Rachel Martinez searched online for more information about was going on in her body after she had visited the doctor for an illness.

“There are a lot of interesting things there,” Martinez, 33, said.

After she found out what she had, she wanted to learn all she could about the illness and the body’s immune system, she said.

But before she went to the doctor’s office, it didn’t even cross her mind to look on the Internet for a diagnosis. the kind of sickness she felt told her to see a doctor right away.

There is a vast collection of medical information available online, and a growing number of people are using it to diagnose their own physical ailments, without consulting a professional.

“You do see the younger generation access that more easily,” said Dr. Dolores Gomez about medical websites. “It should not replace medical care.”

There are some bogus websites out there that have the wrong information or prescribe certain treatments and medications because they are under contracts with pharmaceutical companies. there are also those surfers who look up the wrong combinations of symptoms and end up believing, or wanting to believe, they have a simple cold, when they could really have something a lot more serious, said Gomez, a physician at the Southern New Mexico Family Medicine Clinic.

In a recent survey of visitors to the online coupon site couponcodes4u.com, about 74 percent of nearly 2,000 people surveyed said they prefer to self-diagnose online. of those who have used the Internet to diagnose themselves, about 33 percent say they did it because they were too embarrassed by their symptoms and 31 percent said they were too busy to visit a doctor. when asked if, after self-diagnosing, they went to the doctor, 68 percent said yes.

Of those who did, 87 percent said their diagnosis was wrong.

Younger people — who are typically the Internet users who diagnose themselves — often believe they are healthy and at the prime of their physical selves. when something ails them, they simply turn to the Web, believing nothing is too serious or deserves a trip to the doctor’s office.

People also choose website diagnosis over seeing the doctor because of the cost of a doctor’s visit and treatment, or the lack of health insurance.

Some children and teens may also turn to the Internet to find out what is wrong with them when they have questions about sex or sexually transmitted diseases. they might not want to visit their family doctor, but they always have their school-based health centers and the local New Mexico Department of Health, in Las Cruces located at, 1170 N. Solano Drive, Gomez said.

Gomez has also seen a couple of her patients also turn to the Internet for cheaper herbal and natural medicines to use in place of what she initially prescribes for them. Sometimes these medicines found online could work, and she’s fine with that, as long as she knows about them, but there are risks of finding something that has no effect or could cause harm and costly treatment.

“You always have to have that open line of communication with a patient,” Gomez said.

Some patients print out what they find, so they can talk about it at their appointment. Gomez said some doctors even print things out from these websites to give patients as a source of additional information.

If you experience chest pains, or wounds and infections that don’t heal within a week, these symptoms should never be ignored and should be checked out right away by a physician.

Andi Murphy can be reached at amurphy@lcsun-news.com or (575) 541-5453.

Reliable sources

Though you should always see you doctor if something is out of the ordinary, here are a few websites that are trustworthy. Most of the time a website ending in “.org” or “.gov” can be excellent sources of information. Most of these websites will tell you that their information should not be used to self-diagnose or replace a visit to the doctor.

WebMD at webmd.com

American Academy of Family Physicians at aafp.org

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at cdc.gov

New Mexico (or any state) Department of Health at health.state.nm.us

American Diabetes Association at diabetes.org

American Heart Association at heart.org

American Cancer Society at cancer.org

Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.The information contained above is intended for general reference purposes only. it is not a substitute for professional medical advice or a medical exam. always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health professional before starting any new treatment. Medical information changes rapidly and while Yahoo and its content providers make efforts to update the content on the site, some information may be out of date. No health information on Yahoo, including information about herbal therapies and other dietary supplements, is regulated or evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and therefore the information should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease without the supervision of a medical doctor.

Claire Eden worried increasingly about the sores in her husband’s mouth. She thought he might have oral cancer or something equally serious and repeatedly told him to visit the doctor, but he wouldn’t go.

So Eden took her husband’s health into her own hands.

“I just started Googling ‘mouth sores’ and something caught my eye about cinnamon gum,” the Buckhead resident says. “I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness,’ because he had recently been chewing a lot of cinnamon gum.

She perused tales of those who reacted poorly to the product. some developed sores on the walls of their mouth, their lips, their tongue. even swelling. The descriptions of their maladies matched her husband’s problem.

He switched to Wrigley’s Spearmint and his sores disappeared almost immediately.

Eden figures she saved herself a chunk of change by going online to diagnose her husband. “At least a co-pay,” she says, and maybe hundreds more had a doctor run expensive tests.

This is the allure of so much medical information bobbing at one’s fingertips: hospital, government and nonprofit websites, blogs, news stories, Facebook, Twitter. The potential to self-diagnose — and save a few bucks — is greater than ever.

That also means the ability to misdiagnose is greater than ever.

For the patient and the doctor, arriving at an accurate diagnosis can be like a game of “guess who?” says Dr. Erica Brownfield. but patients are less likely to know the right questions to ask.

“It’s hard when you don’t have the medical training and background to figure out, ‘how do I fit the pieces of the puzzle together?’ to come up with the correct diagnosis,” says the Emory general internist. She suggests patients pinching their pennies try calling their doctor first. if symptoms are minor, the physician might advise waiting it out or recommend home remedies.

Doctors, however, also have witnessed a wave of patients who research, self-diagnose and worry themselves into believing they have a more serious condition than they actually do.

Mableton resident Leigh Anne Rehkopf was between jobs and couldn’t afford to see a doctor, much less purchase expensive drugs or treatments, if needed.

“I woke up one morning with the most incredible headache at the base of my skull,” Rehkopf says. “I was like, ‘I have meningitis’ — not that I would have any idea what that’s like.” Then Rehkopf agonized when research on WebMD.com confirmed her symptoms were consistent with meningitis. at the doctor’s office, she was diagnosed with a sinus infection.

“Turns out you have sinus glands at the base of your skull,” Rehkopf says. She didn’t even have to pay for the antibiotics to treat it — some grocery chains’ pharmacies provide common medicines for free or cheap when you have a prescription.

But Rehkopf’s experience hasn’t deterred her from visiting medical websites. “I still don’t go to the doctor because I don’t make enough money to pay the co-pay,” she says.

Despite the occasional misdiagnosis online, Dr. Jacob Varghese says he supports dollar-watchers doing some of their own research first, especially as medical websites’ information has improved over the years. Varghese, who practices at North Fulton Primary Care in Alpharetta, recalls a patient using online research to diagnose her own plantar fasciitis — inflammation of the sole — before she ever stepped foot in his office.

“It’s great as an initial start, or even as a follow-up after you’ve already talked with your doctor,” Varghese says. but, he adds, it shouldn’t replace the relationship with your physician.

Emory’s Brownfield also likes her patients having access to accurate information. “It empowers patients, and it lets them be proactive about their health.”

But she, too, prescribes common sense. “At any point if you have any question about what you have or if a condition persists, you should go into the doctor.”

A doctor’s view

Tips from Emory’s Dr. Erica Brownfield when using medical websites:

• If a web address ends in .edu or .org, content concerns are less likely.
• A .com suffix indicates business sponsorship; skepticism warranted.
• If it’s a blog or one-man show, exercise caution.

Reputable health websites

Some recommended sites:

MayoClinic.com: Look up diseases, check symptoms, learn about drugs and test procedures.

ClevelandClinic.org: Learn about symptoms, healthy living (can download mobile app).

WebMD.com: Includes symptom lookup, articles on seasonal illnesses or conditions.

MedlinePlus.gov: Part of U.S. National Library of Medicine — National Institutes of Health, includes interactive video tutorials to evaluate symptoms.

AHRQ.gov: Information from U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on choosing quality health care, understanding diseases, comparing treatments.

Have you ever correctly or incorrectly diagnosed yourself to save money? what was the outcome?

– by Lauren Davidson, Atlanta Bargain Hunter

See a great deal I should know about? Email me at ldavidson@ajc.com. You can also follow me on Facebook or on Twitter @atlbargains.