HEALTH
Why Should Patients Never Diagnose and Treat Their Health Problems Themselves?
Have you ever had a minor health issue, such as a cough or a headache, and researched your symptoms to find out you had a few days to live, only to go to the doctor in a panic to find out it was only a cough or a migraine?
Almost everyone has made the mistake of diagnosing and treating their ailment, and almost every time, it has resulted in disaster. Therefore, self-diagnosing and treating any illness should never be an option. Let us further explore why you must always speak to an online doctor rather than diagnosing and treating an illness yourself.
Why Should Patients Never Rely On Self-Diagnosis And Treatment?
Expert virtual doctors label self-diagnosis and self-treatment as reckless and dangerous since self-treating and diagnosing can cause patients’ health to worsen and lead to new health complications. Here are a few reasons virtual doctors warn patients against self-diagnosis and treatment.
You Risk Worsening the Illness
When you self-diagnose an ailment using information from Google, the odds of getting an inaccurate diagnosis are exceedingly high. One of the major reasons for this is that the symptoms you are experiencing may be indicators of many other diseases.
When you Google your symptoms, Google may produce a list of all of these diseases, and the chances of you accurately determining your disease among the long list of ailments are low unless you are a doctor.
Furthermore, there is some misleading data on Google, and if you find an inaccurate article containing misinformation, your chances of making an incorrect diagnosis increase even more.
Once patients have decided on an incorrect diagnosis, they usually look up drugs and home remedies to treat the ailment. Some of these medications you take may aggravate your symptoms or cause new symptoms.
Mental Stress
As discussed above, when you Google symptoms of a disease, various conditions with similar symptoms may appear in the search results. Some of these conditions can be life-threatening, causing significant emotional stress.
In most circumstances, the condition you may have is minor; nevertheless, because you self-diagnosed your ailment using Google, you may believe you have a life-threatening illness.
This can cause severe stress not only for you but also for the people around you. Therefore, it is never worth it to self-diagnose an illness, and you must always speak to a doctor online or in person to get an accurate diagnosis and treatment.
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Risk of Mixing Medications That Don’t Pair Together
Drug interaction risks are high when you self-treat with pharmaceuticals and rely solely on Google for prescription advice. A healthcare expert evaluates the prescriptions you are already taking for other health problems, such as diabetes or hypertension, before prescribing a medication for your disease to ensure that they will not interact with one another.
However, Google does not consider any of these factors when proposing prescriptions that increase the likelihood of you combining medications that interact with one another. Taking drugs that are not supposed to be paired together can lead you to experience unusual symptoms or produce life-threatening reactions.
Stress on Healthcare Providers
After you self-diagnose and believe you have a life-threatening illness (when you most probably don’t), you may schedule an appointment with a virtual doctor in a panic. Although this is the right thing to do, it can be challenging for doctors to calm patients who believe they have a certain life-threatening illness.
Moreover, doctors might also have to deal with certain patients who know more than their healthcare providers because they have read a few articles online. This can cause doctors to get frustrated and make their jobs harder since it is tough to convince a patient they do not have an illness if they already have decided on a diagnosis beforehand.
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Alt Title: Unknown Woman with Receipts on a Desk
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Incur Higher Expenses
Individuals who believe they have a certain illness, even though they have a completely different illness, may invest in medications or other treatment options meant to treat an illness they don’t have. This can result in high medical expenses.
Individuals often conduct self-diagnosis and treatment if they don’t have healthcare insurance and don’t want to spend much money on a healthcare provider. Googling your symptoms and deciding on an inaccurate diagnosis and treatment can cause you to waste more money than save. Affordable online healthcare is a great option if you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on healthcare.
Wrapping Up
Self-diagnosing and treating an illness can be the worst thing a patient can do for themselves since it can lead to an inaccurate diagnosis, mental stress, risk of medication interactions, worsening their health condition, and also make a healthcare provider’s job tougher. Hence, patients must rely on healthcare providers like expert virtual doctors for accurate diagnosis and treatment advice.
Harper Harrison is a reporter for The Hear UP. Harper got an internship at the NPR and worked as a reporter and producer. harper has also worked as a reporter for the Medium. Harper covers health and science for The Hear UP.
