WebMD Gave Me Lupus
Last night I went to get dinner and drinks with a few girlfriends. The food was great and the waiter ended up supplementing us with these ginger/whiskey drinks for a mishap with our order (now that I think about it, the drinks were aptly named “Bad Habits,” which in retrospect is quite fitting). I felt a little off after dinner, but figured it could be due to the extreme heat, as D.C. has segued into its yearly sauna in an effort to get us all to sweat out our toxins and any hope we might have that “this might not be a brutal summer.” This morning, over our daily gchat, we all determined that we felt a little sick and lethargic after last night’s meal. Instead of chalking it up to the heat, whiskey, lack of sleep from the weekend and 3 lbs of tater tots, someone suggested that we WebMD the symptoms, just in case the Ebola virus that was secretly hiding in the ketchup mimics our mild nausea and indolence. Soon, my search turned into researching everything that could possibly be wrong with my body. The small, painless bump on my left ring finger that is suspiciously similar to the small painless bump on my shin? Shingles. From exposure to anthrax. The headache that occurs every day at 2 p.m. if I don’t have coffee that I previously chalked up to a caffeine headache? Lupus.
WebMD has begun to breed a small army of 20-something hypochondriacs who have been self-diagnosing since they commandeered Mom’s laptop to look up the questionable body changes of puberty. The advent of smartphones and self-diagnosing apps have made it possible to determine that you have contracted a rare disease in your home in suburbia anytime, anywhere. After experimenting a little on the website, I’ve also concluded that almost any symptom can diagnose you with Lupus, kidney disease, or thyroid failure. Try it. Download the WebMD app and come up with any symptom at all, and somehow, you will get back to Lupus, kidney disease, or thyroid problems. I used body aches (Lupus), headache after drinking (obviously my kidneys are failing if they cannot control my hangovers anymore) and warts (I don’t actually have warts, but I did when I was a kid and I thought this could be as far from any of these diseases as you can get. However, warts are caused by viruses, and people with thyroid problems are more susceptible to warts because of weakened immune systems. WebMD even suggests this with a link on the side to “Thyroid Problems.” BAM, six degrees of deficient thyroid).
Once I began to see the patterns in self-diagnosing and Santa went back to not being real, I decided to Google “self-diagnosing” to see if there were any others out there like me (also because I’m obsessed with Googling and need to wean myself off self-diagnosing slowly). I found an interesting article from the LA Times that said a 74% of people polled self-diagnosed. And that 84% of those who self-diagnosed were wrong after they consulted a physician. And that only 21% of people would self-diagnose their children, meaning that there is a reason why people go to medical school and we all secretly know that our personal analysis of internet symptoms isn’t actually accurate. There is definitely merit in looking up symptoms and WebMD is fantastic in situations where you are 90% sure you have a skin rash from your new lotion and need to know how to alleviate the redness. Also, it has probably helped encourage quite a few people who wouldn’t have gone to a physician to realize the severity of their condition and see a doctor. However, I have concluded I don’t probably have Lupus. Or anthrax induced shingles.
Photo from http://worldofdtcmarketing.com/are-epatients-self-diagnosing-too-much/health-information-online/
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