Cyberchondria 294
Makarand writes "According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle the ever-expanding
wealth of health information online is keeping hypochondriacs constantly worried. With websites devoted to every major and
esoteric illness and search engines coming up with many disease possibilities
when you type in a symptom, it is becoming very easy for the health-anxious
to believe that they have a disease. Many continue poring through the easily
available medical information even after their doctors have given them
a clean bill of health."
Pharmaceutical Industry? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ignorance is bliss (Score:5, Interesting)
"Because of the internet's recent collapse because of massive slashdotting, the whole world was left to wonder how they would ever find out how to get from their house to the nearest blockbuster without Mapquest or how to do a research project without Google."
Perhaps people who can't handle too much information should stay away from the internet before they freak themselves out. One hundred years ago, someone could have written how a Library had the same effect, bringing all that information in one place to freak people out who are easily freaked out.
Matt Fahrenbacher
Medical students syndrome (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't have to be a hypochondriac to experience it. It's also known as medical students' syndrome, where perfectly normal and reasonable medical students self-diagnose themselves with diseases and illnesses that they are studying about. It's also been known as psychology students' syndrome for obvious reasons.
So true.. (Score:2, Interesting)
An office mate in his late 20's was always reading online about various things.. About a year ago he started having bad coughs. Looked it up online and said he had "Adult Onset Asthma." After a few weeks that self-diagnosis changed to "Walking Pneumonia." The last self-diagnosis was "Congestive Heart Failure" and he may need a heart transplant.
I kid you not.
So he finally
Bottom line, all this sickness happened after a bad job review. Now he's on disability milking the system. That pisses me off as it means that my HMO got suckered and we all have to pay.
Stumping doctors too (Score:5, Interesting)
A patient walks in and immediately tells the doctor he thinks he has Berringer-Klopp syndrome. The doctor then excuses himself for a moment and has to dig up one of those rare diseases books. A few minutes later, he tells the man that he probably just has a case of warts.
That's the problem with Medical school students as well; people will immediately think of the rarest diseases. It's probably just a cold or a early flu, but people suspect that they have a case of Tularemia. It's the equivalent of hearing hoofbeats and thinking that its Zebras.
Iatrogenic? (Score:2, Interesting)
Also check out the ranking of "medical misadventure" in morbidity/mortality tables.
Increase automated diagnostic technologies and remove the doctor as gateway to pharaceuticals and we can take control over our own health.
Re:See a doctor (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:See a doctor (Score:5, Interesting)
While this is true, I do not trust a doctor to not make mistakes. For instance, my reading online has caused friction between myself and a doctor I used to visit. He gave me a presciption, I looked it up online, found the dosage he gave me was far smaller than anything I had seen written. Upon asking him about it, he advised not reading websites when it comes to drugs. What about the drug company's website? What if you are curious how the drug works or how it was tested before coming to the market? How about the LD50 and side effects in animal testing? What about alternative medications? Ah yes, the doctor isn't making a profit if he's not pushing sheepish patients out the door as quickly as possible, with no questions.
I will tend to take a doctor's advice, but no doctor's opinion is absolute. I would like to know why he chose a particular drug and dosage. I would also like to know some things about the medication that most people would prefer not to think about. While I wish I could find myself in a stupor of feeling comfort in what other people tell me, I can not escape the need to verify information given to me from multiple sources.
Keep away from doctors and hospitals (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:mis-diagnosis (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably in the last few years I've had anxiety related problems and occasionally look up information on the medication I'm on (I've been on a few types). It's not hard to sometimes get the symptoms from just something you read about.
I had an ache down my left arm which in the end turned out to be from a pulled muscle that eased up, but I read all about heart attacks and convinced myself I was having one one night. Off to hospital in an ambulance all night to be checked and needled just to make sure. Everything was fine. Now I'm in the habit of rubbing my arm in that spot, and of course that triggers the nerve there which brings about chest pains, little stabbing pains in my back and side of my ribs.
Of course then reading about heart attacks I came across information on why they're caused, one being blood clots in veins caused by sitting still, so now any ache in my legs I get guilty feelings of having clotting, then I'll get a twitch in my eye or head, and think "OMG IT'S A STROKE". It's freaking weird how carried away my mind can get.
Looking at it logically, I visited my sister for a week, and forgot all about the problems, and the symptoms were gone. I came back home, no problems at all, then came across an old email from a heart attack forum. Suddenly my symptoms reappear!
This must make it terrible for doctors, as just by reading about problems I've been tested for blood clots, heart irregularities and heart attacks, blood pressure and beating monitoring 24 hours a day, blood sugar and you name it it just goes on.
I know most people don't have the tendency to anxiety and worry that I do, and really it's a middle sized problem in my life, but something I can mostly deal with and my doctor too, when there's nothing else on top, but with a large percentage of the population anxiety prone like me, and a large percentage of THOSE online, this has to be making some incredible extra work for doctors, while making them all the more skeptical of the genuine patients who do present with heart problems, etc.
the fearful always suffer (Score:5, Interesting)
I know, the hypochondriacs in the readership will say they have a special mental condition and need lifelong treatment, and there really is no cure. Well that just proves my point, doesn't it?
As for the impact of Google on all this; I recently suffered some kind of respiratory impact, and after two weeks of coughing woke up in the night feeling I could not breath. A call to the hospital assured me that I was in grave danger and I should call emergency aid. After thinking on this and listening to my body a while I decided to tough it out, and finally slept the rest of the night. Later the next day I had an exam and x-rays, which x-rays came back abnormal (metastatic cancer indication) which I didn't buy at all because I didn't fit the profile for metastatic cancer. I Googled some things and based on sound evidence decided I had a rare respiratory fungus. More x-rays and some consultations and the doctor said that OK I didn't have cancer, and he didn't know what I had, and it might be a rare respiratory fungus (!) and he would need to cut my chest open to see, which would land me in the hospital for 3 days (at a time when I am needing to find a job). I declined, of course.
Still have a cough of sorts, but getting better. I think the clue to health is to insist on being healthy despite the continued pressure to be otherwise. In this regard Google (and a clear head, and some experience working in a hospital X-ray lab) gave me the resources to stay on my feet at a time when I really needed to.
Like every other kind of tool, using the Internet takes skill and sometimes courage. And no I still don't have a job, so every day still counts.
Re:Medical students syndrome (Score:4, Interesting)
Mind you, this doesn't address the issue of whether they went into the field precisely because they wanted to figure out the mess, or if they were messed up before they started. But it seemed to be universal, and it brings up a lot of questions about the stability and effectiveness of a lot of the working shrinks out there.
I guess the real problem is that if you apply theory to yourself, you have to be really careful to maintain some perspective, and not assume it all applies perfectly to you. And that's not easy, I can tell you.
Re:See a doctor (Score:2, Interesting)
Many doctors don't like taking the time to explain things, since (at least the way I think they might see it) it takes time away from their other patients, and/or golf.
Re:Pharmaceutical Industry? (Score:3, Interesting)
And thats not even my favorite part... It's crazy how most of those ads show 'happy images' for like 60 seconds while listing off the potential side effects.
Amen. (Score:3, Interesting)
Years ago, my son was having a bad reaction to poison ivy. He was about 6 at the time. My wife took him to the doctor, and the doctor was puzzled about how bad the reaction was. He has very very white, delicate skin, and I knew he was just susceptable to stuff like that.
But the Doctor, oh no, he sent him to a skin doctor, who didn't want to deal with it, so he perscribed a drug I'd never heard of. My wife called and I told her I'd look it up on the internet.
Turns out, this stuff was so potent, that once you start taking it, it shuts down the body's ability to use and regulate certain key portions of his immuno system. You can't just stop taking it either, or it could cause serious reactions.
Holy shit! For a 6 year old! And no warning.
I told my wife to pour it down the drain. My son's poison ivy cleared up in 5 days. But that poison he was pushing. Cripes.
What a moron. It verged on malpractice. But what could you do? Doctors stick up for each other, and I would end up looking like the idiot over a stupid doctor perscribing stupid medicines.
Don't trust doctors blindly. Do programmer's make mistakes? Lots. I feel confident doctors have about the same mistake rate.
Re:mis-diagnosis (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh man (Score:3, Interesting)
Relying on that for med advice is bad anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, you can't make a diagnosis without seeing the problem for the most part, unless it's painfully obvious (Nail in the hand? Well, obviously you have a nail in your hand!).
Re:Like everything else... (Score:2, Interesting)
I know a member of my family was gettin gill and our doctor didn't know what the cause was. Then we looked up the symptoms on the internet and went back to the Doctor and said "Is it possible it could be condition X?" (where condition X is reasonably rare: around 2,000 people have it in the UK IIRC: hence it's very unlikely a doctor would have actually seen a case). The Doc said "Maybe - let me check", referred the family member to a specialist and the diagnostics was confirmed.
Thank you, Mr. Hume (Score:3, Interesting)
Suggestion for the cave dwellers watching the shadow-play on the back wall - stay there, we don't need you.
Re:mis-diagnosis (Score:1, Interesting)
Medicine is about knowledge and information. It's the combination of science, data, information and bedside manner. The science involved is not "rocket science" or "quantum mechanics". It's actually fairly basic biology and chemistry. What makes it hard is the vast number of interactions that exist in a human body. An MD has an overall understanding of how all these interactions fit together. Most average doctors don't have a very deep understanding of the biology--just enough to understand what to prescribe and what to be on the look-out for, in terms of side-effects. Even then, some doctors simply delegate the task of worrying about side-effects to the pharmacist, who basically brings up a chart from a computer database. The science is not anything beyond the understanding of an intelligent geek.
The breadth and extent of the knowledge, on the other hand, probably surpasses the abilities of many geeks. Doctors require a naturally good memory as well as some serious discipline to learn all the material they have to in their four years of medical school. However, as the volume of knowledge continues to grow exponentially, not even the most studious pre-meds will be able to cram with everything there is to know. The know-it-all confidence is a sham. The tradition glorifies it as the appropriate dignified "bedside manner" of a physician. But any intelligent person knows it is obviously impossible for a person to get the BEST answer simply off the top of their head.
I know more about biochemistry and how drugs work than the average GP. But they have a broader general knowledge of the human system. And they have the bedside manner. On the other side of the equation, I can spend an hour or two reading research papers on medline, while the doctor charges a few hundred dollars for an interview that they try to rush through as quickly as they can.
New parents (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was a new parent, i'd look stuff up online.
Then there would be any thing from cold to certian and immediate death.
Of course getting two different ways to trweat something fom two different peidotritians didn't help either.
Re:See a doctor (Score:2, Interesting)
On the subject of doctors and drugs, you can't really fully trust them there.
I don't know about in America, but in the UK there's endless articles about "Superbugs" like MRSA (I forget what it stands for, but the M is an antibiotic, the R is resistant and the S is stapholococcus or something) which are killing people left right and centre in hospitals. The reason? The bugs have grown immune to all known antibiotics and we can't kill them. People have got used to taking antibiotics for absolutely everything - including things that the body can either handle on it's own, or stuff that won't respond to antibiotics like (duh) viruses.
My doctor routinely turns people away and tells them to sweat it out, and that their body can handle it on it's own, which is a lot more sensible than just pumping everyone full of antibiotics.
I knew a girl doing a microbiology degree who went to the doctor with some kind of infection or something, and he prescribed her some antibiotics. Being the curious student that she was, she looked up the antibiotic and the bacteria causing the infection, and found that the antibiotic in question would have absolutely no effect on the bacteria. Not because of any of the resistance crap from earlier, but just because that antibiotic wouldn't work on that bacteria. She went back to the doctor and challenged him on it, and he said there was nothing he could do about it because that was the drug being pushed at the moment.
Doctor's aren't infallible either.
The Nature Of A Hypochondriac (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure I agree with that either. I think most hypochondriacs would prefer a certified medical treatment (a pill, some chemotherapy, whatever) that would convince them that they are cured from whatever illness they imagine themselves suffering from rather than sympathy. I mean, surely part of the problem -- from the hypochondriac's point of view -- is that not only are they sick, really, really sick with some -- probably -- life-threatening disease, but their doctor(s) is/are refusing to acknowledge that 'fact' and no treatment will therefore be received?! Sympathy be damned: what a hypochondriac wants is some surgery and a whole lotta pills!
Finally, and parenthetically, I don't think the Internet has managed to add very much to the hypochondriacs' lament. Jerome K. Jerome published his Three Men In A Boat some 100 years ago: in it the narrator J. comes across a medical textbook and manages to persuade himself that he suffers from every ailment in the book (quite literarily) save housemaid's knee. Upon seeing his doctor he receives the following prescription:
Which only shows that it was perfectly possible to be struck by hypochondria even without the use of electronics. Now, if only every hypochondriac were to receive such sensible advice.
Re:See a doctor (Score:4, Interesting)
It may seem unprofessional, but it also seemed to work. It calmed the fears of these people, and made sure that they didn't put pressure on the doctor as hypochondriacs often do when rejected.
Some doctors are idiots. (Score:2, Interesting)
Information cures the psyche... (Score:1, Interesting)
I am talking on experience here in a time I was ill with a vague disease. The initial diagnosis by the physician was sketchy at best, and ranged from life-threatening disease to nothing more than a minor illness. Lots of tests followed, which all seem to take a long while when you worry (even though I'm talking 3 months here...). This led me to research the illness thoroughly, including all possibilities.
What I found did not worry me. I came accustomed to the possible very-negative consequences and the less negative consequences. And it definitely made me fear less instead of more. I could sleep at night knowing that when possibility A came true, there was a chance on cure A-1, etc...
Apart from that, I could ask the physician much clearer questions (from his own perspective instead of my layman knowledge).
When it was finally clear that it was a not-so-bad illness, I stopped the perusing of information.
Ofcourse, hypochondria is largely different, in that it doesn't take an underlying disease as the basis for ones worries. But for people that have a genuine complaint (as confirmed by a physician) and who have no final diagnosis as of yet, I can only recommend it. I do warn here that you will need a bit of a good stomach. The things you will find will not always be pleasant, and could be worrysome indeed. But do not stop once you find something that worries you, instead search on until the thing that worries is lifted by a possible cure.
Re:the fearful always suffer (Score:3, Interesting)
That may be true about some people, but certainly not about all cases.
As a sometime hypochondriac, the last thing I want to do is confide in anyone about my fear; I don't derive any pleasure, destructive or otherwise, from fearing that there's something wrong with me or from complaining and extracting sympathy from friends or strangers. I just want the damn fear to go away so I can go on with my life.
Certainly there's something abnormal about my mind since I so easily latch on to and get compulsive about imaginary diseases. Most of all, I think, it is the fear of being ill, of being permanent debilitated, and the social stigmatization and damaged pride that follows.
The only cure is diagnosis; rational, scientific information that will either dispel my fears or confirm them. To this end, searching for medical information on the net is, I have found, harmful to my psyche, precisely as pointed out by the linked article: the information is all too often vague, generic, contextless.
On the other hand, it can be good. (Score:5, Interesting)
I discovered after 21 years of operations with organ difficulties of all kinds that my birth defects had a name, that there was a great support network online, and wonderful new treatments. Nobody had ever told me what it was, because doctors focused on one malfunctioning organ at a time. I only learned because I was bored one night and typed the name of a procedure into a search engine. I learned about a new operation in the discussion groups about two years later, went through 6 layers of doctors to convince my HMO to let me have it -- and now for the first time in my life, I can go away from my house overnight, I don't have to worry about medical mishaps, it's amazing! All because *I* looked up info on what I had, instead of relying on authority figures that (all the way until I reached a surgeon) had never even *heard* of what I needed.
Similarly, it was a couple of years ago that I was searching for information on my delayed development/maturity and for the first time in my life found out what it was I'd had all along. I was skeptical at first, but I did fit the exact profile and asked others that were diagnosed in the online support community, eventually finding that I was more like them than anybody I'd ever met in real life. I've since been formally diagnosed, as has my partner (who went through the same self-dx process) though we learned in the process that the amount of ignorance in the psychology field when it comes to our neuro-issue is absolutely horrifying. This is after we'd each spent quite a bit of time being grossly misdiagnosed and drugged senseless based on that -- it was due to *our* research that we were finally given a diagnosis that made sense and were able to obtain guidance that improved our lives instead of making things worse.
Re:Why bother with google? (Score:2, Interesting)
So while 50% of all doctors will still be below the average, I would hope that the "average" for doctors is higher than the average for Joe Schmoe Garbageman when it comes to medical know-how.
Is the average for doctors as high as we would all like it to be? Probably not. But I do believe that they are as good at their job as house painters are at theirs, despite having a more difficult job (no offense meant to house painters).
Re:See a doctor (Score:3, Interesting)
My grandfather died needlessly because of this. He was 81, but in great health, still fishing all the time, taking long walks, completely mentally with it(he was a HAM, constantly designing and building new equipment for himself), drove better than most people 1/3 his age, but he stopped getting regular check ups on his ulcer because of this attitude. After 5 years of no check ups, he got sick with respiratory symptoms, and by the time the doctors figured out what was going on, it was too late. He had developed stomach cancer and the growth had begun pushing on the bottom of his lungs. When they figured this out, it was inoperable.
Anyone with an ulcer out there, take note of this. They could have easily caught that cancer very early on and removed it had he not had this pigheaded attitude and gotten the check ups his doctors told him to get. 81 is a decent age to live to, but he could have lived much longer than that based on the condition the rest of his body was in. God knows he loved life.
How's this bad? (Score:2, Interesting)
Having awesome amounts of medical information online is good for one VERY LARGE group of people- those of us who do NOT HAVE MEDICAL INSURANCE. I don't GET the luxury of being able to go to a doctor and tell him "hey, check it- my vision occasionally blurs out, sometimes I feel like I have bees in my head, most of the time I can't think straight, candy bars make me go insane, I get hangovers if I drink mountain dew, I get mood swings that vacillate between
Plug the symptoms into google, and hey! Look! I'm hypoglycemic! Plug in "hypoglycemic" and "diet". Hey, look! By controlling what and when I eat, THE HEADBEES ARE GONE!
Google has saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in medical bills for what boils down to common sense- if I don't want to feel like a slug coated in hydrocholiic acid (and bees), I need to eat X types of things, preferably Y times a day.
I totally heart the fact that Teh Intarweb solved a medical problem I can't afford to tackle otherwise.
So. Forget the hypocondriacs- they'll find something wrong with themselves regardless of how healthy they check out. It's a psychological disorder.
(the internet)++
Try the "Diet Supplement" Industry (Score:2, Interesting)
The US "Diet Supplement" business is far worse on the internet than drug companies. Almost any search about health matters turns up some of them. Supplement peddlers aren't allowed to make claims about the efficacy of their products to cure specific diseases, so they rely on non-specific but disquieting suggestions about how your health might suffer should you pass up their potions. Long laundry lists of potential benefit are presented, but it all has to be very vague, since they seldom have any research showing definitive results. Anyone who has read that far is now full of anxiety - and might be ready to buy!
Most supplement makers are small time operators that don't have the resources for big time advertising. The internet is the perfect place for them, and vague anxiety is their perfect sales pitch
Re:See a doctor (Score:5, Interesting)
DON'T just put out symptom lists, also put out comprehensive anti-symptom lists
DON'T tout statistical inprobability as likelyhood of having or not having a disease, since statistics don't show YOUR chances of having a disease they only show the amount of people out of a sampled set who have the disease (don't even get me started on other misinterpretations of statistics)
DO provide an open forum for discussion with doctors specializing in the field online, to allow people who still have questions to post them in a channel where they won't break the bank
And as far as the frequent doctors visits, I don't think it would be half as big a deal if there was just some way to just talk to a MD over the phone or something. I personally hate going to see doctors. But as far as I'm concerned, when my body tells me I'm feeling horrible (whether misconceived or otherwise) I go to a doctor to get answers.
And I live with one (Score:3, Interesting)
Since she moved in with me (I have high speed internet), she has developed:
The disease this week (which coincides with an article in some magazine):
All of these are real problems, with real discomfort, and real effects. Unfortunately, many do not have any concrete, widely accepted test, diagnosis, or treatment. Many also have more than their fair share of quack doctors who are entirely willing to try their pet theories on my lady as though she were some kind of lab rat with a blank checkbook.
The web is an amazing resource, with more information and pseudo-cures than can be digested or tried by an army of sufferers. This also makes for self diagnosis gone amok.
I really don't know where I'm going with this, except to underscore my extreme frustration with whaever it is she's got. I just hope it doesn't morph again next month.
You are your own best advocate! (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't use the internet to dream up diseases, but you ~should~ do research on your own condition. Be aware of the research in the field (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi)
Be aware and informed.
btw, to put a better spin on this article, there are tons of idiots out there doing their own research on the internet! Don't you trust the trained professionals on those tech support lines?? Don't go looking up why your video card doesn't work on the internet. Just call your local tech!
Re:No. (Score:1, Interesting)
I wish there were a form you could check at your doctor's office:
"I'm a scientist at heart. I'm looking for a doctor who's also a scientist at heart."
That's it. A one-line form.
A bad doctor for a scientist, but a good doctor for a fussy parent who wants a "cure" and wants it "now": "I went to med school, you didn't, so stop questioning things you don't understand."
A good doctor for a scientist, but a bad doctor for the fussy parent who wants the "cure" and ain't leaving without one: "I gave you that low a dose because X, Y, and that I believe X and Y put you at risk of Z. I don't have time to explain X, Y, and Z, but you can look them up if you feel like."
If there were a simple form that asked the patient what kind of patient he/she was, both of those answers could be given by the same doctor, as appropriate to the psychological needs of his patient.
My favorite commercial in recent memory was one for some cable TV science show. It featured a guy on an operating table, who pops his head up from behind the blue surgical dressing, looks down at the work area, and curiously asks "Hey, is that my spleen?" -- while a voiceover reads "Foo Channel. For people like this guy."
(Yeah, I'm one of those Fred-like guys; when I meet a new doctor, I try to self-identify as that type. I'm lucky enough to have a doc who accomodates me. :)