Very often I have a bit of a cough. But then I don't. I keep thinking I have a fever, just not one that any medical instrument can detect. And if I hear that someone has a runny nose or a back pain, I immediately start to think I too am experiencing the same thing.

Fortunately, each episode lasts about a minute and I soon realise I am quite well.

Funny thing, though, a few people I know are going through the same thing. We think we have a sort of covid19-inspired hypochondria.

These days it's hard to differentiate between hypochondria and good sense. What with new strains of (or new information about) covid19, plus the lingering effects of older versions, it's a rare conversation that does not involve the sniffles, snuffles, aches, itches, pains, and all things that fall in the overarching category of blah.

But that is now. This now that has been with us for two years. There was a time before now, and there is also a parallel universe in which we have to contend with All Other Ills, just like we did pre-covid19.

It's possible that no one is a hypochondriac any more, for two reasons. One is that we do need to be more aware, truly hyper-vigilant, about our health. Yesterday's trifling cold is today's possible new covid case.

The other, less dire reason, is the name has changed.

With the name change came a neat little shift and sift to separate two confusingly overlapping but different conditions. We are now meant to speak of illness anxiety disorder or health anxiety disorder (same difference), or somatic symptom disorder (different-different), not hypochondria.

With somatic symptom disorder, there is real presentation of illness, but the preoccupation with it is disproportionate to the suffering. Even if a medical diagnosis cannot be found, the patient is really experiencing something not-good; they are not imagining it.

Of illness anxiety disorder I suspect we all have stories. We all have a friend who thinks every sneeze means pneumonia, everything sore is likely to reveal some horrific skeletal damage, every headache is a tumour.

You may want to have a think about whether or not you are said friend. People have a way of displaying a keen knowledge of others while being completely oblivious about themselves.

But you know this illness anxiety disorder. It's different from the complaints of the elderly or the chronically infirm. Even if it seems exaggerated to you (you the hale and hearty) their preoccupation with their health problems is likely well-earned.

With sufferers of illness anxiety disorder, that preoccupation is very present, but it hinges on small or non-existent symptoms. They are also tireless in their desire to talk about it. Internet research about these real or imagined problems fuels their days.

Because they believe that what is wrong with them is a medical problem - that is to say, a problem of the body, not the mind - it is medical responders who tend to see them long before psychiatric ones. They