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google: the hypochondriac's nemesis
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
i've just scared myself a bit. i made the mistake of tapping a symptom into google and almost every result was a breast cancer site.
i know that google isn't exactly the fountain of all medical knowledge, and that searching for individual symptoms is a really shit idea, and yet i can't resist a quick search.
does anyone else do this? why do we do it to ourselves? what is the strangest disease you've convinced yourself you had after googling symptoms?
after googling 'chest pains', my ex housemate convinced herself without doubt that she was having a heart attack, despite being in her early twenties and pretty healthy. even to the point when she ended up getting an ambulance out cause she thought she was dying. turned out to be indigestion. :yeees: i don't think the paramedics were very impressed.
i know that google isn't exactly the fountain of all medical knowledge, and that searching for individual symptoms is a really shit idea, and yet i can't resist a quick search.
does anyone else do this? why do we do it to ourselves? what is the strangest disease you've convinced yourself you had after googling symptoms?
after googling 'chest pains', my ex housemate convinced herself without doubt that she was having a heart attack, despite being in her early twenties and pretty healthy. even to the point when she ended up getting an ambulance out cause she thought she was dying. turned out to be indigestion. :yeees: i don't think the paramedics were very impressed.
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I've convinced myself, well rather my mother did(!) that i had an etopic pregnancy, and jus about every form of cancer going. So now i just resist the urge and bung a couple of nurofen down my throat.
Seriously though, imagine telling her that she had this disease, even though the test results said that she didn't, and not telling her anything about it.
I think the worst one was when I convinced myself he had pancreatic cancer and less than 5 years to live.
In general I think most things are common sense and google is bound to scare people.
I've had pain in my armpit for a couple of weeks now and on House last week they said it was a symptom of cancer. I kinda freaked and started poking around only to realise it was because I'd cut myself shaving (lol).
When I want to find something out I just fire off an email to NHS direct and they give me loads of info.
Chest pains would come out as a heart attack in many cases. When I get indigestion I get shooting pains in my left side, and the wife says she's call an ambulance for me if I rang her up at work.
that was actually the subject of my googling today. both my armpits have permanently swollen lymph nodes (going on for years now), and the left one is always sore. i've mentioned this to various doctors a few times and they've not been too bothered, but the most recent time, she had a poke, looked worried, and said i needed an ultrasound asap.
as if that's not enough to make you shit yourself without google telling you you've probably got advanced cancer :grump:
Still here 12 months later :thumb:
My girlfriend had a similar pain, which went away when she, on the advice of her doctor, changed brand of contraceptive pill.
mine pre-dates me starting the pill, and i've since changed brands twice with no effect. i remember having the soreness when i was still at school, so we're getting on for about 10 years.
surely if it was serious, i would be dead by now?
You say its in your glands right? Does it come and go accompanied by periods of feeling a bit run down?
the doctor who prodded me said it was my axillary lymph node. she said they both felt odd, but only one of them is painful. it varies in soreness over time, but doesn't ever get totally pain-free. Sometimes it's so sore it throbs and hurts just to have my arms down, but usually i can only feel it when i touch it or i'm wearing a top with tight armholes. I feel run down permanently (over the last year or so) and it's accompanied by a whole host of weird and wonderful symptoms that have totally foxed the doctors.
I mention it because it has echo's of an occasional condition I have, basically when I am fighting an infection my gland at the top of my leg swells up and get sore. It is normally occompanied by a feeling of being run down. My doctor said that the likely cause is a very large production of white blood cells to fight of the infection.