oneself in the position of therapist, spending most of one's time attempting to reassure the patient or persuade them to accept what the doctors are telling them, while also necessarily trying to remain open to the possibility that maybe, this time, they really do have something.

I use the past tense above, because after several years of fighting it (and one round of therapy + medication that failed about a year after tapering off both), she now just uses the medication. She'll probably try going off it again soon, after more than a decade on, just to see if maybe there is some behavioral effect to living without the constant anxiety (i.e., via the medication) for so long. It seems worth a try.

I have read many letters here from people who suffer from panic attacks/anxiety. I had a friend who suffered from severe panic attacks, and after doing a lot of research came across a book written by an Austrailian physician who has since passed away.

Her name is Dr. Claire Weekes. In fact she has written several books on the subject, & there are also audio tapes as well. Go to Amazon.com and read the testimonials from people who suffer from this disorder. My friend said this woman definitely knows what she is talking about. Most doctors prescribe medications that have horrible side effects which turn out to be worse than the original ailment.

Go to the book section of Amazon.com and put in Dr. Claire Weekes's name and you will be amazed how helpful her books and tapes are. She has a much different approach than the conventional treatments available from most doctors. I have told many people about Dr. Weekes's books & they feel like they finally found some answers.

Southiefl

How did this woman get "scabies three times and ringworm twice" in the past few years? I got scabies while traveling abroad (doing homestays) and ringworm while working at a vet clinic, but somehow I don't think this woman has participated in either of these activities.