When Believing You're Ill Becomes a Serious Sickness

Feb. 24, 2007 — -- For 24-year old Sevan, college life was full of promise. He was having fun, about to graduate from one of the nation's most prestigious academic institutions, and on track to fulfill his dream of becoming an engineer.

That all changed when Sevan's mother died of lung and spine cancer. He plunged into depression and mysteriously began suffering from many of the same extreme and debilitating physical symptoms that his mother complained of during her illness.

Sevan, who asked that ABC News not identify him with his full name, believed he was seriously and terminally ill. But after numerous trips to the doctor, he found out he was suffering from something else entirely -- an extreme form of hypochondria.

At first, Sevan thought he had developed lung cancer.

"It started with lung cancer because I was having trouble breathing, then I had back pain so I said spine cancer," he said.

After dozens of doctor visits, four trips to the emergency room in two days, and a series of invasive diagnostic procedures, no one could find anything wrong with him physically.

"The doctors are saying there's nothing, there's nothing, and then I told him, it's in your mind," one of Sevan's friends said.

Still convinced he was seriously ill with not one but at least 10 different diseases, Sevan became obsessed with his health, e-mailing his doctors several times a day about different conditions he was convinced he had.

"I think that I frustrated my doctor at health services. I would see her and e-mail her a lot," he said. "When I looked back at these emails, it was sort of funny."

A few months later, doctors told Sevan that he was suffering from extreme hypochondria. It's a condition many people joke about, but for millions of Americans like Sevan hypochondria isn't a laughing matter -- it's a debilitating condition that paralyzes them psychologically, and in some cases, physically.

In addition to spine and lung cancer, in the past two and a half months, Sevan has thought he's had a heart attack, blood disorders, thyroid cancer, colon cancer, and AIDS, among other conditions. He's never been diagnosed with any of them.