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July 03, 2007
Health information
As much as I love the easy access to everything on the web, I always caution my friends and family to not search for personal health ailments online. It's too easy to convince yourself that you have some deadly disease just by looking at the symptoms. We have all probably done it at least once.
I have a good friend who was certain that he had Lou Gehrig's disease because his finger and his arm were twitching. He looked up the reams of information, the symptoms, the diagrams, the videos. He was scared, angry, sad. He was practically making arrangements for his wife and children. He finally got an appointment with a specialist. All the tests were negative. It was probably just overworked muscles. (He skips rope for exercise). We can laugh at this now, but if you are the one going through it, the worry alone is debilitating.
When a relative was ill a few years back, the doctors were doing what they do: test and rule out. But after each suggestion of a diagnosis, I was looking up the symptoms, the prognosis, the treatment. Then I would get a call: It's not that, now they are testing for something else. I was becoming an expert in paranoia. I was making myself crazy. (And yes, I matched the "crazy" symptoms too).
I was a the doctor's office last month for a regular check up and he made some comment about whether I checked the Internet for symptoms. I said I had not. He told me that so many patients come in with too much information and have themselves all worried for nothing.
I suppose some middle ground would be good. If you can look up something but limit your research to maybe 2 or 3 hits. Then you will be somewhat informed but perhaps not convinced that you have something. Leave that up to the doctors.
Posted by Idea Man at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)