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OPINION – It has happened to all of us. You notice something wrong with your body, and you start evaluating the symptoms. Fever? Check. Nausea? Check. Aches? Check. You realize you are getting sick and panic mode starts to set in. You think “What could I possibly have?” You hope it’s nothing too terrible otherwise you are going to have to spend the rest of the week forcing yourself to go to class feeling awful and not being able to focus anyway, and you can just forget about that rager you planned on going to Thursday night.
You decide you have to fix this, but you do not want to make a trip to the doctor to spend hours waiting to be seen and then told you are too sick or too contagious to do anything. So what do you do? Go to WebMD.com and type in your symptoms to figure out what you have of course. Big mistake.
WebMD is the worst Web site ever. No matter what symptoms you type into the little search engine in the top, you get the worst-case scenario. It always gives you some disease that is super serious and can sometimes cause death, especially if it goes untreated such as Lyme disease. Typical answers that WebMD generates are cancer, diabetes, STDs, Lyme disease, the flu and ringworm. No big. You’re only suffering from a terrible illness.
I had the misfortune of discovering this Web site about two years ago and, being the paranoid person that I am partially due to an overload of House, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, I thought WebMD would be a viable resource. I could not have been more wrong. I have had to go the doctor three times since finding this Web site because it somehow had me convinced me I was dying.
Winter break 2008 I found a weird bump on my shin. I WebMD’d my issue, and it told me I had bone cancer. So obviously I started freaking out. I made my mom get me a doctor’s appointment that same day. I ran into my doctor’s office panicking and explaining to her that I most definitely had bone cancer. She felt the bump on my shin and looked at me shaking her head. She said it was just a calcium deposit, most likely acquired from getting hit hard on that spot, which made sense considering I play lacrosse and get hit with the ball all the time. I got a lecture to never self-diagnose and to stay off the Internet. I felt pretty stupid.
You would have thought I learned my lesson after that, but sure enough, the following summer I found a small rash on my lower back. I looked up the symptoms, and it told me I had Lyme disease. I did not remember getting bit by a tick, so I decided to Google Image the disease. After examining the pictures and my rash, I determined there was no way I did not have the disease. I just remember thinking “Oh my God. My rash looks exactly like that.” I went to the doctors the following day. After taking one look at it she told me that I definitely did not have Lyme disease. She said it looked more like an allergic reaction. Turns out I am allergic to the material that one of my belts is made out of. I was pretty sure my doctor thought I was crazy by now.
The last time I went to the doctor was during the Swine Flu scare, which I felt was legitimate. I was fatigued, had a fever and my ear was killing me, plus WebMD told me I had the flu. After spending maybe 10 minutes in a Wardenburg examination room the doctor concluded I merely had a cold, and I should get more sleep. Oh yeah, and I got the “stay off the Internet” lecture again.
Some might call me a hypochondriac, but I just consider myself an innocent bystander who was maliciously tricked by this Web site. Moral of the story: It really is better to just stay off the Internet.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Nicole Zimbleman at Nicole.zimbleman@colorado.edu.
1 comment
Nicole, you should be skeptical of everything you read or hear, including the opinion of your MD.
I might be misinterpreting an article written in jest as one intended to convey useful information to your readers, but anyone who actually expects a questionnaire filled out on any web site, regardless whether it be WebMD or the Mayo Clinic or the CDC, to result in a definitive diagnosis of anything is gullible in the extreme. Likewise, anyone who accepts without question any MD’s initial assessment of positive or negative for one of the more serious diseases with non-specific symptoms, such as Lyme, MS, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, etc., is also gullible, and in potential danger of a misdiagnosis leading to serious, possibly life-threatening consequences. The MD has the benefit of actually examining the patient, but the MD can still be wrong.
WebMD doesn’t “tell” you anything. It should be used simply to provide the patient with a list of possibilities to further research (yes, most likely on the web, but with a critical eye and a skeptical mind) and to ask the doctor about. Medical diagnosis is most often a process of eliminating possibilities, no matter how remote, to eventually be able to focus on the most likely culprit. It’s important that all the possibilities be considered, especially by the MD, rather than rushing to a premature conclusion. The informed patient needs to know what to ask the doctor and needs to have at least enough background knowledge about the possibilities to be able to communicate intelligently with the medical practitioners.
That’s what WebMD is all about. WebMD was never intended to be the source of a definitive diagnosis. The many disclaimers on WebMD continually reinforce the point that you should see a doctor for any actual diagnosis. To proclaim that you were “maliciously tricked by this web site” misinforms your readers into thinking there is something underhanded going on at WebMD.com. In fact, in your haste to rush to a diagnosis in your own case, you simply failed to recognize the purpose of the site.