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Doctor Lissa
Health Care ExaminerDr. Lissa is a healthcare professional with over 30 years experience. From the bedside to the boardroom, she has seen it all, and here she'll help you make sense of your health and the industry built around it.
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Internet Diagnosis: Miracle Cure or Snake Oil?
2 comments
by Doctor Lissa, Health Care Examiner
A common question: Should you tell your doctor what you have found on the internet and tell him or her what you think your diagnosis is? My vote is no, because you might mislead them and/ or get conned in the process. I'd keep it to myself until you give them a chance to discover the diagnosis for themselves. By all means educate yourself on a diagnosis once you have it. Read everything you can about the condition, treatment and how you can reduce symptoms. But give the health care professionals a chance to figure it out before you give them your hypothesis. Why? Well, all medical advice on the internet is not current or factual. Much of it is needlessly frightening or designed to sell you a product you don't need. You can work yourself into a tizzy thinking you have something terrible only to find out that its minor, and who needs that stress?
While there are no perfect websites, I'd limit myself to sites with web addresses ending in .gov or .edu. These are likely to be more reliable than commercial sites which could be anyone in their basement or some con artist trying to sell you something. Examples to check include www.cdc.gov
or www.health.nih.gov. The Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and John's Hopkins websites are also good sources of information.
If you have reason to believe your physician or NP isn't sure or is looking for more information, then offer information you've learned or hunches you have based on your history. If this doesn't go well I'd consider getting a second opinion. I personally think the more informed you are the more likely you are to work with your provider and that's never a bad thing. Just be careful as there are a lot of scam artists and snake oil salesmen out there.
Topics: health care , doctors
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