Medical diagnosis on the internet (Choose Your Own Adventure)

As a trained nurse I do think people should have as much information about their condition and how to keep as healthy as possible but for the patient/clinician relationship to work properly there has to be trust. I would recommend that if people are looking for more information firstly to ask their clinician for it and also to use the www.nhs.choices website which is up to date.

I have a BIL who was a Head Teacher which in his view seems to make him clinically qualified. He has multiple imagined ailments for which he regularly consults his GP demands second opinions right and left, looks everything up on every site possible and then challenges to the doctors. According to him they keep telling him how clever and how right he is!!! He is costing the NHS a fortune for numerous unnecessary investigations. Why no-one mentions Munchausen's to him is a mystery to me.

I once did an NHS online symptom checker. I had all the symptoms and made an appointment with the Doctor. He sat at his desk and proceeded to ask me questions, I looked at his screen and saw that he was using the same symptom checker that I had been viewing! It didn't give me a lot of confidence! However, he gave me the expected medication. I don't use the internet anymore!

My daughter's mother in law does this all the time, not something I would do, very silly and could be very dangerous.

I belong to a Facebook support group for the cancer that DH has. The first advice we always give to new members is DON'T GOOGLE! The problem being that a lot of the information they find is terribly out of date and makes them think they'll be dead within weeks.

I don't research anything before being given a diagnosis by GP, however once I know what I've got I will look it up to see how best to look after myself. I am Epileptic & have Type 2 Diabetes so any thing else is a concern. My previous GP was very good at printing off information for me to read at home.

galen . Thanks for amusing responses.

I have written about this before, when I was still working and commuting in to work, I seemed to have every symptom for every cancer depending on which campaign poster I saw every day on the train - February was e.g. bowel cancer, July was skin cancer, October was breast cancer, November was prostate ... oh, hang on!

I've learnt to stay away from Google since the time I had a pain in my side, and Google told me it was a parasite!

[By the way: I am not being flippant about cancer. After my mother died from lung cancer (having never smoked at all), I had serious health anxiety around getting cancer, hence the effects of reading the posters on the train].

Sorry, meant DD not DH! Having a bit of a so-called senior moment....

Dr Google is a menace. My DH suffers from health anxiety and tries to resist the temptation to look things up online, but often succumbs and is then more anxious than ever. She always says "I just wanted some reassurance," though she knows that it is never, ever reassuring - just the opposite.

Health anxiety is very draining and has caused us a lot of misery, but my DH has enough self-awareness to be amused by Three Men In A Boat's lament that the narrator had every complaint in the encyclopaedia "except housemaid' knee."

As soon as the internet came along, my mum got on it and started looking up symptoms. I loved it when she announced she definitely had testicular cancer!

Three men on a boat is funny but I find Three men on the Bummel even funnier.

I brought my children up on the premise 'beware over-generalisation'! We humans of necessity extrapolate from the few to a broad conclusion and then observe its accuracy/usefulness. This post spoke to me of the importance of 'health awareness education'. Not least to educate the vulnerable (esp 'bears of little brain') to steer clear of habits and practices that damage their bodies! In general ignorance is NOT a good thing for health (and the cost to the NHS) but this then begs the question about effective education/awareness raising about medical matters/consequences. PSHE ought to be tackling it...

At the time of DH's surgery on an infected knee, (which thankfully healed fully) I made the mistake of undertaking online research into the word streptococcal. Never again!

I agree with your daughter tish a lot on net is out date as well .

I'm very guilty of this,I do it with all the families ailments.My DDS even ask me now to look up certain things for there families.
I even tell the Dr that I've done my research and I think I've got so and so and 75% of the time it's correct.

My father who was a GP said that while he was studying at university he automatically found all the symptoms of the disease or condition that the professor had been lecturing on. He never was suffering from any of the things he thought he was.

He realised how silly he was being, when it dawned upon him that he had never managed to convince himself he was pregnant.

Hearing him tell the story, I was always glad that it was him and not my mother who was the doctor!

To quote my daughter- 5 years at medical school, 2 years training, 8 years as junior doc/registrar, still not quite a consultant ....- "do not confuse your google search for my medical degree!"

If you mentioned any disease to my mother, she'd either
Got it
Had it or
Knew someone who'd died of it

Before the internet, my late husband - a terrible hypochondriac at the best of times - bought himself a self-diagnosis book. The family would joke that he had pages 37-95. I dread to think what he would have been like with the internet, bless him!

Our family has a genetic condition which has a spectrum of problems. One thing for sure is that my sisters only seem to get the worst of them after reading about them on t'internet

My DH is a bit bad for searching for symptoms on the internet - me personally I find it most useful after a GP/specialist diagnosis to find out more information on a particular condition. My DH was diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis and did a search - most of what came up was to do with pancreatic cancer and did nothing for his anxiety condition so I've banned him from searching for medical information now. I'll look it up for him and not let him see until I find some sensible results. The meem posted by the OP might sound like a joke but its not far removed from the truth unfortunately :D

Love it! thank you Grannyk.
I use the internet doctor to give me extra information on stuff that I or the family already have, and I find it reassuring to have more on the particular condition. e.g. DGD2 has something called NF1, which is horrible, so I can check what is "normal" for her genetic condition.
But then, I like to know "everything"...

We once did some research online to try and found out what was causing some pain my husband had. Unfortunately the result was a dropped womb!! At least we had a good laugh which took his mind off the pain for a short while.

It has worked the other way for me and many others with obscure illness. I worked out what I had from reading about it online, was told by various doctors I was talking rubbish, only to find out 4 months later that I was right all along.

I firmly believe internet research is very valid if you are sensible and measured in your approach. Often it's best to go to,Gp with an idea of what you think you may have even if it's going to get ruled out.
Diagnosis is often through process of elimination.
GP will often consult the internet to get the guidelines . They often have no idea or send us down the wrong path and sometimes they miss out on early diagnosis.
We have a responsibility for our health. If you have a symptom you can make measured decisions about whether it is minor or major .you need to find the right websites and cross reference.

it's so true