The Internet is no substitute for a visit to your doctor

by Symptom Advice on November 9, 2011

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

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