"If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything."
— Count Rugen, The Princess Bride
Tropes related to personal health (both mental and physical), illnesses and injuries, and medical care for anyone unwell.
For tropes that namecheck actual illnesses, either real or fictional, see Index Syndrome.
Tropes:
General categories:
Ailments & illnesses:
- Allergic to Indexes
- Body Horror
- Death Tropes
- Disability Tropes
- Injury Tropes
- Madness Tropes
- This Index is a Real Pain
Biochemistry & drugs:
Healthcare & medicine:
- Abnormal Allergy: A character having an oddball allergy, most of the time not even existing in real life.
- Achey Scars: Scars hurting, often with importance.
- Ailment-Induced Cruelty: A person with a terminal illness or lingering injury becomes hateful or cruel due to the constant pain.
- Albinos Are Freaks: People being discriminated or considered freaks/strange for their Albinism.
- The Alleged Steed: A horse (or any other equus) who is sick and weak.
- Annoying Patient: A patient annoys the doctors and nurses.
- Antidote Effect: Keeping an antidote in a game just because it might be useful in a very specific and annoying situation.
- Appetite Equals Health: Not eating and not being hungry used to signify that the character is ill.
- Artificial Limbs: A character gains an artificial arm or leg. Designs may vary.
- Asthma Peril: Asthma appears when the plot depends on it, usually played for danger.
- Baldness Means Sickness: Hair loss associated with some potentially deadly illness, usually cancer.
- Bedhead-itis: A character has messy hair when they are sick as a visual indicator of how messy they feel on the inside.
- Beneficial Disease: Diseases with positive effects.
- Billy Needs an Organ: Someone needs an organ replaced so someone else does something crazy to get them their needed organ.
- Bizarre Belching: Burping as a sign that something weird is afoot.
- The Black Death: A plague that happened in Medieval times.
- Blind Mistake: Someone makes a mistake because they can't see. May or may not involve disease.
- Blood from Every Orifice: Bleeding out of the mouth, nose and eyes... and sometimes, every other opening in the body, for that matter.
- Blood from the Mouth: Bleeding out of the mouth.
- Brain Fever: A serious fictional disease that happens in the brain and is brought on by a bad experience.
- Broken Angel: A supernatural creature gets sick or hurt in a way that affects their magic.
- Bubble Boy: Someone lives in a sealed suit or environment to protect themselves from outside pathogens.
- Bury Your Disabled: A disabled character dies.
- Calling Your Nausea: Someone's going to get physically ill and they say so.
- Caretaker Reversal: Alice cares for Bob, then Bob cares for Alice when he no longer needs to be cared for. May involve illness.
- Catch Your Death of Cold: Colds can be caught from the weather.
- C.A.T. Trap: Someone gets put in a scanning machine and it freaks them out.
- Chickenpox Episode: A story about a character having chickenpox.
- Collapsed Mid-Speech: Someone goes unconscious in the middle of a big speech.
- Colorblind Confusion: Someone gets mixed up due to colour-blindness.
- Comatose Canary: An unconscious person somehow responds or is implied to have responded to a person talking to them.
- Computer Viruses Are Computer Illnesses: Computer viruses are portrayed as causing illness in robots.
- Contamination Situation: A plot that centres around contamination somehow.
- Convenient Coma: Someone being unconscious puts the plot or other characters in a convenient situation but is often unrealistic.
- Convenient Terminal Illness: A character sacrifices (or at least makes the decision to sacrifice) themselves because they were terminally ill anyway.
- Convulsive Seizures: Someone has a seizure and loses all control over their whole body.
- Couldn't Find a Tissue: Someone's sick and all snotty, but... where can they blow their nose?
- Covered with Scars: Somebody has scars all over their body.
- Cryo Sickness: Someone is debilitated by coming out of suspended animation.
- Cute Mute: Someone is cute and cannot speak. May or may not be because they're sick.
- Dark Lord on Life Support: Villains who need technology to survive.
- Deep Sleep: Someone is sleeping very heavily and hard to wake. May not involve illness.
- Definitely Just a Cold: Someone acts as if their serious symptoms are trivial.
- Delayed Diagnosis: Someone showing symptoms is initially not given a proper diagnosis, but the illness they have is eventually revealed.
- Delicate and Sickly: A sick person whose sickness is meant to be cute.
- Dented Iron: An extremely strong yet battle-scarred character who shows signs of a life of old injuries from their many fights.
- Depraved Dwarf: Someone is evil and short.
- Diagnosis from Dr. Badass: Someone diagnoses themselves or someone else in a very accurate way, as though they were a medical doctor, even if they're not.
- Disease Bleach: Someone's hair goes grey or white due to illness.
- Disease by Any Other Name: A disease which the characters don't know the name of but it's described in enough detail that the viewers/readers can figure out what the disease is.
- Disease-Prevention Aesop: A work or installment of a work that teaches the audience how to prevent getting and/or spreading diseases.
- The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: A disease that acts like a certain disease (cancer, TB etc) but is not named.
- Diseased Name: Someone is named after a disease.
- Dream-Crushing Handicap: Someone wants to do something, but they can't because they have a disability.
- Dueling Scar: A scar on someone's face which signifies they're militaristic.
- Elderly Ailment Rambling: An old person talks about their medical problems unprompted.
- Evil Cripple: A villain who's severely disabled.
- Extreme Libido: A character who, because they're sick or not, is obsessed with sex.
- Eyepatch of Power: If it's used by someone who sees perfectly fine.
- Fake Rabies: Someone, often a dog, gets foamy stuff on their face which makes other people think that the person or the creature is rabid.
- Faking Another Person's Illness: A character is forced to fake a medical illness, sometimes for themselves, oftentimes for others.
- Feigning Healthiness: A sick character pretends to be healthy.
- Fever Dream Episode: An episode that focuses on nightmares or hallucinations brought on by illness.
- Fictional Disability: A character is handicapped in a manner that doesn't exist in the real world.
- The Food Poisoning Incident: Getting sick from bad food.
- Garrulous Growth: Pimples, boils, warts and other growths that talk.
- Gassy Scare: Gas is mistaken for an medical anomaly.
- Genius Cripple: Someone is a genius and disabled.
- Getting Sick Deliberately: A character makes themselves ill intentionally.
- Green Around the Gills: Sick or nauseated folk's faces turn green.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Sometimes, scars mean a character is good, other times they mean the character is evil.
- Hanahaki Disease: A fictional disease that involves horking up flower petals because of unrequited love. Fatal if left untreated.
- Handicapped Badass: Someone can do action-y things despite being disabled.
- Hate Plague: A plague that makes everyone grumpy and impolite at best, murderous at worst.
- Headache of Doom: A headache is a sign of something very bad.
- Healing Herb: Plants with healing powers.
- Healing Potion: A potion with healing powers.
- Healthcare Motivation: Someone is determined to get the money to buy a cure for another person, who is sick.
- Healthy in Heaven: A character who was ill in life isn't so in the afterlife.
- Heal Thyself: Someone finds a med kit and heals themselves.
- Heroic RRoD: Physical breakdown from overexerting oneself.
- Hiccup Hijinks: An episode centred on trying to get rid of hiccups (which are not a disease but it's on here anyway).
- Hollywood Heart Attack: Groan, clutch chest, fall to ground.
- Hook Hand: Someone with a hook or similar for a hand.
- Hospital Visit Hesitation: Someone is reluctant to visit a hospitalized loved one.
- Hot Drink Cure: Giving someone a hot drink to help them feel better.
- Hypochondria: Someone thinks they're sick when they're really not.
- Ideal Illness Immunity: Someone is immune to all diseases.
- Illness Blanket: A sick person is wrapped in a blanket.
- Improbable Antidote: An antidote that works in an unlikely way.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Coughing seems to be fatal.
- Induced Hypochondria: Someone tries to make someone else think they're sick.
- Infection Scene: A scene showing how someone caught a contagious illness.
- Informed Self-Diagnosis: A doctor diagnoses themselves with all the relevant info.
- Instant Illness: An illness progresses very quickly.
- Jumping-to-Conclusions Diagnosis: Someone thinks someone else or themselves is/are sick due to one trivial symptom that healthy people get too (e.g. sneezing).
- Karmic STD: A bad character gets a STD as karma.
- Lice Episode: An episode features people getting lice.
- Littlest Cancer Patient: A child with a terminal illness.
- Magic Antidote: An antidote which heals instantly.
- Malfunction Malady: Someone's superpowers don't work if they're sick.
- Malingering Romance Ploy: Someone fakes sickness because their love interest is doting on them.
- Masking the Deformity: A character regularly wears a mask that hides a facial deformity of some kind.
- Mega-Microbes: Germs, viruses, and bacteria on the macro scale.
- Mind Virus: An ailment similar to a computer virus that infects minds.
- Mistaken for Disease: A series of strange occurrences are mistaken for the symptoms of a disease.
- Monstrous Germs: Germs personified as actual monsters.
- Morning Sickness: A pregnant woman feels intense nausea.
- Münchausen Syndrome: Playing Sick to get attention due to a psychological disorder.
- Mystical Plague: A plague brought on by magic.
- Not The Illness That Killed Them: Someone with a terminal illness dies from something else that isn't related to it.
- Ominous Hair Loss: Serious health disorders are heralded by hair loss.
- Out Sick: Someone is unavailable due to being sick, injured, or otherwise compromised.
- The Patient Has Left the Building: A patient leaves, despite being told not to.
- Patient Zero: The first person who got infected with the virus plaguing everyone.
- Perfect Health: People don't sneeze, cough or whatever unless they're sick, and when they do get sick, it has to be a plot point.
- The Plague: A serious disease that affects a lot of people.
- Plague Doctor: A doctor who specialises in treating plague patients.
- Plague Episode: An episode focusing on a disease incapacitating many characters.
- Plaguemaster: A character who likes to spread disease.
- Playing Sick: Faking illness.
- Plot Allergy: Allergies as a plot device.
- Plot-Induced Illness: Someone gets sick because it's convenient to the plot.
- Polka-Dot Disease: Spots on the skin as a visual indicator of illness.
- Power Degeneration: A superpowered character slowly dies as a result of using their powers.
- Prone to Sunburn: A character sunburns really easily.
- Pull the I.V.: Someone must spring into action when he's in hospital, so he or somebody else pulls his IV out.
- Quarantine with Extreme Prejudice: People are attacked or put in quarantine regardless of whether or not they're carrying the illness.
- Radiograph of Doom: Take a look at this film, the patient is going to die!
- Resurrection Sickness: Someone seems a bit groggy or sick upon being resurrected.
- Ruptured Appendix: Appendicitis.
- Scars Are Forever: Scars last the rest of the person's life.
- Scar Survey: Someone (usually a woman) asks someone else (usually a man whom she is dating or will end up hooking up with) how he got his scars. Both have to be good guys.
- Seadog Peg Leg: A sailor has a wooden leg.
- Self-Induced Allergic Reaction: Someone exposes himself to what triggers his allergy so that he'll have an allergic reaction.
- Self-Surgery: Someone tries to do surgery on himself.
- Sequential Symptom Syndrome: Someone recites the symptoms of a malady while someone else shows them in the order they're being recited.
- Share the Sickness: A sick character tries to give their disease to others.
- Sick Captive Scam: A captive fakes illness or injury to get the drop on his captor.
- Sickbed Slaying: Someone is slain while in a hospital bed.
- Sick Episode: An episode focused on an illness.
- Sickly Child Grew Up Strong: A strong character used to be sickly as a child.
- Sickly Neurotic Geek: A nerd/geek who is ill but overexcited.
- Sickly Prodigy: Someone is a genius fighter and is sick.
- Sickness Equals Redness: Someone's nose/cheeks being red indicates they are sick.
- Soap Opera Disease: A serious, ambiguous disease.
- Somethingitis: Adding "itis" at the end of a word (or a bunch of words) to make it sound like a disease.
- Soup Is Medicine: Soup is associated with being fed to invalids.
- Sterility Plague: A disease that means you can't have babies.
- STD Immunity: Someone who Really Gets Around seems to be never be infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
- Stress Vomit: Throwing up because you're scared.
- Suppository Gag: A medication is delivered via the butt, often after being mistaken for an obscenely large pill.
- Synthetic Plague: A plague that was created via genetic engineering.
- Tainted Veins: Someone with a serious and/or weird disease has more veins visible than would be normal.
- Teleportation Sickness: Teleporting makes you ill.
- Temporal Sickness: Time travel makes you ill.
- Terrified of Germs: Someone is afraid of germs.
- Televisually Transmitted Disease: Someone on TV gets a rare disease that's treated as common.
- Terminally-Ill Criminal: A character commits a serious crime after learning they have a fatal disease.
- That Old-Time Prescription: Primitive healers using old-fashioned medicine.
- There Is No Cure: A disease or other affliction is confirmed to be irreversible/incurable/irremovable.
- Thermal Dissident: A character likes temperatures to be significantly colder or hotter than those around him.
- Thermometer Gag: Someone either dislikes having to hold the thermometer in their mouth or gets the thermometer stuck up their butt by mistake.
- The Tonsillitis Episode: An episode centred on a character getting tonsillitis.
- The Topic of Cancer: Cancer is treated as the scariest illness.
- Tragic AIDS Story: HIV/AIDS is a gross, painful, often fatal illness.
- Typhoid Mary: Someone spreads a disease but doesn't show symptoms of it themselves.
- Unexpected Positive: Someone is not worried about their health but takes a medical test anyway, and gets a positive result unexpectedly.
- Victorian Novel Disease: Someone has a terminal illness but looks and often acts fine.
- Villainous RRoD: A villain suffers a physical breakdown from overexerting themself.
- The Virus: A contagious curse or infectious disease which makes afflicted patients turn into murderous monsters.
- Virus and Cure Names: If a virus has a fancy name, then expect an opposing or at least a related name for the cure.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Someone is cured by being turned into a cyborg.
- We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future: In the future, most or all diseases are cured.
- Wheelchair Woobie: Someone is The Woobie, due to needing a wheelchair, crutches or similar.
- Working Through the Cold: Working despite being sick.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: A wound which takes a long time or forever to heal.
- "X" Marks the Hero: A character has a cross-shaped scar to show they're a badass good guy.
- You Don't Want to Catch This: Playing Sick in order to make others fear you're contagious.
