Stop treating Google as your doctor

New Delhi Are you among those who log in to Google every time you are down with body ache fever or cold only to get more confused and scared Many young Indians with smartphones in their hands are falling prey to the Googleasyourdoctor phenomenon and the dangerous trend is on the rise in the country health experts feelAlthough there is nothing wrong in checking your symptoms or trying to find more about your illness on the internet they say that one should know where to stopThe ideal situation is to use search engines only when someone is diagnosed with a certain medical condition and wants to know more about it The information available on internet should be used to educate oneself rather than trying to find a cure for the diseaseThe biggest problem is that internet is loaded with enormous information which could be correct too but then your symptoms could be similar to some other disease which may cause confusion Therefore correct diagnosis of your health abnormality is very important Dr Satnam Singh Chhabra head neurospine surgeon at the Sir Gangaram Hospital here told IANSHe has observed many young Indian adults getting hooked to the internet to look for every little thing even selfdiagnosisFor instance if one has a health abnormality then the instant reaction is to Google the symptoms before seeing an expert or a doctorBut one should be careful as people normally look for symptoms to get rid of curiosity and anxiety but to the contrary it just worsens the scenario and leaves them more anxious Chhabra saidAccording to Dr Prof Raju Vaishya senior consultant orthopaedic and joint replacement surgeon at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital one should beware of getting trapped into Google as your doctor behaviour as this may cause more harm than goodYes there is an increasing surge in young Indians with smartphones who google common health symptoms I find more such patients coming to me with queries related to hand wrist and elbow Vaishya told IANSDr R K Singal of the BLK Superspecialty Hospital had an interesting case study to share Once a patient in his mid30s came to me with severe headache He told me that he thought he had a brain tumour After diagnosis we found that headache was due to prolonged sore throat and rhinopharyngitis common coldThe patient visited me after a month of selfdiagnosis through internet Whatever he found on the internet made him believe that he had a brain tumour Singal told IANSAccording to Singal people in the 2540 age group are more hooked on to the internet and such selfdiagnosis only increases ones anxietyDr Rahul Gupta senior neuro and spine surgeon at Fortis Hospital in Noida is attending to many young Indians who come to him with weird health queries after scanning GoogleSelfmedication via the internet can be dangerous Patients at times do not follow our advice and waste our time with silly questions he stressedAccording to Gupta Google is good when it comes to searching for a good doctor checking spellings of a medication and reading about general healthrelated issuesAnother danger of selfdiagnosis is that you may think that there is more wrong with you than there actually isFor example if you had insomnia inattention and depression you may believe that you have a sleep disorder or major depression Thus you may make things worse by worrying more as well Singal notedSelfdiagnosis is also a problem when you are in a state of denial about your symptomsOne may think that generalised body aches started with a worsening of mood but a doctor may elect to do an electrocardiogram for chest pain that reveals possible coronary artery disease the experts feltAre health websites trustworthy when it comes to answering health symptom queriesI dont see any harm in doing that because its about your health after all In fact a lot of times my patients come back with queries after surfing about their health abnormality on the internet Chhabra saidSo educate yourself as much before or after you visit your doctor but let the experts do their job Let your doctor prescribe you a treatment wellsuited for your ailmentOne should be wise enough to understand which is an authentic website with relevant content as there are a lot of paid sites which exist only to make business Chhabra advisedVaishya asked youngsters to share their internetacquired knowledge with the doctor but not to force it upon the doctor to follow itTrust your doctor more than Google Gupta summed up