'Cyberchondria'

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I think a lot of doctors have been having serious trouble with this over the past few years, since everyone became an expert on everything because they read about it on a website...
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
But this is surely nothing new - hasn't this happened ever since there were medical books?

"I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of "premonitory symptoms," it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight... I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.”
Extract from Three Men In a Boat which was written 1889.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yeah, only now imagine that most people have a house full of thousands of medical books, which can be searched at a finger-tap and in many cases are probably full of mistakes anyway.
 

swears

preppy-kei
When I was about 14, I read about an article about Stephen Hawking and his ALS which described the early symptoms as facial tics and pins and needles in your fingertips. So, of course, the next day I started to experience them, convinced that I'd be wheelchair bound by the time I took my A-levels. I also thought I had CJD because I forgot my homework now and again.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
When I was about 14, I read about an article about Stephen Hawking and his ALS which described the early symptoms as facial tics and pins and needles in your fingertips. So, of course, the next day I started to experience them, convinced that I'd be wheelchair bound by the time I took my A-levels. I also thought I had CJD because I forgot my homework now and again.

That's really interesting, actually, since pins and needles in the limbs and digits can be a symptom of a panic attack. So maybe you were really feeling these things (they weren't just a hysterical symptom) because you were so scared by the story about Hawking.

There are episodes of House where parents come in already having diagnosed their children via WebMd. And of course they're usually wrong...

But this is an interesting issue in a broader sense because the internet might make people think they can be armchair medical practitioners, but it also empowers consumers of medical services to check out message boards and other sources where controversial treatments are discussed. Sometimes it pays to be an informed consumer...not all doctors are thorough or careful...

I remember when my old doctor wanted me on Advair, and I googled it. I found all kinds of message boards that were basically support groups for people whose lives has been ruined by Advair. I always knew it was considered a steroid with a lot of bad side-effects, but chronic thrush? Ick.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
I remember when my old doctor wanted me on Advair, and I googled it. I found all kinds of message boards that were basically support groups for people whose lives has been ruined by Advair. I always knew it was considered a steroid with a lot of bad side-effects, but chronic thrush? Ick.

Googling saved me from taking part in a university study on an experimental drug that appeared to have potential side effects of paralysis or death. :eek:
 

Pestario

tell your friends
Hah, why, were you spontaneously hallucinating and very, very thirsty?

I was hallucinating sounds, feeling paranoid and peeing a lot at night plus the fact that my father has diabetes. In the end the correct diagnosis was 'smoking too much weed and drinking too much oj'
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
I actually think it's fine if people look up symptoms on reputable websites, as one of those doctors suggested on the video (like WebMd, or the Mayo Clinic site, or a university website), but it does bother me that people might be looking at misinformation on random or biased sites, especially homeopathic ones where there are basically uninformed non-medical professionals encouraging people not to seek professional treatment.
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
Dilbert author finding and then tracing his spasmodic dysphonia (no I had no idea what it was until I read the piece) using Google and Google News alerts,

My cure came via the internet. About a year ago I started using Google alerts to tell me whenever someone mentioned Dilbert, me, or anything about spasmodic dysphonia on the internet. Then, six months ago I got an alert with a link to an obscure medical publication with a report about an even more obscure surgical procedure for fixing spasmodic dysphonia, developed in Japan. I took that information to my doctor, who thought it wouldn't be right for me but referred me to an expert at Stanford University who might know more, who, in turn, recommended a different type of surgery being conducted by an expert surgeon at UCLA. This surgery had a good track record, especially recently.​
 

Dusty

Tone deaf
A fair few years ago now, it turned out my mother carried the genetic defect for Muscular Dystrophy. There was a 50% chance the defective Y chromosome had been passed to me and I imagined my muscles starting to break down and death by late twenties (I had always been extremely shit at sport). So I did all my research on the internet in the week before going to see the doctor about it.

When I got there the doctor had a load of papers in front of him which he was leafing through which I immediately recognised as print outs of some of the websites I had already visited.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Shit...have you had any kind of test for it? Or does the fact that you're still not ill from it (assuming you aren't, I hope) mean you probably don't have the faulty chromosome? Kind of worrying about your doctor, but I guess they can't be experts on everything...

(If it's from your mum it'd be your X chromosome, btw - you get your Y from your pa.)
 

jambo

slip inside my schlafsack
But what if you don't have a secretary? ;)

I'm assuming it checked out ok Dusty?

It must be quite weird for GPs as I imagine they spend most of their time dealing with false alarms and reassuring people.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"When I got there the doctor had a load of papers in front of him which he was leafing through which I immediately recognised as print outs of some of the websites I had already visited."
I hope you let him know that he was rumbled.
 

Dusty

Tone deaf
Sorry didn't mean to leave a cliffhanger there - it turned out I didn't have it and yes, I probably meant the X chromosome, I can never remember which is which.

I just found it amusing that they turn to the web as well, until then I had always imagined a doctor reaching for some dusty tome of knowledge sitting on a shelf; medical wisdom not easily available to the likes of you and I. But no, when confronted with something they didn't come across at med school, they reach for google.

Supposedly my family is an anomoly - when it comes to X chromosome inheritance it is supposed to be 50/50 which one you receive from your mother, yet in our family this obviously isn't happening since out of the 20-odd known males who could have been affected by MD - only one has got it - despite all of the mothers being confirmed carriers. Seems bloody obvious there is such a thing as recessive and dominant chromosomes that stand more chance of being passed on than others - but I was told no one has researched it properly yet.
 
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