The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death.

Introduction by: Dave Barry

customer reviews

When every hiccup sounds like the call of doom, each stomach pang hints at incipient cancer and a headache means its time to firm up your last will and testament, THE HYPOCHONDRIAC'S GUIDE provides just the relief you need. Gene Weingarten has spent his whole life immersed in the eclectic details of bizarre symptoms, self-diagnosing every minor ache as a potentially deadly disease. Weingarten examines:
- The mind of the hypochondriac
- How your doctor can kill you
- Ulcers and other visceral fears
- The snap, crackle and pops of your body that spell disaster
- Things that can take an eye out
- Interpreting DocSpeak
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC'S GUIDE is 'flat out the funniest book on hypochondria ever written' New York Daily News.

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Book details:

Simon & Schuster |
208 pages |
ISBN 9780684856483 |
April 2002

£7.99 List Price

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Praise

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“New York Daily News Flat out the funniest book on hypochondria ever written. ”

“Alexandra Jacobs Entertainment Weekly Weingarten half-merrily, half-anxiously dispenses with journalistic objectivity...and fleshes out concerns about his own mortality in detail that's not for the squeamish. ”

“Allen B. Weisse, M.D. Journal of the American Medical Association If laughter is therapeutic, then this guide is sure to succeed, keeping all of us -- patients and physicians alike”

– in stitches.

“Jackie Jones Bleecker The San Diego Union-Tribune The definitive laugh-out-loud handbook....Hilarious. And Scary. ”

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Read an Excerpt

Chapter One: Are You a Hypochondriac?

We must begin by abandoning antiquated, stigmatizing notions about the hypochondriac, a person who imagines himself afflicted by disease. Like alcoholism, hypochondria is not the hypochondriac's "fault," or a moral weakness, but a disease.

Hmm.

To hypochondriacs, I offer reassurance: We are no longer living in an era when every little symptom signaled the onset of some dreadful condition with a goofy name, like "consumption" or "whooping cough" or "St. Vitus's dance," disorders that meant you would spend the remainder of your tragically truncated life drooling out your...