There was a fresh face in the hallways of MEDSEEK this summer - Luke Wilson, a rising high school senior who interned with our sales and marketing departments. He worked with sales operations to understand the current market place and helped research new marketing campaigns before returning to California to start his senior year. Luke wrote a few blogs from his newly acquired, unique perspective: that of a 17-year-old who grew up in a world that always had email, the internet and cell phones and got an inside look at the current state of the healthcare system. This is the final post of his three-part blog series:
Everyone knows about medical information sites like WebMD.com. In fact, 8 in 10 internet users look online for health information. That makes it the third most popular online pursuit behind following e-mail and using a search engine (according to Pew Internet & American Life Project). So it's no surprise that self-diagnosis is a very common thing.
However, there is a fine line between having access to the right amount of information and making sense of too much information. There is a point when there is so much information out there that we think we can answer any question. To an extent this is true, but when it comes to your health, and the many variations of issues that could cause one symptom, I think it is best to be cautious. Here’s a personal experience that brought me to this conclusion:
I was outside, playing tennis, when I got an extreme bout of dizziness. It went away, so I brushed it off, but when it came back just a few minutes later, accompanied with a dull, nauseating headache, I decided to go look the symptoms up.
- Diagnosis #1: The flu or cold. It was possible that I could have some illness, but I thought I would be getting the chills or some other indicator by now. On to the next diagnosis.
- Diagnosis #2: Diabetes. Yikes! This one was a little scary, but I decided to discard it since I’m active, eat healthy, and have no family members with diabetes. By now I was not only suffering dizziness and a headache, but all I wanted to do was sleep. So I added sleepiness to the list of symptoms in my search.
- Diagnosis #3: Brain tumor. It all matched up. I had recurring dizziness, a headache, some nausea, and was extremely tired. Now I was scared.
I went to my doctor’s and told him the string of events that led me to my self-diagnosis of brain tumor. He checked my pulse, took some blood, and checked my blood pressure, which looked below average. After noticing the low blood pressure, he left the office. Panic began to kick in. One minute later he came in with a glass of water and handed it me. He said, “Before we go through an MRI, try drinking 8 of these a day for the next week, then come back and tell me how you feel.”
… Seriously? I just went through a day of life-threatening panic, and I was dehydrated? Yep.
So, if a conclusion is necessary, sites like WebMD are great for getting information, but I know I will leave the diagnosing to the professionals.
Read all of Luke's Blogs:
Comments