Basic Trope: A character who always thinks (usually wrongly) that s/he is sick.
- Straight: Alice heads to urgent care every week, because she's convinced that every ache, pain, cough, and sniffle means she's dying.
- Exaggerated: Alice is in the ER almost daily, for every little vague symptom.
- Downplayed: Alice worries that she may have the flu, but then figures it's probably just a cold.
- Justified:
- Alice spends too much time on WebMD, which conveniently doesn't let users know that, yes, those could be symptoms of cancer, but are more likely something much more mundane and less serious.
- Alice is looking for attention.
- Inverted: Even when she is literally dying, Alice is convinced that she's healthy.
- Subverted:
- Alice goes to the ER because she's feeling queasy...but then it's revealed that she's had a heart attack.
- Alice goes to the ER, because she's addicted to opioids, and is hoping to get a prescription for OxyContin or some such.
- Alice uses essential oils, crystals, acupuncture, and other forms of "alternative medicine," rather than seeing a real doctor.
- Double Subverted:
- It takes longer for her to get treatment, because the doctors assume she's just making a mountain out of an unruly burrito.
- In order to convince the attending physician that she's in pain, she comes up with increasingly absurd (nonexistent) aches and pains, or pleads that she has some kind of chronic pain disorder and has "lost" her script for painkillers and her mean PCP won't fill it or is on vacation or something. Pretty soon, Alice convinces herself that she does have all this pain.
- She does, however, consult with her acupuncturist/herbalist/etc. a lot.
- Parodied:
- Alice's doctor has blocked her number.
- A montage of Ambulance Cuts, all featuring Alice. In fact, the paramedics are refusing to go to her house.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice never assumes she's sick.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Alice has the sniffles, and checks out her symptoms on WebMD
- Exploited: Alice is seeking attention...or pain medication.
- Implied: Alice's doctor always prescribes her something from Paloceb Pharmaceuticals.
- Defied:
- Alice decides that since it's probably just a cold, it's not worth going to the ER or urgent care for.
- Alice lives in a setting where healthcare is not paid for by the government, and every ambulance ride, trip to the ER, prescription, test, etc. requires a copay. Since Alice is of limited means, she tries not to go to the ER unless she's really sick, because she knows she can't afford to go there for every little thing.
- Alice is Afraid of Doctors, and so does not seek them out.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Alice has made so much of a big deal of her mundane symptoms that people eventually just tune out her complains of her ills. When she gets genuinely sick, people don't give her any attention or treatment until it's too late.
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