The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
sfgate.comarticle.cgiOpen ↗
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Sunday, February 15, 2004 (SF Chronicle) Imaginary maladies online/Internet spreads 'cyberchondria'
Katherine Seligman, Chronicle Staff Writer
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0At her most worried, Melissa Woyechowsky sometimes spent four hours a day on the
Internet looking up her symptoms. There was the tingling, the numbness in her limbs, insomnia,
fatigue. She fretted over them all.
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0"Multiple sclerosis was a big one," she said. "And HIV and cancer. I was doing
these searches, and it had almost a magical aspect to it. I was on the Internet and an MS ad popped
up. I thought, 'It's a sign."
(Since it's a copyright article, I'll let you access it if you're interested in continuing
reading it.)