Health conditions that don’t exist

feeling sickThe Daily Herald shared that Prevention magazine had a little fun recently pointing out “Five Health Conditions That Don’t Really Exist.”

• Stomach flu: If you suffer from vomiting and diarrhea, it’s not influenza, says Jill Swartz, an urgent-care doctor in New York. The flu virus causes fever, congestion and sore throat. The stomach issues are probably from gastroenteritis, which is a different virus.

• Walking pneumonia: Even though doctors use the term, it’s “something of a catchall rather than an exact diagnosis,” Swartz says, trotted out when you have a chronic cough and doctors can’t figure out why.

• Gluten allergy: Yes, gluten can make some people feel sick, but what’s going on is not an allergy. “Celiac disease … is an immune response to gluten, not an allergy like we think about a peanut allergy,” says allergist Janna Tuck.

• Nervous breakdown: “People do not have mental breakdowns,” says Tamar Gur, a psychiatrist at Ohio State University. What they usually have, rather than a total meltdown, is an episode of a particular condition (anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc.) that is treatable.

• Head cold: No different from any common cold. (The same goes for “chest cold.”) You’re just describing where you happen to notice the symptoms.

 

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