I had a patient last week who told me the story of her illness, ending with, “and then I looked it up online, and that was a bad idea.” She had found that some of her symptoms matched some pretty serious diseases, and suddenly she went from sick to sick and scared. Fortunately, after checking her out, I was able to reassure her that she did not, in fact, have a deadly disease, but merely a run-of-the-mill sickness.
This is not an isolated incident. Many of our patients look online to find clues to their symptoms, or answers to their health questions. Sometimes this works out well, sometimes not. It seems to depend on the person and the sites they use.
If you are someone whose mind gravitates towards the worst case scenario, you might want to avoid online health searches. I had one of these patients last week too, in fact. He knew himself well enough not to even get started looking online. Instead he came straight to the experts. Smart move.
If you can use the Internet to get initial information, or to arm you with some questions that you can then take to the clinic, by all means do your research. But please use reputable sites, and don’t expect the computer to take the place of a medical provider.
There are thousands of websites that offer health information.
Some of these are better than others. Remember, just because it is online does not make it true. Anyone can put anything on the web.
I have had patients tell me, “Well, I looked online and found x,” but they couldn’t tell me where they found it. You wouldn’t take advice about gourmet cuisine from a fast food fry cook, would you? Check the site’s credentials.
One way to screen a website is by looking at the domain name extension. That’s the part after the dot, like .com or .org. If you use websites with .org, .edu or .gov you will avoid the profit-driven .com sites, which can be riddled with ads and links to sites that just want to sell you something. That said, there are some really good commercial sites out there, like mayoclinic.com and UpToDate.com. That last is my personal favorite, used by many physicians to keep up with the latest in evidenced-based care, but it is not free.
I figured I’d step into my patients’ shoes, so I went online to WebMD, a favorite of many. They have a symptom search tool. I typed in “red eyes” and got a list of diagnoses from allergies to West Nile Virus. For “palpitations” it gave me a range from too much caffeine to thyroid storm, with panic and vitamin deficiency in between. A search on “skin bumps” resulted in razor burn to skin cancer. How can someone with no medical knowledge make any sense of this?
I recommend you think of online searching as a starting point. A general, impersonal starting point, a first step on the road to accurate diagnosis and treatment. You can find all kinds of particulars online, but one thing the Internet cannot do is get to know you. This is rather an important point. When you see a health practitioner, we put together our knowledge of medicine with our knowledge of you. Each person is different, and each medical problem is different. Putting it all together requires a trained and very human brain.
Nobody likes to be sick, but sick and scared is extra unpleasant.
Use the Internet wisely, get care when you need it and soon you’ll be well and happy.
Dr. Peggy Spencer is a physician at Student Health and Counseling. She is also co-author of the book “50 Ways to Leave Your 40s.” Email your questions directly to her at pspencer@unm.edu. All questions will be considered, and all questioners will remain anonymous.
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