First the good news: I’m not dying.
I do not have some strange case of throat cancer, rotting gums or acid reflux.
Although if you had asked me yesterday, all of the above were very likely.
I mean, I wasn’t planning my funeral (yet) but I was pretty worried. That’s what happens when I turn to the InterWebs for medical guidance.
The InterWebs and chronic hypochondria are a bad combo. Possibly worse for you than the sausage burritos breakfast combo at McDonald’s. (guilty yum.)
But look, sometimes my little fingers can’t help but find their way to Google and entering in whatever random symptom I’m worrying about obsessing over.
Can I tell you how many times I’ve been pregnant? No, not in an Octo-mom kind of way. But in a Stephanie-is-crazy-and-thinks-every-odd-symptom-can-only-mean-one-thing kind of way. (Right now the fiancé is vigorously nodding his head and hoping someone reading this can cure me of this permanently. Stat.)
And yesterday, not only did I feel a cold coming on, but I was experiencing this odd taste in the back of my mouth after I ate or drank anything. (Even water!)
And according to my Google search, the outcomes of this symptom were not good. I decided to leave it alone and focus on my cold for the time being. Let’s feel sorry for ourselves one ailment at a time.
But today, with a good night of sleep behind me, my cold symptoms were feeling a lot better. I decided to return to Google to determine how long I had left to live. ( And because my coffee tasted like ass, and dying or not, I cannot live this way.)
This time, I entered the search differently by including “after I eat or drink” in my search. And by George, I found it.
A diagnosis I might be okay with.
Are you ready?
Not even kidding.
The word on the InterWebs is that for some odd reason, pine nuts (from China?) cause this bitter taste in the back of some people’s mouths days after consuming. Hey, that’s me!
I didn’t find anything on Snopes about it, so at first I thought it might be a hoax, but then I found this article called the Great Pine Nut Menace on Food & Wine. My journalism radar told me that Food & Wine was a reputable source for information.
Diagnosis complete. I am suffering from Pine-Nuts-In-My-Gnocchi-Makes-Everything-Else-Taste-Awful Syndrome.
And you know what I think about that? (You’ve been waiting for this reference.)
Maybe I should have just said “gno.”
6 Comments
We are so alike. Just wait until you have kids. IT GETS WORSE. I don’t know what hypochondriacs did before the Internet.
I’m glad it was just the pine nuts.
Great post. I had no idea pine nuts did this.
Here’s a hint…go to med school if you want to cure your hypochondriasis. Seriously. Once I went, I never wanted to type symptoms into a search engine again. (And not, it’s not because I know so much now. I know nothing about most everything.) I’m not sure how to explain this interesting phenomenon, to be honest. But most of my med school classmates feel the same way.
If all else fails, hypochondriasis is a recognized diagnosis in the DSM-IV (that big manual of psychiatric diagnoses), so you can always get yourself a good shrink. And if you do find yourself a good shrink, feel free to send him/her to my house.
Wow, I’m a moderate hypochondriac, too. Look at the Internet bringing us together. Shoot me an e-mail (artsyrockerchick@aim.com) and let’s talk about this. I’m in treatment for that and other things and I’m doing MUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH better.
I agree with the first poster! I’ve totally stopped worrying about myself, and passed on all my neurosis to my kids. But hey, at least I keep my pediatrician in business.
How is it that I know two people that have posted about Pine Mouth on their blog? I can say that I think if it every time I eat them now…I’m kind of scared of them now…
I wonder if doctors use the interwebs for diagnosis. Scary to think about, but great tool. Who needs med school. Good job!