Googling health problems

[croyde]

Whenever I Google a health problem, all I ever get are pages and pages of forum style sites where someone has the same problem and all the posters say they have the same thing but there is never a solution posted.

They all seem to be mainly American sites as well

Suppose one should see a doctor but it just amazes me that no one ever posts "I had that and my doctor gave me........."

Just saying.

[fatboy b]

I had a suspected problem with my eyes last year. Doctor refered me and said under no circumstances look it up on the internet. After I was given the all-clear, I did look it up

[Engineer1]

There is a reason doctors do a medical degree rather than just getting given: www.google.com and being told to go with the consensus. Also it's only the people who are at the extremes that are likely to write about it.

[Hoofy]

Engineer1 said:

There is a reason doctors do a medical degree rather than just getting given: www.google.com and being told to go with the consensus. Also it's only the people who are at the extremes that are likely to write about it but they're usually dead.

EFA?

[devnull]

I don't google health problems anymore, except for perhaps a little diagnosis from NHS direct.

All the other sites tell me i've got cancer or am pregnant. Bit difficult seeing as i'm a male.

[BliarOut]

It's cancer, it's always cancer even if its only an ingrowing toenail

[jamoor]

fatboy b said:

I had a suspected problem with my eyes last year. Doctor refered me and said under no circumstances look it up on the internet. After I was given the all-clear, I did look it up

Got told this once too.

[croyde]

Yet when I go to the doc he looks up the same sites I do and agrees with MY diagnoses

[SebastienClement]

Yet sometimes it is perhaps a good thing.

My mother suffered from very bad migraines - not the headaches - but extreme dizziness and vision problems. They exhausted every test they had and concluded nothing was the matter.

In the end Google suggested the same meds that epileptics take - which solved it almost overnight!

[SunDiver]

A consultant told me not so long ago...

"The Internet can be helpful when you've got a diagnosis. It is not helpful if you're looking for a diagnosis"

While a generalisation, I think this is likely to be true more often than not.

All searches lead to something bad, usually cancer, in my experience.

[jagracer]

My wife is a risk manager at a hospital, basically deals with complaints. People Google problems and then think they know more than the doctors, some of the things they come up with and sometimes do are amazingly stupid.

[Mojooo]

on the flipside, i have used the net find info when the surgeon was wrong. if i didnt have the net i woudl have had to rely on the surgeons knowledge. i was right to persist as another surgeon cofnirmed my own doubts

[Tiggsy]

I've used google for 2 things my doc didnt pick up and I found info suggesting it could be worse than they thought (or fixable when they said it wasnt) - both resulted in surgery so this wasnt mucking about!