Self-Diagnosis & the Internet

self-diagnosis-internet-300x247In this day and age the internet has been a revelation not only for shopping online but also for finding information on practically anything you can think of. This can be a good thing but also a bad thing.

 

What do I mean by this?

Well in medical terms, the signs and symptoms of various conditions and diseases overlap. This means that lot of conditions have similar signs and/or symptoms and although it is good to search the web to get an idea what you may be suffering from it is also important to seek professional medical advice in order to arrive at a correct diagnosis.

 

Just this week the receptionist had a call from someone who lived a distance from our clinic. They had seen that on our website we provided injection therapy and as he had a problem with his elbow he thought that he would need a steroid injection!!

 

The receptionist quite rightly informed him that his elbow would need to be assessed firstly in order to diagnosis the cause of the complaint in order for an appropriate treatment plan.

 

The person informed her that he does visit an osteopath for his back but did not think that they would look at elbows!!

 

She quickly informed him that we look at all aspects of the musculoskeletal system and that he should first visit his osteopath and if they felt that he needed an injection then by all means he could come and see us.

 

This is not the first time that this has happened and often an injection is not necessary as a course of treatment will usually resolve the issue.

 

So if you are suffering a pain, by all means search the web in relation to a diagnosis for your symptoms but if you want resolution please seek expert medical advice as often what you think you may have may not be the case.