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.' "
On the flip side (Score:4, Interesting)
3rd Leading Cause of Death... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.healingdaily.com/Doctors-Are-The-Third
This article is a little extreme. Almost half are due to unforseeable drug effects. But still, a good reason to doubt your doctor.
Not what i was expecting (Score:1, Interesting)
i've heard stories about people claiming they had virusses (yes, plurar even ^^) in their cd-rom drive, monitor, anything you name plugged in, or probably even remotely related to their pc
i would love to see some statistics on that, i think it's happening more frequent every day (and i'd love to see the reactions of helpdesk employees when they got such people on the line
I can only speak for myself (Score:1, Interesting)
I can only speak from my personal experience, but for four years I've been experiencing terrible coughing fits, accompanied by heavy drainage from both nose and lungs and swollen eyelids. I went from doctor to doctor in search of a diagnosis... "Oh, it's the flu, here are some antibiotics" or "It's probably bronchitis, here are antibiotics."
Until finally, I managed to get to an allergy specialist (at my request, mind you) who diagnosed me with seasonal allergies.
So yes, if it takes the professionals 4 years to diagnose me with allergies and give me the correct prescription, then yeah, I'm gonna look to other sources to help me diagnose myself...
Likewise for doctors ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Now that doctors have the internet to publish their "findings" (while still being under the influence of lobby by drug companies) - they too are over perscribing or over diagnosing - especially when it comes to rather common things.
One example is HPV [ashastd.org] - which is a sexually transmitted disease. 90% of the population has symptoms. Having similar symptoms is NOT actually having a disease.
HPV is actually just a predisposition to cervical cancer or prostate cancer and it hasn't been proven that it is actually an STD.
A hypochondriac friend of mine went to get a annual pap smear and doctor check up and told her she had HPV - after doing research - I was able to see how and why doctors over-perscribe this ( hint: money / hint 2: research grants )
I would bet if you go to the doctor and get a thorough check up, YOU will be diagnosed as having HPV - try it out!
Remedy (Score:2, Interesting)
While the statement looks to be true on surface, a friend of mine had a life changing experience after reading a theory.
He played basketball in college and had some knee problems that eventually prohibited him from continuing to play. He was getting physiotherapy done but it was only a temporary relief. The doctors that he went to basically said that he might have to live with that. So, out of all desperation, he turned to Google and started digging up details based on his symptoms. And after a while, he took his research to a few doctors. One of them actually took initiative saying that it was an area that he had not previously explored. So, the doctor did some study and possibly discussed it with experts in the field. My friend had an operation done 3-4 years ago and he is as good as he used to be before the problem.
So, 9 out of 10 might be bogus but still if you have nowhere else to go, that remaining 1 out of 10 might help.
Re:The Web (Score:1, Interesting)
A veternarian once told me about a horse disease where the third vet was the hero. Her teachers explained that the owner would take their horse to the vet, who wouldn't be able to help it. Eventually the owner would get fed up and try a new vet, who also wouldn't be able to help. Around the time the owner get fed up with the second vet, the disease has pretty much run its coarse, so the horse gets better no matter what the third vet does (which is disturbing if their third attempt was for "alternative" medicine).
I think that's a fine example of how two fine vets get made out to be idiots, while the third one gets to be proof that astrology works (at least in the eyes of one horse owner). I see the same sort of thing in people all the time.
Doctors arent always right you know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:3rd Leading Cause of Death... (Score:5, Interesting)
This article also fails to mention that the reason some causes of death dropped in the list is BECAUSE of medical care's improvements.
Now, does this mean we don't try to improve medicine further to reduce the mistakes? Of course not. But articles like these seem to suggest that we don't visit our doctor. That is dangerous and irresponsible.
Trust is the reason. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the simple reason is that people don't trust their physicians anymore. Back in the Elder Days(tm) of Marcus Welby and so on, doctors took an interest in the health of their patients. A relationship was built over time. Finally, when the doc said, "You know, you need to go in and have surgery for this", a patient would do so without thinking twice because of the relationship and the longstanding trust between them.
Now, due to the way that doctors have to practice medicine (if they don't want to lose their shirts), they don't have a choice. 15 minutes in and out. No time to get to know their patients, no time to listen to the little old lady that just needs someone to talk to, no time to do anything but write a prescription and go on to the next patient. Now, when a doctor says, "That article on the internet is full of crap, you need surgery," people ask, "Why should I trust you? I don't know you."
If that doctor REALLY wants to know why people would believe an apocryphal story on the internet rather than him, he needs to look at the type of medicine he's practicing.
Note: This is not to blame him. Generally, with the reimbursement rates he's getting from the insurance plans with which he is signed, he is very limited in the amount of time he can spend with a patient. But the point remains: Speaking for myself, if someone wants to practice medicine on me, I have to trust them first. They've got lots of patients, but I only have one body. And the piece of paper on the wall saying M.D. only goes so far in building that trust.
my mom's a doctor... (Score:2, Interesting)
And so she has to go into pacification mode, trying to reason with the patient that he/she doesn't have lymphoma ( chills, swelling of the lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, unexplained weight loss, lack of energy, itching) but the normal, average cold virus.
Wonder why.... (Score:3, Interesting)
My Mother, 50 and a government employee, pays in excess of $500 per month for medical insurance.
While my Mother has had extensive medical problems, my Father hasn't even had a cold in almost 20 years. Let alone been to the doctor for anything other then checkups and physicals.
Please, tell me why I should trust a medical system that costs more then the lease on my fucking BMW?
Insurance companies charge insane premiums because doctors and hospitals charge insane rates. Doctors and hospitals claim they charge insane rates because of malpractice suits, etc etc..
But it all boils down to one simple fact: In the United States medical care is overpriced.
My son was sick, in Rogers, Arkansas, and we waited FOUR HOURS in the emergency room for a TWO YEAR OLD CHILD to be cared for. Why? Because the doctors were all busy. With what? NO ONE ELSE WAS THERE FOR FOUR HOURS! How much did that cost? $800. $800 to sit there waiting for four hours to get 20 minutes with a doctor.
More simply put: People don't trust you because you don't DESERVE to be trusted.
Here's a fancy example of Doctors being the wonderful men that they are: When I was sixteen I was in a car accident. My back was broke in three places. It took me NINE MONTHS to find a doctor who would treat me. Multiple times I was told by doctors that they do not see patients whos injuries are the subject of current litigation. (IE because I was suing the woman who hit me going in excess of 100mph I was going to be refused medical treatment)
I have no respect for Doctors. I think almost all of them are cowards, liars, and theives. It's no wonder why people have a hard time accepting a Doctors word for truth -- as all to often the Doctor is wrong; though no doubt I have yet to meet a Doctor who doesn't have a holier than thou "I can't be wrong I'm better than everyone else" attitude.
In my opinion, Doctors do nothing but steal from the lower classes in a large orchestrated insurance scam. Doctors scam the insurance companies, insurance companies scam the middle and lower classes.
Illegal immigrants all get free medical treatment and we all pay for it with higher taxes.
It's just FUN ALL AROUND!
Medical community also at fault (Score:2, Interesting)
Despite the characterisation as "traditional Western medicine based on scientific evidence", a lot of the modern medical community act like spoiled, petty tyrants and opportunists. Many of them are no more 'scientists' than the hippie herbalist in the next building. Western medicine has wasted the currency of trust they had in the 1950 and 1960s.
Bad doctors expect to be treated as gods, refuse to justify their decisions or allow them to be independently reviewed. They expect other doctors to keep their mouths shut when they are caught flagrantly screwing up, and justify stupid decisions resulting in fatalities as "consistent with current medical practice." And most doctors, even the best, -do- protect them.
HMOs treat people like cattle and no longer give the -good- doctors time to talk with their patients. They don't know their patients -names- half the time, let alone the details of their conditions.
Drug companies release inadequately tested drugs only approved for -one- condition, then market it for everything under the sun...until they need to recall the drug because of very public fatalities or debilitating side effects. And doctors collude with them, in return perks. They aren't knowingly recommending a -bad- treatment. They're just recommending it on information they ought to know is inadequate.
Researchers, in the push to "publish or perish", spin their results to indicate much more certainty than is justified...then other studies come out saying, "Oops; we were wrong. This earlier recommendation could actually kill you. Sorry, although we never actually -told- you to do this; we just printed studies showing how amazing it was. We're not culpable."
Sure, people look stuff up on the Internet. But -most- of them do it in order to get medical information that big business has made it almost impossible to get through traditional channels (the family doctor) and absolutely necessary to cope with the systematic -misinformation- of the drug companies and researchers.
It may seem like I don't like the medical community, but that's not true. I just wish the good professionals had found the cojones to take out the trash when they still could have.
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Definitely eat better food. If you feed your body shit, you'll end up a big bag of shit. Cut out the E-numbers and processed foods. Cut out the endless chocolate and crisps and burgers and sugar. Red meat's good. Full of iron and vitamins. Dairy's a great source of vitamins and protein, but stay away from that UHT shite. Learn to cook. Any excuses about not having time/money are bullshit. You have time you're just lazy.
2. That's another good point. I work in a grimy factory full of dirt, I exercise every day, eat fruit every day and I'm NEVER ill. I get the odd cold every other winter or so, that lasts perhaps a day. Don't use those kitchen/bathroom cleaners that brag about killing bacteria, and ignore all that crap about how filthy kitchens are, it's just scaremongering to sell Mr Muscle. I don't use any of that anti-bacterial crap and I never get food poisoning. I rarely fully-cook my meat. Over-cleaning is more dangerous than under-cleaning.
The only times I'm sick is when I drink a lot. And even then it has to be wine, that's the only way I can get enough alcohol down (beer fills me up, spirits irritate my mouth). And when I eat at McDonald's of course. Although I haven't been there in six years (the 'big mac' lasted in my stomach about half an hour, what the fuck do they put in those things?)
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:2, Interesting)
So don't be too surprised when people put there faith, that's right "faith", in other forms of medicine.
In our "faith based" medical system we are given magic pills for our mysterious diseases without knowing how they work or why we have the disease in the first place.
The doctors think we are too stupid to understand or be actively involved to choosing options in diagnosing and treating our problems.
Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a lot of valuable information about all kinds of diseases and medicine that should be available to us, and is with WebMD.
I am tempted to say that if you are stupid enough to diagnose yourself with some obscure disease from WebMD thats your own damn fault, but unfortunately a lot of really intelligent people do the same thing. The methods of problem solving we were taught in school seemingly is a perfect fit for diagnosing medical conditions, but blindly combining symptoms is now substitute for a doctors experience.
Personally, I think that the responsible thing for WebMD and the like to do is to disallow searching by symptom. That way if you know about the disease you can research it, but if your shakrahs are just out of alignment and you need to figure out whats wrong with you its more difficult.
Re:hook, line and sinker (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider their entry on the nursery rhyme "ring around the rosie." We have probably all heard that it is about the black plague. Although I do not affirm or contest this myself, Snopes contests it but with questionable evidence. In fact the evidence they use to discredit the claims that it is about the plague seems to discredit them. Observe:
Likewise, multiple meanings are claimed for the repetition of "ashes" at the beginning of the last line:
A representation of the sneezing sounds of plague victims.
A reference to the practice of burning the bodies of those who succumbed to the plague.
A reference to the practice of burning the homes of plague sufferers to prevent spread of disease.
A reference to the blackish discoloration of victims' skin from which the term "Black Plague" was derived.
The word "ashes" cannot be "a corruption of the sneezing sounds made by the infected person" and a word used for its literal meaning.
Either "ashes" was a corruption of an earlier form or a deliberate use; it can't be both. Moreover, the "ashes" ending of "Ring Around the Rosie" appears to be a fairly modern addition to the rhyme; earlier versions repeat other words or syllables instead (e.g., "Hush!", "A-tischa!", "Hasher", "Husher", "Hatch-u", "A-tishoo") or, as noted above, have completely different endings.
Is it just me, or do all those sound like sneezing. The sneezing a person afflicted with plague perhaps? They appear to have confirmed this interpretation, which interpretation undermines their whole argument.
So the lession is, just because they are cynical about rumors and urban legends, doesn't mean they are correct.
Doctor Supply/Demand (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in the pre-med track for 10 years, starting in junior high school, and the #1 lesson for everyone is that the system is designed to "weed out" most of the people who want to become doctors. The weeding isn't done on the basis of one's compassion, or one's committment to medical science, or even to one's skill at medical practice. In fact, those essential criteria aren't even in the game until college, or even med school. Along the way, it's just pure competition, mostly measuring how much abuse people will stand, from the program and from each other, before they quit. The system lets people study subjects that get relatively easier grades than do sciences, so they are more competitive numerically. In fact, practically everything that aspiring doctors must do to get into med school selects for people who just want to make a lot of money, are indifferent to the suffering of others (or who relish it), who discard curiosity and compassion in favor of absolute focus on the bottom line: protecting their time and money from any threat, including patients.
Sure, doctors have to deal with insurance (patient and malpractice, at each end) and other dehumanizing bureaucracies when they start to practice. But by then they're in the doctor supply, so it's only the prospect of that that inhibits "people people" from staying in the game. Not only does the med school track select for people ill suited to be "caregivers" (rather than mechanics or drug pushers), it just artificially reduces the supply of people trained to help other people's medical conditions. And of course our high-stress, high-pollution, bad-diet lives create ever more medical problems to treat. The combination supply/demand problem means not enough doctors to treat too many patients, driving up prices, and driving a wedge between the people who need some of the utmost intimacy to succeed in their relationship.
Doctors make a lot of money. Pharma and insurance companies make even more. It's practically all profit: the costs of running a doctor's practice are large only when counting their insurance, which is of course driven up by the supply/demand crisis. We should extract enough of those profits, especially from insurance and pharma companies, to double or triple the number of doctors. We should expand medical schools across the country. Require the top 20% of schools, which depend on public subsidies for their research (which they then sell for profit), to double the number of graduates they produce. We have at least that many people who want to be doctors, including foreigners who need retraining/recertification, that could change the supply picture within 5-10 years. And we should require every med student who receives government subsidies to relocate to an underserved community for at least as long as they were paid to go to school - usually at least 7 years. If they're going to cash in on socialist financing of their careers, the people should get what we pay for: more doctors for more people, not more golfers at Boston golf courses.
As Terry Pratchett said... (Score:2, Interesting)
--Maskerade
Personally, I feel like it has something to do with the source of the information. People automatically distrust doctors because they believe doctors have a vested interest in the outcome, whereas information on the Internet is of course provided free out of the goodness of strangers' hearts who have nothing to sell you.
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a little appendum, always wash your hands after using the bathroom including between your fingers, and up to your elbows after no. 2. Also, do use the anti-bacterial soap when you ARE sick, it will work better if you didn't use it before you were sick.
It's not because not doing it is gross, nor is it for keeping you healthy, it is for the health of the people you interact with. Hand and bandage washing is what extended lifespan in the 19th and early 20th century. It has had an impact comparable to the discovery of anti-biotics in the mid-20th century.
Oh, a bit offtopic, wash your fruit and veggies with a mild solution of soap, the soap removes waxy anti-fungals and anti-insect poisons. The poisons won't kill you (well they shouldn't), but the fruits will taste better. The poisons have a bitter taste, most noticable on sweets such as apples and strawberries.
That's because... (Score:3, Interesting)
We also have a massive epidemic of medical prescriptions for supposed A.D.D. kids. Did anyone ever stop and think that the A.D.D. kids might just be... I don't know... normal bored kids? I used to day dream in class a lot because the subject matter sucked. But I wasn't sitting there totally spaced even though it looked it. I was doing circuit design in my head for various projects (robots to kill the school bullies, bombs to blow up teacher's cars that I didn't like, remote display systems so that I could gain access to computer systems remotely during dull history tests, etc...). Or when I was wandering all over the place during basketball games in gym class... that wasn't A.D.D. That was just that I hate sports and find competition to be an abrasive characteristic. Cooperative games, I was all into. (You know. The thing like taking the parachute and throwing it up as a group and huddling underneath it and then throwing it up again and siting outside of it. Now that's my idea of fun sports.)
Then we have the problem of big pharma pushing antibiotics without warning people that they should be replenishing their G.I. tract with probiotics lest other horrific diseases infest your body. I had a very personal experience with this. Horrible sinus infections every year since my teens. So... the cure? Antibiotics. Sure I was happy and I got better, but I didn't realize the damage that was being done. Every year the sinus infections got incrementally worse and I had to take longer and longer course of antibiotics. Finally when I was in my late 20s, I was prescribed a new (and very dangerous) antibiotic in the Quinolone family. It was called Levaquin. After the first few days of taking it, I had unbelievable depression. I told my doctor that I thought it might be caused by the Levaquin even though it makes no scientific sense since antibiotics are not psychoactive. He agreed and said, just keep taking them. I did, and it just got worse and worse. After the 14 days, it took me about two or three months to start feeling normal again.
The next year, I had a really bad infection but didn't want to feel that horrible depression again. I did some searches on the net and discovered that other people were reporting depression caused by Levaquin in various forums. So I realized I wasn't alone. Unfortunately, I still had the sinus infection and still wound up taking antibiotics, but I was able to tell my doctor to skip the Levaquin. (Levaquin is being pushed hard right now because it supposedly has fewer side effects than other antibiotics) This time around, I got a horrible skin rash that was extremely uncomfortable. Again 10-14 days of antibiotics. But this time two weeks after the course ended, the sinus infection came back. So I was on the meds again for another 14 day course. An entire summer ruined.
The next year, same thing... Horrible sinus infection even worse than the previous year. I wound up doing still more reseearch on the net and found some information on systemic yeast infections. The symptoms were identical to mine and the root cause in many cases appears to be antibiotics. Even more research revealed that the company that makes Levaquin finally acknowledged that Levaquin can cause depression and suicidal thoughts in "a small number" of patients. Sorry, but ANY number of people with depression or suicidal thought is too large.
I had experienced the suicidal thoughts myself, but it's not connected to depression. It's actually a lot like a safety mechanism gets switched off in the brain and you forget very basic things you should be aware of to keep safe. I almost took a drill to my head because
Re:Funny but sadly insightful (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll stop there. Ok, so I won't.
The ailment is called "hypochondria". A person who has it is called a "hypochondriac".
"Hypochondriacism" would be worship of hypochondriacs.
I'll assume that the other misspellings and such are the product of typographical errors. As for what I can infer is the point of your post, that bad medicine causes hypochondria, you're just wrong.
You can't cure hypochondria through education. A hypochondriac has a specific need to gain sympathy or attention by complaining about ailments. It has nothing to do with how the ailment is treated, except for getting attention from another person. Where that need comes from probably varies with the individual, but that's what the ailment is. "I hurt, help me". Sometimes it's a cry for help out of a real situation that has no other physical symptoms.
When I'm sick, and it's bad, I see a doctor. I don't go to the chiropractor, I don't activate the "prayer chain" at church, and I don't go in for copper bracelets or other such.
Bad medicine is bad for people, but so is a monopoly on medicine. The AMA/FDA/pharmacorp cartel wants their way to be the only way, and as a result senior citizens have to choose between their meds and their mortgage. Oh well, just go into the nursing home - Medicare will cover that at $50/day, but won't pay for someone to mow the yard (which might be the one thing forcing someone out of their home).
I'm not for having the government mow yards. I'm saying that a little competition is ok. The placebo effect is very strong, and you can't create it for someone as well as they can for themselves. If someone decides they'd rather go to a faith healer (i.e, 100% placebo), what's that to you? It's their life, let them live it.
The more advanced our medicine gets, the more like magic it looks, to paraphrase Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Which magic do you trust? Who benefits more by treating you - some bimbo selling candles online or a doctor who doesn't know your name but knows your insurance company?
That doctor who complains that his patients trust a web site more than they do him ought to invest in a pair of blue jeans and an '85 GMC Sierra Classic. Be seen in that, instead of your Armani suit and Lexus.
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:3, Interesting)
You've got to be kidding. You think DOCTORS have fads of the week??? Jesus H., just take a look at all the people who AREN'T doctors and then you'll see real fads in action.
There's a saying (taken from an old SF writer) that 90% of what you read on the internet is crap. When it comes to health care, 99% of what you read on the internet is crap primarily because the people spewing it around in one big technicolor yawn don't have the first fucking clue what they're talking about. Most of this 'health care advice' is on par with astrology or crystal power.
While I'll be the first to admit (from personal experience) that there are doctors out there who should never have been awarded an M.D., I'll definitely give more weight to the advice of a doctor than I'll some internet idiot who's decided that he's qualified to dispense medical advice simply because he thinks his vast intellect outstrips that of every doctor in existence.
Max
Re:Modern education (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with you. But I disagree with most of your reasons.
I didn't really experience political bigotry at school. There were a few teachers/professors who were politically vocal; but I never felt it my academic success hinged on agreeing with a professor's politics.
My father is a professor of physics and astronomy. And though you would probably consider him a crack-pot liberal, I have never once heard him tell a story of how his lecture diverged into a discussion of terrorism or defense spending. But with increasing regularity he is being challenged to how explain modern astronomy in light of the "fact" that the Universe cannot be more than 6000 years old.
I'm all for keeping politics as far out of education as possible, except where that is the area of study. However, I believe there are already ethics standards and enforcement systems in most places which can be used to control this.
I hear far more about the problem of political bias in education than I ever experienced it. I think most of the political noise around the issue is mainly being used to push for things like ID and young Universe theory, and as a club to beat down voices which do not adhere to the party line.