If you are feeling a little unwell then one of things that you may very well be tempted to do is head to Google and type in your symptoms to try and find out what is going on with you. This is something which we all have a tendency to do, especially if you have symptoms that you may not have seen before. This however is not the right idea and I am regularly told by the wonderful David Crawford MD that in doing so we are actually making the problem worse rather than better. Despite my doctor saying this it can be very difficult to avoid looking online to see what may be the matter, but here is why you should try to avoid it.
All Roads Lead To…
If you look hard enough then even the most innocuous of symptoms can turn out to be life threatening, regardless of whether it is a headache, a sore arm or discoloration of the finger nails. The human mind, in its attempt to keep you alive, will of course look for the worst case scenario here which is why when you have a bad head that you will likely ignore the more plausible migraine for something such as a brain tumor. Simply put, looking online will only give you further cause for concern.
Medication
A big risk of self-diagnosis is that you convince yourself of the issue which you have and then decide to treat yourself too. This is of course very dangerous as you are unlikely to have any clue as to what you are taking or why. There is also a big risk that you take something which could exacerbate the problem, which is of course something that you really must avoid.
Worry
It is likely that you are already a little worried or anxious about what you may have, and if you have to wait a few days for the doctor’s appointment then the best thing that you can do is to remain as calm as possible and wait. If however you begin to search online and find all manner of problems that you may or may not have then those days waiting for the appointment are going to be very difficult indeed. There is no point in scaring yourself when it isn’t necessary ,what you need to do is try your best to forget about things until you know for sure.
The most compelling reason not to check online is this, if you find something online that you might have and your are scared, you will have to go and see the doctor anyway, which means that you are going to be panicking and worrying when there really is absolutely no point, wait until you speak with a medical professional and then you can start to worry if needed, up until that point just relax and don’t believe everything that you read.