Meet Web Hypochondriacs 587
prostoalex writes "When Jerome K. Jerome in 1889 described going to the British Museum to read medical encyclopedia and subsequently finding symptoms of almost all diseases in his body, he didn't realize the problem would exacerbate more than a century later. Web hypochondriacs are calling up doctors with requests for prescriptions for all sorts of diseases, since they discovered some similar symptoms on the Web. Wall Street Journal quotes a doctor: 'My impression is that people believe more of what they read than what I tell them. It seems that traditional Western medicine based on scientific evidence is less and less trusted by the general public. Meanwhile, some dubious theory from the Internet will be swallowed hook, line and sinker nine times out of 10.' "
The Web (Score:3, Insightful)
Online database (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Web (Score:4, Insightful)
I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Who listens to doctors? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course! Because you're telling them things like "Stop smoking, don't drink so much, cut down the fat, get some excersize, brush your teeth and watch your diet". Who the hell wants to hear that? Websites aren't so much interested in your health as they are in getting ad impresions, so they probably aren't going to preach.
On the internet no one knows you're a fat lazy bastard with bad habits. [but if I were a betting man, that's where I'd put my money]
Because Big Business is Bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Luke
----
Don't let your family be ignorant any more, send them to ChristianNerds.com [christiannerds.com] (The Free Online Computer Encyclopedia)
hook, line and sinker (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. I have many relatives who are online but not really technology savvy. Not a month goes by that I do not get CC'ed on some ridiculous email. I always go look it up on Snopes [snopes.com] and do a reply to all with a link the Snopes article discrediting it. The thing that really gets me though, is a couple of times a year I will get one of these from someone who knows better. When I call them on it, I usually get the same response, "Well I figured better safe than sorry." Some how they just do not understand that by forwarding unsubstantiated false information they are perpetuating the problem.
Opposite (Score:1, Insightful)
Feeling in Control (Score:5, Insightful)
The desire to feel in control is such a powerful drive that people will trade concrete benefits like money or expert advice for the mere illusion of control.
That.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:3rd Leading Cause of Death... (Score:1, Insightful)
How's that?
Medicine is hard. Doctors are human. Mistakes do happen. But they also know a whole lot more than you do. If you don't trust your doctor, to whom are you going to trust your health?
I suppose alarmism and Not Trusting The Man is easier.
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
And in my opinion, there are two things that lead to better health:
1. Eat good food. I'm definitely as guilty as the rest (probably more so since I TRULY know better) that having the fresh vegetables, cutting back on starches and excess red meat is just better for you and your body will tell you so every morning you wake up from a single day of eating well. Don't believe me? Just for ONE DAY eat some soup and salad staying away from stuff with dairy and such. Just one day and see how you feel in the morning. If you still feel like crap I'll admit that I'm wrong.
2. Don't be "TOO CLEAN." If you don't exercise, you will become weak and slow. If your immune system isn't kept busy, it will also become weak and slow. I see people go to great lengths to avoid this and that only to be stricken down by the most simple of viruses or bacteria. Quit taking freakin' anti-biotics and let your own immune system handle stuff (when possible). (I'll never forget how a sister-in-law proclaimed my sons needed anti-biotics because the had sniffles. It's insanity.) I still can't remember the last time I've actually been "sick." Had a minor reaction from some KFC recently but that's about it. You don't have to be disgusting about it, but resist doing too much and leave the "anti-bacterial soap" on the store shelves -- you don't need it!
Doctors (Score:4, Insightful)
I end up going to web md or some other website to do research and deduce what my symptoms point to. It seems like doctors no longer take the time to assess symptoms and determine what is actually wrong, they just dispense a few prescriptions, sign some paperwork, and send the patient on their way. It's not wonder that people want to get more info than what the MD profession is offering.
Re:Who listens to doctors? (Score:4, Insightful)
And part of the reason for that is that a doctor will talk to you for 2 minutes (or maybe just have his secretary talk to you on the phone, take notes, and call you back) and diagnose you. You, on the other hand, have spend hours looking into what might be wrong with you.
I've had exactly that happen. I was on anti-biotics for 20 days (two treatments) when the real problem was allergies. Going in and seeing someone led to a proper diagnosis. A lot of people are fed up with doctors, and not always for bad reasons.
Funny but sadly insightful (Score:3, Insightful)
Just have a look at all those totally supersticious claim and alternative medicine : homeopathy, colorotherapy, herbotherapy, crytsllotherapy, fengshui... Indeed we are in a demon haunted world [amazon.com].
I think education is the only answer, but how can you educate people when part of them learn that ID/creationism must be thaught in their class with the same footing than evolutionism, people misappropriate the definition of a theory in science, downright lie or misuse term they do not understand to support their own unscientific pet peeve, or even politic is used to support religious activity, even if there is a separation of church and state, downright disrespect, to not say hate, of science in all its form inclusive medicine.
For all wanting to learn a bit and start fighting against obscurantism I recommend this : James Randi Education Fundation [randi.org] (JREF I think it is called).
I think before solving hyponcondiacism we have to solve the problem of people believing in all sort of crap, and teach the tenet of the scientific method, or even if it is too much, at least teach back respect of science !!!
Frankly in comparison hyponchondriacism is nothing. It does not propagate as much damage...
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally? I don't trust any of them. From the summary:
It seems that traditional Western medicine based on scientific evidence is less and less trusted by the general public.
Is this the same scientific evidence that said "Margarine is good", "Eggs are bad", and "We know about triglyceride problems, but we'll built the Food Pyramid this way because people are too stupid?" I'm sorry, all medical "science" does is stumble around in circles until they land on top of something remotely approaching the truth.
My take on it is, if you're actually sick (i.e. Unable to operate in some way, shape, or form), then go to the doctor. He may not be very precise, but he might just save your life. If you're not outright sick, then eat a wide variety of foods in moderate quantities and excercise. Forget about the doctors and their "fads of the week". Just do what you're going to do and enjoy your life. In the end you'll be far healthier just by being happy than you'll ever be through ravaging your body by fad diets and drugs.
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:1, Insightful)
Flip side (Score:5, Insightful)
Another one (here in the UK) has been where someone is told that there is nothing that can be done for some problem only for them to find out using the web that something can be done about it (usually in another country).
A good example is this story [bbc.co.uk] about a baby born with a deformed head who was wrongly told that nothing was wrong and to live with the deformity. Thankfully, in the next four months the baby will be fine.
Not that I'm suggesting that all doctors get it wrong but once in a while the web has been a life-saver.
Re:Funny but sadly insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
I do have problems with the way drug companies have been allowed to operate, and to essentially bypass the family doctor by directly marketing to the public. But, at the end of the day, science has given us medicines and therapies that actually work, as opposed to superstitious mumbojumbo mixed with some really scientific sounding words. I'm not saying that all "alternative" therapies are bunk, but if they're not put through double-blind studies, then how the hell can anybody actually say?
The Cartel (Score:2, Insightful)
I was seeing a psychiatrist a number of years ago when I was a teen, and they recommended I take a certain medication. The drug they wanted me to take was called risperidone, it has been known to cause *permanent* facial ticks and twitches. My mother and I decided that that was a risk that we didn't want to take. So the psychiatrist proceeded to argue with my mother about this for nearly 10 minutes, nearly reaching the level of yelling, insisting that this was the medication I should take. We walked out and never went back.
I've been on drugs that have made me fat, while they were supposed to help with depression. I've been on drugs that have made me flip out when they were supposed to help with anxiety. The general mantra in the field is that you keep trying stuff till you find something that works. It is basically a sham with regard to most of the psychiatric drugs.
Then there are the other, medical drugs. You've got Vioxx, which kills people, Zoloft which makes people kill people... and a whole lot of other I can't remember. Prescription drugs are the fourth leading cause of death in America.
So you think people are going to believe a system set up to reap your money and sedate your soul over some vitamins and herbs? The simple fact of the matter is that HMO, insurace companies, and the pharmaceutical industry have replaced fact based scientific medicine with corporate profits. It's not that I don't trust science, it's that I don't trust 'science' that comes from the pharmaceutical industry. They have a proven track record of lying, and killing people for profit. Once we get back sensible regulations on the industry to prevent this sort of stuff then public trust will be restored in science based medicine over crap they read online.
My doctor (Score:3, Insightful)
I know that some doctors feel threatened by this but he actually likes it. He believes an open an cooperative approach can be beneficial for both doctors and patients.
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a valid point to some extent, but much of what you're talking about doesn't come from the scientific medical establishment - it comes from agenda-driven groups, corporate shills, and govenrment administrations who buy their propoganda. For example, actual medical science indicates that obesity isn't particularly unhealthy. Inactivity, which often accomponies obesity, IS quite unhealthy. But if you get a reasonable amount of exercise, your health isn't likely to suffer from carrying extra pounds until you reach extreme limits, well past what is specified as being obese. In fact, you're likely to suffer fewer problems from being overweight than you are from being underweight. So why is there so much talk about the "obesity epedemic" in America? Because there's a multi-billion dollar diet and diet food industry out there that wants to sustain itself, and it pours lots and lots of money into advertising and propoganda. There have been lots of studies which do not control for inactivity. Those studies show a corelation between being overweight and health problems, and assume a cause and effect, when the real cause is the underlying inactivity. But the flawed studies are still being used to support the "obesity will kill you" claim. There are lots of honest, well-meaning, but misinformed people who really believe that obesity will kill you (hell, everybody knows it, right?) and they're interested in helping save your life.
What does the science tell you about your health and your weight? If you're interested in your health, throw out the scale. DON'T go on a diet but do pay a bit of attention to what you eat. Try to get a few vegetables in your system in between the Big Macs and the beer brats. But most importantly, get your ass up off the couch and get a bit of exercise. If it trims you down a bit, great. If not, don't worry about it. It ain't that big a deal. But that's not what the nutritionist and the diet industry tell you, and their voice is much louder than the actual science.
So please don't confuse medical science with the medical establishment or with the various government guides. They aren't the same thing at all.
Re:The multitudes (Score:4, Insightful)
Technology has advanced, our ability to create cures has advanced, our desire for a quick fix to our ailments (be that illness, or lack of money, or lack of knowledge, or boredom, or whatever else ails us) is the same as it ever was..
The Rise Of Mysticism (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, some B.S. seems to be slowly dying out - astrology and belief in space alien visitations, for example. But others seem absolutely rampant. We are awash in homeophathic medicine, claims of psychic powers, and on and on. And, yes, I include religion in this.
I guess rationality and empiricism just aren't cool these days. Perhaps people mistake skepticism with closed mindedness. Or perhaps, deep down, they just don't care whether what they believe is true or not.
Medicine is a business (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a sign of a much bigger problem, many people in the US cannot afford the cost of official medicine, they're trying to find less costly alternatives.
In other countries with more or less socialized medical care (of widely varying levels of efficiency), doctors and transnational companies are trying to force the governments to have "American style" medicine, that is a carefully controlled supply of doctors, (high) prices set by medical associations, exclusive regions, constant effort to legally marginalize alternative medicine, profit-oriented control of your medical history, legally mandated medical procedures, and the creation of new categories of sicknesses that require new costly, patented medicine.
So, maybe there is some reason in not fully trusting all doctor's advice and look for a second opinion.
Science? What science? (Score:1, Insightful)
I think he has got it totally wrong. IMHO there is an ever widening gap between scientific evidence and medicine. Just pick out some common diseases and read the description in any standard textbook for them. And then check the "truth" in the book against the current research, e.g. by searching for the appropriate keywords at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=p ubmed [nih.gov]. What you surely will notice is how little of even ten year old scientific research results ever makes it into the books. And, finally, try to find a doctor who at least knows what is in the books. Good luck!
As long as you only suffer from a few broken bones, a doctor may know what to do. But if it happens that you suffer from something not so obvious, better don't bet on your doctors scientific understanding! You may lose...
And, last but not least, modern medicine is about selling sick people expensive treatments, not about curing them. There would be no business case otherwise, or would it?
Scientific diagnosis? (Score:5, Insightful)
While this may be true, I don't know what's scientific about a typical Doctor's diagnosis. It's just practice of an Art, based on experience. Typically, a Doctor will not setup an experiment and often, they won't even run any kind of instrumented test, they'll just ask you what symptoms you have, make some notes and make a diagnosis.
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Your point on exercise is important, though. The people that I've seen that are generally in shape are those that are willing to put in even a little bit of effort, even if they eat too much. There's no need to do an hour on a treadmill and a dozen laps in the Olympic pool; sometimes it's just as simple as taking the 20 minute walk instead of the ten-minute drive (people in the city know this one) or playing in the pool for a little while a few times a week. If you can learn to fidget, this may also help, as the extreme end of this can actually handle a few hundred calories a day, but if you have touchy coworkers, this may not be the best option.
Re:Flip side (Score:1, Insightful)
"I'd like a second opinion."
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they never said anything of the sort. YOU, as the general population, took what they DID say and made 3-word sentences out of it because that's all you're capable of understanding.
Medical science is usually very fair about what they know and don't know, it's what happens when the information gets out into the uneducated masses that it changes into some degenerate version of itself.
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy to blame the "corporate shills", but the examples I mentioned (with margarine, perhaps, being the only exception) are really what medical science preached. There didn't use to be any differentiation between "good cholesterol" and "bad cholesterol". Nor was the Food Pyramid built by corporations. (If it was, you can be certain that it would tell you to get your daily intake of Captain Crunch, Coca-Cola, and Ho Hos.)
The key to the seeming "But science knows this yet does this" dicotomy is the fact that quite a few things are winding their way through research long before they ever reach the trenches. For example, there was medical evidence suggesting the two types of cholesterol 20 years ago, but medical science moves so slow that it didn't get fully studied and sent to the trenches until 10+ years later.
Is that a REALLY long time to wait for results? Well, yes. Unfortunately, that's just the nature of the beast. Medical Science is very concerned about not making things worse, so they take their time and try to get it right. The problem is that they spend the time in between trying to make things "better" by using their existing knowledge to mess with and adjust things that shouldn't be adjusted. As a result, it's much better not to bother with Doctors unless you actually have a problem. Live happy, and you'll live healthy.
Re:On the flip side (Score:3, Insightful)
That's my experience as well. After 4 years of regular college and 4 years of memorization, doctors are given almost godlike esteem with little to no evidence of them deserving their godlike aura (aside from their pay).
I've often wished there was a service that graded or had some kind of feedback on the quality of a doctor, however, as I understand it, the buddy-buddy system inside of the medical community is so tight that the lack of good information to the general public is not a coincidence. A shady businessman can only go on so far until his reputation catches up with him. The number of doctors that have been found liable for malpractice multiple times keep practicing medicine. Its very rare that a doctor looses his license.
Re:The multitudes (Score:4, Insightful)
This view of mental health that is invasive in our country, especially invasive in the conservative ditto head culture in our country, is perplexing to me.
My wife had gall stones and had to have her gall bladder removed. Do you doubt the validity of her medical condition?
My mother has hyperthyroidism, and has had to take a pill every day of her life since she was a teenager (and was diagnosed). Do you doubt the validity of her medical condition?
I often get the shingles, a recurrence of the Chicken Pox virus along one nerve bundle that results in a large crusty oozing rash along a thin band around one half of my body. Do you doubt the validity of my medical condition?
My friend had appendicitis and had to be rushed to the hospital to have his appendix removed. Do you doubt the validity of his medical condition?
If all of these conditions are medically valid, why is it so hard to believe that the brain, simply another organ in our body, like our thyroid, our gall bladder, our nerves, our appendix, our heart, or any other organ, is capable of being stricken ill? I doubt you would tell your friend with intense abdominal pain, or your father with shortness of breath and chest pains, that they were just imagining a condition to avoid accountability and that they are just making excuses.
Why do we look down on people with illnesses of the brain and not people with broken arms or heart disease or any other illness? The human organism is not perfect, sometimes the pieces of the puzzle that make us tick don't work the correct way. For some reason we've decided to single out a certain group, those with mental illness, and decide they are weak, while the ones with other ailments are perfectly fine.
Re:The multitudes (Score:4, Insightful)
The other side of the coin is that society is putting people in a position where any deviation from the personality norm will result in a reduction in quality of life, from causing someone to not be considered a "team player" at the office, to being harassed by people in their leisure time because they are different.
Modern education (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the modern education system is -part- of the problem.
They teach the students that 'there are no absolutely right answers' and 'people are entitled to their opinions', so that students don't realize that some things are demonstrably true and others are demonstrably false.
They teach students that there is no fundamental difference between information gathered from a poll of 100 random people on the New York subway system and the results of a laboratory experiment in controlled conditions.
They teach students that even though the subject of the class is english composition/world history/archaeology/moleculary biology, you'll really be graded on how well you agree with the instructor's view that "the real terrorism today is how America treats women/minorities/third world countries."
They teach students that the longer the list of degrees after your name, the more worthwhile the book you wrote.
Re:Doctor Supply/Demand (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Are we talking about the same medical science that eradicated [utoronto.ca] smallpox (a sickness that killed up to 40% of the afflicted and caused the death of about 2 million [wikipedia.org] people in only in the year 1967)? The same medicine that reduced the cases of polio in the world from 350000 in 1988 [wikipedia.org] to 759 in 2005 [polioeradication.org] (till now)?
I'm sorry, but your complaints about margarine and/or eggs don't seem very significant when compared to those successes. So, medicine messes up sometimes. What science doesn't? The whole thing about sciences is that established beliefs are challenged again and again, and, when found faulty, they get replaced. Medicine is more exposed to distrust: few care whether fire is caused by an exothermic oxidation reaction or by phlogiston [wikipedia.org] leaving the burning log; but when their health is in the balance, people get very interested. And I agree that many medical practitioners and researchers could do with learning better statistic and experimental methods. But let's not discard the whole thing because it can't give us exact guidance on margarine.
Re:3rd Leading Cause of Death... (Score:3, Insightful)