Google for health information
Using Google to research your symptoms – a good or very, very, very bad idea?
From the start, I would suggest you assume that I am quite biased about this article and I have a strongly held view about this subject. This is primarily driven by the number of patients I have increasingly seen over the last few years who present to me in a state of complete agitation, anxiety and fear after searching their symptoms on google (other equally incompetent search engines are also available) who after a brief search arrive at an diagnostic answer that is incorrect, ridiculous, overly-dramatic, prejudicial and has no basis in fact. The search results are largely the views of self-interested parties and based upon the opinions of someone who has an axe to grind, is a nutter or is trying to flog you something, normally at a vastly over inflated price that will not do what it claims anyway.
I will try to give you a bit of guidance over this particular method of diagnostic reasoning, but from the start just assume it is not in any way logical, reasonable or diagnostically accurate in any way. Personally, I feel you would be better off casting the Druidic bones or viewing a Runic message left in rabbit droppings found in the far corner of Mayfield Car Park than using a search engine to try to investigate your symptoms and get to the correct diagnosis.
Let’s assume you will just ignore me; here is how to search medical stuff:
Stick to the big sites such as the NHS, Diabetes UK, Cancer research etc. Theoretically the information is relatively unbiased and should have been pier reviewed and based on research undertaken by professional medical people, granted it is largely paid for by bloated, biased pharmaceutical companies that are trying to sell you their product at vastly over inflated prices or a partially funded Special Interest Group………….but it’s still better than some dodgy American selling you black tar patches that remove skin tumours.
Get more than one opinion about what might be wrong, just assume if the ‘Diagnosis’ is boring, undramatic and common it is more probable right. Do not assume that you have developed a One in a Million form of spinal cancer when it is far more likely that loading 3 tonnes of rubble into a skip is what has set your back off.
There is a lot of hypochondria about, my particular take on this is ‘google-noia’ an irrational pathological fear based on a google search result………… we all need to just chill out about all this stuff.
The good news is most things correct themselves in a relatively short time with or without Medical or Osteopathic intervention. If you are worried do not wait, make an appointment with your GP. By the time you get to see them three weeks would have passed, and you will probably have forgotten why you made the appointment in the first place. If you have remembered, you can tell the GP what the nice people at Google have diagnosed, which will of course be very helpful. This will give the GP a good laugh and cheer them up enormously, while reinforcing the view drummed into them in medical school that patients are not to be ‘listened to’ under any circumstances and don’t have even the vaguest concept as to how the human body works or what happens when it goes wrong.
If this article has been of interest to you and you would like further information or advice, please contact me.
Nigel Kettle