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Self-Diagnosis in the Age of the InternetBY: Guest User | Category: Health | Submitted: 2010-02-24 19:49:20
Your back aches, you have a recurring headache, and you just feel like sleeping all the time. Though you can think of reasons each of these might have come up (you did just lift those heavy boxes at work today, and the kids were extra loud tonight), there may be extreme consequences for relying solely on self-diagnosis. Not too long ago, when we were in pain or didn't feel well, we would go to our doctor to get checked out. Most of the time, the issue would end up being something relatively simple. With a quick prescription or an admonition to eat better and exercise more, we would be sent on our way. This seemingly simple issue and the rising cost of health care has made it all the more enticing to do the majority of our medical diagnosis and treatment by ourselves at home. The one piece that was missing from this picture is our ability to cross-reference our symptoms with the illnesses that it might be associated with. With the availability of the internet and web sites like WebMD, this hurdle has been taken down. On webMD.com, you can check your symptoms, read up on medical advances, take numerous self-assessment and informational quizzes, and read articles on almost any medical subject that you can imagine. The symptom checker is perhaps the most interesting feature on the web site. When we enter the problems that we described above, WebMD narrowed the issues down to (gulp!) twenty different conditions: brain aneurysm, muscle strain, kidney stones, broken (fractured) shoulder, acute kidney failure, osteomyelitis (bone infection), depression (adult), excessive caffeine use, singles (herpes zoster), asthma (teen and adult), anemia (chronic disease), anemia (iron deficiency), chronic kidney disease, cocaine abuse, dementia in head injury, depression (postpartum), dermatomyositis, emphysema, helicobacter pylori infection, and hydronephrosis. Yikes. While many of these can be eliminated (haven't had a baby recently? It's most likely not postpartum depression), there are still perhaps too many options to make an accurate self-diagnosis. And when the severity of the condition varies from excessive caffeine use to a brain aneurysm, there doesn't seem like much of a reason to just deal with the symptoms at home for a while. And yet, this kind of self-diagnosis still appeals to us. For one thing, the cost of going to the doctor can be prohibitive. When you take into account the copays and amount it takes to make your deductible (that's assuming you even have health insurance), you may prefer to just stay home if you can. Self-diagnosis also gives us a sense of anonymity and self-preservation. If you are going to a doctor's appointment, it's important to share everything about your health. Withholding information can potentially hurt you or cause your condition to get worse. Many people, though, are embarrassed about their health condition or don't want to complain about little things that don't seem relevant. When it comes to self-diagnosis, tools like WebMD may be helpful in explaining certain issues to you or giving you an idea of the scope of the injury or illness that you have, but ultimately your cooperation and assertiveness with the professional doctors, nurses, and physician assistants will give you the tools and experience necessary to make the proper assessments about your health. Article Source: http://www.writearticles.org/ About Author / Additional Info: Comments on this article: (0 comments so far)
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