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Meet Web Hypochondriacs
prostoalex writes "When Jerome K. Jerome in 1889 described going to the British Museum to read medical encyclopedia and subsequently finding symptoms of almost all diseases in his body, he didn't realize the problem would exacerbate more than a century later. Web hypochondriacs are calling up doctors with requests for prescriptions for all sorts of diseases, since they discovered some similar symptoms on the Web. Wall Street Journal quotes a doctor: 'My impression is that people believe more of what they read than what I tell them. It seems that traditional Western medicine based on scientific evidence is less and less trusted by the general public. Meanwhile, some dubious theory from the Internet will be swallowed hook, line and sinker nine times out of 10.' "
I think the web is making everyone out to gullable. We all need to remember that there is a lot of FALSE information on the web. I think this applies to other things other than medicine. The web is giving a false sense of knowlege.
The fact is, people are going to use the web when they are ill to look for information about the illness. The best thing to do is to provide reliable data, so they don't end up diagnosing themselves based on information they found on a blog. The user could enter symptoms, and a list of possibilities could be listed (as well as numerous messages telling them to go see a doctor). It would be similar to the program Lisa uses to diagnose Homer and Bart as lepers.
Voice your opinion!
WebMD is the worst thing to come along for Hypocondriacs since pneumoconiosis and other sesquipadelian afflictions.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Wall Street Journal quotes a doctor: 'My impression is that people believe more of what they read than what I tell them...
Of course! Because you're telling them things like "Stop smoking, don't drink so much, cut down the fat, get some excersize, brush your teeth and watch your diet". Who the hell wants to hear that? Websites aren't so much interested in your health as they are in getting ad impresions, so they probably aren't going to preach.
On the internet no one knows you're a fat lazy bastard with bad habits. [but if I were a betting man, that's where I'd put my money]
It's probably because almost all of the research is funded by corporations that make themselves sound good. I mean, I'd rather trust someone who I didn't know, but I considered a *regular guy* instead of a paid researcher who told what to find. I mean, word of mouth advertising versus reading magazine advertisements. I'd believe word of mouth more.
Luke
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Don't let your family be ignorant any more, send them to ChristianNerds.com (The Free Online Computer Encyclopedia)
I agree. I have many relatives who are online but not really technology savvy. Not a month goes by that I do not get CC'ed on some ridiculous email. I always go look it up on Snopes and do a reply to all with a link the Snopes article discrediting it. The thing that really gets me though, is a couple of times a year I will get one of these from someone who knows better. When I call them on it, I usually get the same response, "Well I figured better safe than sorry." Some how they just do not understand that by forwarding unsubstantiated false information they are perpetuating the problem.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
I won't go to the doctor partly because they are god damn retarded enough to give someone who has a viral infection an anti-biotic. The side effects to the medication the prescribe is rarely told to you(I was on one for a year that the side effect was kidney failure, yay).
Self-diagnosing makes people feel more in control of their health. People perceive doctors as authority figures who take control away from the patients. People do not perceive sources they find on their own as controlling (even though many of the sources do have their own agendas) so they adopt the source's explanation rather than the doctors.
The desire to feel in control is such a powerful drive that people will trade concrete benefits like money or expert advice for the mere illusion of control.
....and pharmaseutical companies are telling us every commercial break that things like heartburn, insomnia, and arthritis are threats to our very lives.
But still, a good reason to doubt your doctor.
How's that?
Medicine is hard. Doctors are human. Mistakes do happen. But they also know a whole lot more than you do. If you don't trust your doctor, to whom are you going to trust your health?
I suppose alarmism and Not Trusting The Man is easier.
It's true though.
And in my opinion, there are two things that lead to better health:
1. Eat good food. I'm definitely as guilty as the rest (probably more so since I TRULY know better) that having the fresh vegetables, cutting back on starches and excess red meat is just better for you and your body will tell you so every morning you wake up from a single day of eating well. Don't believe me? Just for ONE DAY eat some soup and salad staying away from stuff with dairy and such. Just one day and see how you feel in the morning. If you still feel like crap I'll admit that I'm wrong.
2. Don't be "TOO CLEAN." If you don't exercise, you will become weak and slow. If your immune system isn't kept busy, it will also become weak and slow. I see people go to great lengths to avoid this and that only to be stricken down by the most simple of viruses or bacteria. Quit taking freakin' anti-biotics and let your own immune system handle stuff (when possible). (I'll never forget how a sister-in-law proclaimed my sons needed anti-biotics because the had sniffles. It's insanity.) I still can't remember the last time I've actually been "sick." Had a minor reaction from some KFC recently but that's about it. You don't have to be disgusting about it, but resist doing too much and leave the "anti-bacterial soap" on the store shelves -- you don't need it!
I can't really empathize with doctors on this one. The last 4 or 5 times I've seen a doctor over probably the past 10 years, they have completely kept me in the dark with what's been wrong. I come in with congestion, or a cough, or a sore throat, and the result is always the same, they give me a new antibiotic, an inhaler, and some pseudophedrine.
I end up going to web md or some other website to do research and deduce what my symptoms point to. It seems like doctors no longer take the time to assess symptoms and determine what is actually wrong, they just dispense a few prescriptions, sign some paperwork, and send the patient on their way. It's not wonder that people want to get more info than what the MD profession is offering.
Hyponchondriac is nothing. Alternativ medicine is more dangerous in my eye : people really ill getting alternative treatment and dying. And the web make for an exponential propagation of those despite that they are if not all, mostly junk.
Just have a look at all those totally supersticious claim and alternative medicine : homeopathy, colorotherapy, herbotherapy, crytsllotherapy, fengshui... Indeed we are in a demon haunted world.
I think education is the only answer, but how can you educate people when part of them learn that ID/creationism must be thaught in their class with the same footing than evolutionism, people misappropriate the definition of a theory in science, downright lie or misuse term they do not understand to support their own unscientific pet peeve, or even politic is used to support religious activity, even if there is a separation of church and state, downright disrespect, to not say hate, of science in all its form inclusive medicine.
For all wanting to learn a bit and start fighting against obscurantism I recommend this : James Randi Education Fundation (JREF I think it is called).
I think before solving hyponcondiacism we have to solve the problem of people believing in all sort of crap, and teach the tenet of the scientific method, or even if it is too much, at least teach back respect of science !!!
Frankly in comparison hyponchondriacism is nothing. It does not propagate as much damage...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Another one (here in the UK) has been where someone is told that there is nothing that can be done for some problem only for them to find out using the web that something can be done about it (usually in another country).
A good example is this story about a baby born with a deformed head who was wrongly told that nothing was wrong and to live with the deformity. Thankfully, in the next four months the baby will be fine.
Not that I'm suggesting that all doctors get it wrong but once in a while the web has been a life-saver.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Maybe it's because this fact based medical science has lost much of it's luster due to the pharmaceutical industry lying about test results and pushing their pills through psychiatrists and doctors.
I was seeing a psychiatrist a number of years ago when I was a teen, and they recommended I take a certain medication. The drug they wanted me to take was called risperidone, it has been known to cause *permanent* facial ticks and twitches. My mother and I decided that that was a risk that we didn't want to take. So the psychiatrist proceeded to argue with my mother about this for nearly 10 minutes, nearly reaching the level of yelling, insisting that this was the medication I should take. We walked out and never went back.
I've been on drugs that have made me fat, while they were supposed to help with depression. I've been on drugs that have made me flip out when they were supposed to help with anxiety. The general mantra in the field is that you keep trying stuff till you find something that works. It is basically a sham with regard to most of the psychiatric drugs.
Then there are the other, medical drugs. You've got Vioxx, which kills people, Zoloft which makes people kill people... and a whole lot of other I can't remember. Prescription drugs are the fourth leading cause of death in America.
So you think people are going to believe a system set up to reap your money and sedate your soul over some vitamins and herbs? The simple fact of the matter is that HMO, insurace companies, and the pharmaceutical industry have replaced fact based scientific medicine with corporate profits. It's not that I don't trust science, it's that I don't trust 'science' that comes from the pharmaceutical industry. They have a proven track record of lying, and killing people for profit. Once we get back sensible regulations on the industry to prevent this sort of stuff then public trust will be restored in science based medicine over crap they read online.
My doctor freely admits that since medical information became accessible to anyone on the web his patients are often better informed about their specific problems than he is. Patients only need to focus on their specifc issues and are often highly motivated. The doctor still has the benefit of wider knowledge and more experience.
I know that some doctors feel threatened by this but he actually likes it. He believes an open an cooperative approach can be beneficial for both doctors and patients.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
You underestimate humanity. The desire for a quick fix is nothing new and it's not growing, it's been here for centuries and it will be here for centuries to come. It's part of the human condition. It just happens to be manifesting itself in slightly different ways because the world is slightly different today than it was 100 years ago. Today we take anti-virals (which happen to work, I can testify to this, thanks to my recurring bouts of shingles), 100 years ago we lined up for snake oil (which happens to not work).
Technology has advanced, our ability to create cures has advanced, our desire for a quick fix to our ailments (be that illness, or lack of money, or lack of knowledge, or boredom, or whatever else ails us) is the same as it ever was..
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
Granted, some B.S. seems to be slowly dying out - astrology and belief in space alien visitations, for example. But others seem absolutely rampant. We are awash in homeophathic medicine, claims of psychic powers, and on and on. And, yes, I include religion in this.
I guess rationality and empiricism just aren't cool these days. Perhaps people mistake skepticism with closed mindedness. Or perhaps, deep down, they just don't care whether what they believe is true or not.
This is a sign of a much bigger problem, many people in the US cannot afford the cost of official medicine, they're trying to find less costly alternatives.
In other countries with more or less socialized medical care (of widely varying levels of efficiency), doctors and transnational companies are trying to force the governments to have "American style" medicine, that is a carefully controlled supply of doctors, (high) prices set by medical associations, exclusive regions, constant effort to legally marginalize alternative medicine, profit-oriented control of your medical history, legally mandated medical procedures, and the creation of new categories of sicknesses that require new costly, patented medicine.
So, maybe there is some reason in not fully trusting all doctor's advice and look for a second opinion.
I think he has got it totally wrong. IMHO there is an ever widening gap between scientific evidence and medicine. Just pick out some common diseases and read the description in any standard textbook for them. And then check the "truth" in the book against the current research, e.g. by searching for the appropriate keywords at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=p ubmed. What you surely will notice is how little of even ten year old scientific research results ever makes it into the books. And, finally, try to find a doctor who at least knows what is in the books. Good luck!
As long as you only suffer from a few broken bones, a doctor may know what to do. But if it happens that you suffer from something not so obvious, better don't bet on your doctors scientific understanding! You may lose...
And, last but not least, modern medicine is about selling sick people expensive treatments, not about curing them. There would be no business case otherwise, or would it?
While this may be true, I don't know what's scientific about a typical Doctor's diagnosis. It's just practice of an Art, based on experience. Typically, a Doctor will not setup an experiment and often, they won't even run any kind of instrumented test, they'll just ask you what symptoms you have, make some notes and make a diagnosis.
I've seen several GPs, a couple of dermatologists, and an infectious disease specialist for the infection that keeps popping up all over my legs. Aside from the antibiotics, the things I've read about eczema on the web have helped me more than the vague advice given by the family doctors and dermatologists.
That's my experience as well. After 4 years of regular college and 4 years of memorization, doctors are given almost godlike esteem with little to no evidence of them deserving their godlike aura (aside from their pay).
I've often wished there was a service that graded or had some kind of feedback on the quality of a doctor, however, as I understand it, the buddy-buddy system inside of the medical community is so tight that the lack of good information to the general public is not a coincidence. A shady businessman can only go on so far until his reputation catches up with him. The number of doctors that have been found liable for malpractice multiple times keep practicing medicine. Its very rare that a doctor looses his license.
I think this idea of the quick fix is also causing a lack of mental responsiblity... There is no more accountability anymore, just people making more excuses and using unrelated medical information to give their problem a name.
This view of mental health that is invasive in our country, especially invasive in the conservative ditto head culture in our country, is perplexing to me.
My wife had gall stones and had to have her gall bladder removed. Do you doubt the validity of her medical condition?
My mother has hyperthyroidism, and has had to take a pill every day of her life since she was a teenager (and was diagnosed). Do you doubt the validity of her medical condition?
I often get the shingles, a recurrence of the Chicken Pox virus along one nerve bundle that results in a large crusty oozing rash along a thin band around one half of my body. Do you doubt the validity of my medical condition?
My friend had appendicitis and had to be rushed to the hospital to have his appendix removed. Do you doubt the validity of his medical condition?
If all of these conditions are medically valid, why is it so hard to believe that the brain, simply another organ in our body, like our thyroid, our gall bladder, our nerves, our appendix, our heart, or any other organ, is capable of being stricken ill? I doubt you would tell your friend with intense abdominal pain, or your father with shortness of breath and chest pains, that they were just imagining a condition to avoid accountability and that they are just making excuses.
Why do we look down on people with illnesses of the brain and not people with broken arms or heart disease or any other illness? The human organism is not perfect, sometimes the pieces of the puzzle that make us tick don't work the correct way. For some reason we've decided to single out a certain group, those with mental illness, and decide they are weak, while the ones with other ailments are perfectly fine.
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
As someone that has anxiety and depression problems, I agree. People are taking prozac to "cure" themselves of what would have been simple personality quirks 50 years ago.
The other side of the coin is that society is putting people in a position where any deviation from the personality norm will result in a reduction in quality of life, from causing someone to not be considered a "team player" at the office, to being harassed by people in their leisure time because they are different.
> I think education is the only answer
I think the modern education system is -part- of the problem.
They teach the students that 'there are no absolutely right answers' and 'people are entitled to their opinions', so that students don't realize that some things are demonstrably true and others are demonstrably false.
They teach students that there is no fundamental difference between information gathered from a poll of 100 random people on the New York subway system and the results of a laboratory experiment in controlled conditions.
They teach students that even though the subject of the class is english composition/world history/archaeology/moleculary biology, you'll really be graded on how well you agree with the instructor's view that "the real terrorism today is how America treats women/minorities/third world countries."
They teach students that the longer the list of degrees after your name, the more worthwhile the book you wrote.
Modern medicine wouldn't agree with the "burn them into insensitivity" strategy currently employed. Much more effective would be extra time spent learning more psychology, rather than "gut courses" which serve solely to eliminate candidates. Explicitly the psychology of the kinds of patients mentioned in this story. And conflict resolution. Then doctors could better manage their own stress, as well as that of their patients. The overall med school structure, with residencies etc, will still expose doctors to their "baptism by fire". But with more doctors, the fire will be less hot, and with better education (rather than sink or swim, no matter how hardened it makes your heart) they'll be better doctors. That's the whole point.
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make install -not war
Treat with extreme skepticism any so-called "health" web site that also sells products. (Notice all the affiliate links with kickbacks.) healingdaily.com is not a health resource, it's a business, and that's a major conflict of interest.