Friday, February 17, 2006
Page 15
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Online Diagnosis an Internet Perk
By J’AMY PACHECO
A lot of good has come from the popularization of the Internet. It has helped people to perform research and share information, find friendship and even true love, to shop and make travel arrangements, play games, gamble away their fortunes and much, much more.
But best of all has to be the way the Internet allows mankind to instantaneously self-diagnose illness. Never has finding out you have warts, scabies or a brain tumor been easier and more efficient.
I discovered this phenomenon when my husband designed a “custom” home page for me. It contains up-to-the-minute coverage of the big stories du jour, from last year’s Hurricane Katrina (update posted 19 minutes ago!) to the very latest on the bird flu (“Swans Dead in Iran!).
Also appearing are the latest news stories from Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and weird stories from around the world, like, “Woman Charged With Smuggling Human Head.”
I don’t know what I did before the immediacy of this important news became available to me. Why, without my home page, I might have gone 12 hours or more without knowing Britney Spears drove with her baby on her lap, or that the country’s veep had bagged his hunting partner.
Nor do I know how I stayed alive without the health tips and informative articles I receive on the subject.
Did you know, for example, that belly fat can double a woman’s gallstone risk? I learned that just this week.
In a nutshell, if you can’t keep your waistline around 26 inches, you’re probably going to need surgery to remove lumps of built-up cholesterol. Boy, if that doesn’t make you want to do some sit ups, I don’t know what will.
But it’s the diagnosis of illness that I’ve found most helpful.
Once, I had a troublesome bump inside my left wrist. Sure, I could have gone to the doctor, but chances are he would have done something involving a needle. So I did an online search and discovered I either had a ganglion, or a small alien had implanted itself under my skin and would make its appearance once a signal had been received from its home planet.
Fortunately, whatever it was went away on its own relatively quickly, so I didn’t have to worry about it. But it was good to know wrist bumps are so common.
Of course, there is always the possibility that one will misdiagnose an illness. I had a headache once, and did a Google search. In nine tenths of a second, my computer found 49,500,000 sites dealing with headaches — which I discovered could be caused by hunger, too little sleep, exposure to the sun, tension, migraines or stroke. By the time I was done reading, I had such a headache that I was pretty sure I had a brain tumor.
If you, too, think you suffer from a brain tumor, a search will reveal at least 16,100,000 places you can read more about your condition.
Don’t think THAT won’t keep you busy while you’re waiting to get in to see your doctor.
There are other medical connections I never would have made without my helpful home page.
I recently read, for example, that tooth pain can signal a heart attack. This was one of the articles with a headline that begged to be read, but very little information inside. The net result (no pun intended) was that before I went to bed that night, my gums were aching and I worried that I might need some nitroglycerin before the alarm clock went off.
Fear like that is enough to make you sweat. If you do a Google search on “night sweats,” you’ll find some fascinating reading — and lots of it! While there are only about 2.4 million sites dealing with the subject, most of them go into enough detail to keep you reading long past sunrise.
You can also find interesting information about vitamins and medications. For example, I recently read that Echinacea, a popular herbal supplement, doesn’t really do anything to prevent or cure colds. I’ve been taking the stuff for years, and have found it to be especially helpful when I’m around cats, to which I’m allergic. But now I know better.
Clearly, the Internet has brought human health into the forefront of the American consciousness — along with a lot of other things.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find a tape measure. I’d like to know if I need to prepare myself for surgery…
Copyright 2006, Metropolitan News Company