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."

Dozens of Possible Diseases, Not One Diagnosed

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.

"This is a huge public health problem. About one out of 20 people who walk through a doctor's door has symptoms of hypochondria," said Dr. Kelli Harding, who studies people with hypochondria.

Lost and searching for a cure, Sevan turned to the Internet. But with so much medical news online, he began to self-diagnose even more illnesses, a phenomenon some psychologists are now calling cyber-chondria.

"I would come across such-and-such Web site and would say I have symptoms. I would say I have that. I have that. I have that," Sevan said.

Watching TV became a prescription for yet another illness. Commercials for pharmaceuticals triggered Sevan to seek piles of prescriptions he hoped would finally bring him relief.

"Every symptom that I've had, I've bought a pill for," he said.

Desperate for a return to normalcy, Sevan recently entered a study a study being conducted by Harding. She's looking for common links between people suffering from hypochondria and other anxiety disorders.

"There is tremendous overlap between the brain and the body and the mind and the body," Harding said. "And often times symptoms that manifest in the body there origin and be traced back to what going on in the brain."

After thousands of dollars spent on health care and alternative treatments, Sevan is now getting some relief though counseling. While he still has the urge to buy holistic remedies sometimes, he said he finally understands his real disease is rooted in his brain.

"I didn't believe in it before, but I believe it in now, because I can just see the amount of time that my brain thinks about it and has all these thoughts, it definitely takes a toll on your body," he said.