History Main / Hypochondria

* Mike Birbiglia admitted to being a hypochondriac, and at one point a malignant tumor was found inside of him. He says the best thing that can possibly happen to a hypochondriac is that they actually get cancer because it [[ProperlyParanoid confirms every fear they've ever had]] and makes them feel vindicated.
-->See? I told you! Remember last week when I was feeling overtired and thought I had rickets? I was probably right about ''that'' too!

* Melvin from ''WesternAnimation/Madagascar1'' is a hypochondriac giraffe who often even worries that he has brown spots on his neck (which for a giraffe, are obviously natural).

* Melvin from ''Franchise/Madagascar'' is a hypochondriac giraffe who often even worries that he has brown spots on his neck (which for a giraffe, are obviously natural).

-> "Tengo migraña de yucateco" [[note]]I have a big head migraine! People from Yucatan are noted to have big heads[[/note]]
-> "Siento que me esta dejando de funcionar un riñon" [[note]]I feel that one of my kidneys is not working anymore!)[[/note]]

This trope is the tendency for people who too often, if not outright chronically, think they are coming down with diseases based on vague symptoms.

This is usually PlayedForLaughs in fiction, showing these people as whiny, lazy, and/or paranoid. This is especially common among Jews [[SelfDeprecation making fun of themselves for being like this]]. These are extra funny when the disease in question isn't even real (or it's extinct), even in the work of fiction.

** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E6EscapeClause Escape Clause]]" features a hypochondriac who makes a DealWithTheDevil for immortality and perfect health. [[spoiler:He becomes a thrill-seeker and eventually kills his wife in the hopes of a ride in the electric chair after getting bored with everything else, only to get life in prison instead. Said "escape clause" turns out to be a heart attack.]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E145TheMasks The Masks]]", Emily Harper is a severe hypochondriac. After she arrives at her dying father Jason Foster's home, the first thing that she does is complain to his doctor Sam Thorne about a pain in her arm. Over the last 25 years, Emily has claimed to be suffering from a different ailment practically every month. Jason comments that she has been at death's door so often, she must have worn a hole in the welcome mat.

** In "What Will the Neighbors Think?", Mona Bailey is a severe hypochondriac to the point that she uses a wheelchair when she is completely able-bodied. After checking her Physicians' Deck Reference, she comes to the conclusion that she has Lyme disease in spite of her husband Ned's reassurances that she would have to have been bitten by a tick to have contracted it. She is also convinced that there is radon in her apartment building, the Clackson Arms, which she has not left for six months. After she begins hearing voices, Mona worries that she may be either hallucinating or have a brain tumor but it turns out that she is hearing the thoughts of the other residents.
** In "Nest", Marcy Newhall, who works at the Peary University Research Station in the Arctic, has severe hypochondria and checks her blood pressure every day to ensure that it remains stable. When William Grimes and Lou Wolsky become infested with polar mites and go insane, Marcy is so afraid that the same thing will happen to her that she convinces herself that it already has. She stabs herself in the stomach and soon dies as a result. The autopsy later determines that she was never infested with the mites in the first place.

** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' actually predicted something happening before it was reality: hypochondriacs diagnosing themselves over the internet! In the episode "Realm of Fear", Reg Barclay looks up symptoms for various diseases, including transporter psychosis.

*** In the episode "Author, Author", the EMH wrote a holonovel called ''Photons be Free'' which featured characters that were thinly disguised [[{{Expy}} expies]] of the ''Voyager'' crew. When Harry Kim ran the program, he encountered his character Kymble, who was worrying about the possibility of their decompiling the fictional EMH because there were probably millions of new viruses in the Delta Quadrant and he'd probably end up catching half of them. "Great," grumbled the real Harry Kim, "my character's a hypochondriac."
*** In the episode "Good Shepherd", Crewman Telfer is revealed to be a major hypochondriac who visits Sickbay about once a week complaining of illness, only for the doctor to find nothing wrong (although his fears do become reality later in the episode when [[spoiler:an alien briefly invades his body]]).

** "Escape Clause" features a hypochondriac who makes a [[DealWithTheDevil deal with the devil]] for immortality and perfect health. [[spoiler: He becomes a thrill-seeker and eventually kills his wife in the hopes of a ride in the electric chair after getting bored with everything else, only to get life in prison instead. Said "escape clause" turns out to be a heart attack.]]

** Creator/KennethWilliams' character in ''Film/CarryOnMatron''. He starts to believe that he's got a mutation in his body [[GenderBender that's turning him into a woman]].

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation''

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' has a minor recurring hypochondriac. Doctors dread taking his case. Once he ''did'' actually have something wrong with him, but due to that only being discovered after being subjected to a painful test because Dr. Cox found him annoying, he ended up giving a {{ReasonYouSuckSpeech}} to Dr. Cox. Whether it was wholly deserved or not depends on the viewer.

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' has a minor recurring hypochondriac. Doctors dread taking his case. [[{{Irony}} Naturally]], one of the times he came he ''did'' have something wrong with him and wound up suing the hospital for ferrying him between Turk and Dr. Cox rather than actually finding out what was wrong. [[spoiler:Double-subverted, as the lawsuit itself was portrayed as another instance of him craving attention.]]

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