You wake up one morning and notice you feel a little off – your nose is stuffed up, you have a headache, and your throat is sore. As the day goes on, your symptoms don’t improve, and you start to wonder what’s wrong with you.
So on your lunch break, you pull out your phone to google your symptoms – but let us stop you right there.
Googling your symptoms when you’re sick is one of the worst things you can do.
Read on to learn why you should never google your symptoms and why you should make an appointment with your doctor instead.
Diseases Are Complicated
One of the biggest reasons you as a patient should never google your symptoms is that diseases are incredibly complex. Some symptoms can overlap many different diagnoses, all of which can range in severity.
Without the proper training and context, it’s all but impossible for you to determine the real cause of your symptoms.
For instance, let’s say you have a runny nose, a cough, and a headache. Those are all symptoms of a cold,seasonal allergies, the flu, pneumonia, COVID-19, or even lung cancer.
It’s much more likely that you have allergies or a cold, but without years of medical training, you can’t diagnose which of these diseases is causing your symptoms.
Anxiety Gets the Better of You
The other thing that happens when you start googling your symptoms is that you see all the worst-case scenarios.
Yes, it may be more likely that your runny nose is due to higher pollen counts, but the sickness that’s going to stick in your mind is lung cancer or COVID.
You might start finding other symptoms that align with this diagnosis, even if they’re completely unrelated or misleading.
Once you start worrying about that worst-case diagnosis, your anxiety can get the better of you. You may find yourself obsessing over this potential diagnosis, and some of your symptoms might even get worse as a result of the stress.
And then at the end of the day, you may find out all that worry about the wrong illness was for nothing when you do get your diagnosis.
You’re Not a Doctor
The biggest reason that you should never google your symptoms is that you’re not a doctor.
We don’t say this to be flippant or dismissive; there’s a reason we trust doctors with the most vulnerable and frightening moments in our health journeys.
Doctors trainfor more than a decade to learn what they need to in order to properly diagnose and treat you.
Without proper medical training, you don’t have the context you need to understand how your symptoms fit into the larger picture of your health.
You aren’t trained to know how common some diseases are or what other defining symptoms they come with.
Also, you can’t run the needed tests to figure out what your real diagnosis is and how best to manage it.
Learn Why You Should Never Google Your Symptoms
When you have a new ache, pain, or complaint pop up, it can be very tempting to start typing those symptoms into the nearest search engine.
But the truth is that this won’t get you any answers or peace of mind. Instead, you’ll be left panicking about whether you have a horrible disease when, in all likelihood, it’s something much milder.
If you want to learn more about why you should never google your symptoms, check out the rest of our site at Noorani Medical Center.
We can help you get the diagnosis you need to take care of your health and get back to feeling your best.
Book an appointment today and discover the peace of mind our compassionate, convenient, and quality care can provide.
