Rewire: Don’t Google Your Symptoms – Why We Get Medical Anxiety

I woke up in the middle of the night with pain in my chest. I rolled over and grabbed my phone, googling my symptoms. It didn’t look good. “Think you’re having a heart attack? Call 911 immediately,” Google advised me. “Chest pain has many causes — most of them are serious,” read a Web MD page. Was it coronary artery disease? Myocarditis? Mitral valve prolapse? Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy? Or maybe it was my lungs? My liver? Pneumonia? Undiagnosed asthma? A broken rib? Shingles? Spoiler alert: I wasn’t dying, and it wasn’t a heart attack, or any of those serious conditions. Not even close. Click logo below to read more.