It’s not too late for a New Year’s resolution, is it? I am making one that you may want to adopt.
This year, I will not — NOT — search the internet for medical information.
I will no longer visit Dr. Google. I will break up with WebMD. I will cancel all appointments with healthline.com, NIH.gov, and CVS.com.
I swear it. No clicks. No scrolling. No key search words. Not because medical websites are useless. To be fair, many contain a good deal of information.
Too much information.
Way too much information.
And most of us, including me, don’t know when to stop reading.
Last year, I had a tingling in my foot. I thought, “That’s harmless enough. There must be a home remedy.”
So I Googled it. And I came upon a site that said — in the very first paragraph! — something like, “When people get a tingling in their foot, they often think they have multiple sclerosis. But it can be many other things.”
Whoa! What the heck? It never entered my mind that I had multiple sclerosis! But after that click, the idea never exited. I spent many sleepless nights until I was finally able to visit a doctor who said, quite simply, that I had it all wrong. The foot tingling was from a slight nerve compression in my leg, and a few choice therapy exercises would make it go away.
Which eventually it did. I got my foot back to normal. What I never got back were all those days I had pegged myself as a certain victim of a severe disease.
That wasn’t the only time. Over the years, I have overreacted to indigestion (thought it was esophageal cancer), tension headaches (thought it was a brain tumor) and a strained muscle (thought it was lymphoma.) All because I used the web as my doctor.
No more. I am locking myself out. I don’t care how many updates the Cleveland Clinic posts.
Maybe we know a little too much
Let’s face it. The internet was designed by sadists. The kind of people who enjoy watching a man search site after site until he is certain that his slightly persistent headache means a parasite is living in his brain.
Which, if you read far enough down some web page, you’ll find. The problem is simple. Since the web can’t diagnose you, it provides all the information in the world to diagnose yourself. And I mean ALL the information.
But most of us are terrible at self-diagnosis. First of all, how do we know which site to trust? The web is chock full of amateur physicians whose pages sit right alongside those of the Mayo Clinic. Some are just trying to sell you supplements or a clinic visit. Which leads to massive confusion. You could easily search under “burping” and find every cause from Mexican food to heart disease.
Even worse is what we do once we think we know what we have. The typical medical website offers a multitude of action steps. These can range from homeopathic to idiosyncratic. From ice packs to avocados. From “spend 30 minutes on these breathing exercises” to “see your surgeon immediately!”
And then comes the lists of medications. Talk about a rabbit hole. Many pills, thankfully, require a prescription. But there are enough over-the-counter remedies to try one after another with nothing but the internet to guide you. So you do what you think is smart, right? You read …
… the side effects.
Ooh. Bad move. Terrible move. There are “common side effects,” “less common side effects,” “severe side effects,” “rare side effects.”
On the same list for a single medication you can find:
Constipation.
Diarrhea.
Sleepiness.
Sleeplessness.
Depression.
Anxiety.
Talk about covering your bases.
The internet doesn’t make everything better
Recent studies show that upwards of 80% of Americans have used the internet for medical information. Considering there are 330 million of us, that’s a lot of visits to Dr. Google. And they don’t even have magazines in the waiting room.
Then again, reading Time or Newsweek while waiting for a physician was a better pastime than clicking yet another page, opening another chart or scrolling another online comment from someone who “thought I had a blister — until it turned out to be a malignant tumor.”
The biggest problem with Internet doctoring is that it can scare the bejesus out of you — for no reason. You end up with a laundry list of possible causes for your back pain, stomachache, ear ringing or finger numbness, and most likely they are nowhere close to the truth.
Then you arrive with all this information at a doctor’s appointment, and despite what they may tell you, you still think the web may be more correct.
The medical field is not blameless in this problem. It takes so long to get an appointment with certain physicians — and, depending on your insurance situation, can be so costly — that many people choose the do-it-yourself method. Especially when it comes to things folks are reluctant to discuss, like depression, obesity or erectile dysfunction.
And many of the sites that confuse people are posted by major hospitals and physicians’ groups. Perhaps they think they are providing a service. But when you post all the information about everything — from harmless discomforts to life-threatening conditions — you’re expecting people to be discerning in how they use it, and, simply put, we’re not that smart. We’re not doctors. We overreact. We misinterpret. We clutch onto one line and ignore the others.
Which is how my foot tingling became an unnecessary nightmare. And why I am stepping out of the arena. Covering the keyboard.
This year, when it comes to maladies, I resolve to stay away from search engines, wait and see if the situation persists, and be patient until a human professional sees me in person.
Of course, the next time I get a strange headache, or a funny feeling in my chest, the computer will no doubt begin to whisper seductively, “Psst! Over here! I can give you an answer in 30 seconds!”
And many of the sites that confuse people are posted by major hospitals and physicians’ groups. Perhaps they think they are providing a service. But when you post all the information about everything — from harmless discomforts to life-threatening conditions — you’re expecting people to be discerning in how they use it, and, simply put, we’re not that smart. We’re not doctors. We overreact. We misinterpret. We clutch onto one line and ignore the others.
Which is how my foot tingling became an unnecessary nightmare. And why I am stepping out of the arena. Covering the keyboard.
This year, when it comes to maladies, I resolve to stay away from search engines, wait and see if the situation persists, and be patient until a human professional sees me in person.
Of course, the next time I get a strange headache, or a funny feeling in my chest, the computer will no doubt begin to whisper seductively, “Psst! Over here! I can give you an answer in 30 seconds!”
Which is why I am hanging a note just below my screen: This device can be hazardous to your health!
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom.
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