View Full Version : I hate Dr. Google
I'm really sick and tired of my compulsive Googling of various symptoms. I really hate when I give into the extreme urge to Google my symptoms, because I'll always end up with terrible results. Like here's the most recent example: With my recent headaches, they seem to get worse for a split second with coughing or leaning over. If I type in "headache worse when bending over," these are the results I get:
1. Headache as a symptom of brain tumor.
2. Is this a brain tumor that hurts?
3. When is a headache more than a headache?
I hate this SO MUCH. Like seriously, all it does is fuel my cyber/hypochondria. I'm so used to Googling things, especially when it comes to diagnosing and fixing computer problems, so you'd first think that it'd be okay, but it's really not.
I know that my headaches are because of TMJ. I've seen three doctors and they've all told me I'm fine. I know that having headaches being worse when bending over/coughing isn't that big of a deal, especially because my parents get that all the time and a cancer doctor told me it's just because of tension. I've also had a dentist confirm that I grind my teeth at night, but I'm always worried sick that something else is horribly wrong. It makes me depressed and others notice my self-induced anxiety and despair too.
Does anybody have any tips on dealing with Dr. Google?
Dr.google is doctor who always stop at cancer.
Anyway what are ur other symptoms . I have tmj and also have sore throat ear and neck also.
Dr.google is doctor who always stop at cancer.
Anyway what are ur other symptoms . I have tmj and also have sore throat ear and neck also.
When it comes to TMJ, this is what I seem to deal with:
• Constant tension headaches
• Jaw pain; usually made worse with constant chewing
• Pressure feeling behind eyes
• Tinnitus
• "Clogged" feeling of the ears
• Sore/tense neck
• Bruxism at nighttime
• "Creaking" of jaw when opened. Usually heard when I wear earplugs
Are u feel pain 24/7 or feel for few minutes
I get that with sinus.
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Look, I'm not a HA sufferer, but I actually googled that symptom, and it came up ... SINUS!
You mention several other non-life threatening causes of that type of headache which doctors have told you you suffer from. Believe them.
According to what I read, brain cancer headaches are dull, persistent and severe. They may be increased by intracranial pressure, but are not intermittent or sharp.
All this leads me to believe that HA sufferers don't even actually read what Doctor Google is telling them. They're just looking for bad news.
My advice for dealing with Doctor Google is to believe it when it tells you that almost everyone with your symptom is okay.
Right now I am convinced I am in the later stages of HIV. No evidence whatsoever of it, but Googled, late stages of HIV for men this morning.
Why? Why did I do it?
Dolphin8808
04-08-14, 15:33
I HATE google too yet I can't seem to stop it. We go there looking for reassurance and end up in more of a panic. Yet we go through pages and pages and pages looking for that one link that says its OK and doesn't mention a tumor!
I am with you, hate it!
If you type the word "anxiety" in with the symptom, you'll get a more realistic answer.
For Example:
Pain in chest - Heart attack
Pain in chest/anxiety - Common symptom of anxiety
Shortness of breath - Everything from heart attack to lung cancer
Shortness of breath/anxiety - Common symptom of anxiety
Positive thoughts
Google is not the culprit. The culprit is you and How you search and interpret the findings. Someone with HA is not going to do this rationally thus they are never going to get reassurance. Oh my how I realised that googling was feeding my dragon supersize helpings.
---------- Post added at 16:58 ---------- Previous post was at 16:55 ----------
I know that googling is not going to do me any favours so I do not google any more (AT ALL). I am trying to help myself.
Are u feel pain 24/7 or feel for few minutes
My TMJ headaches seem to come and go throughout the day, however for the past several months I've had a headache on the top left side of my head. My doctor told me this was tense muscles, and this website (http://round-earth.com/HeadPainIntro.html) explains it well in the "Splenius Capitis" section. I will say that this headache responds greatly to exercise, which is just a bigger initiative for me to get off my ass and do something for once!
I get that with sinus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Look, I'm not a HA sufferer, but I actually googled that symptom, and it came up ... SINUS!
You mention several other non-life threatening causes of that type of headache which doctors have told you you suffer from. Believe them.
According to what I read, brain cancer headaches are dull, persistent and severe. They may be increased by intracranial pressure, but are not intermittent or sharp.
All this leads me to believe that HA sufferers don't even actually read what Doctor Google is telling them. They're just looking for bad news.
My advice for dealing with Doctor Google is to believe it when it tells you that almost everyone with your symptom is okay.
You know, at first I was doubting it was sinuses, but I will say that one of my nostrils is always plugged for some reason. I don't have symptoms of a traditional sinus headache though, especially it being around your nose/cheeks/face/etc.
I've been dealing with a dull, constant headache for a while. It's not that painful though, always very mild. The doctor told me it was because of tense muscles in my neck, and she's right. You can read about it here (http://round-earth.com/HeadPainIntro.html) in the section that talks about "Splenius Capitis."
The thing is I have a massive tendency to overthink things, thus making me always jump to insane conclusions about a lot of things, and Dr. Google's diagnoses are always something I seem to jump to. Because I always see the bad results online, I find myself unable to accept the more common diagnoses, even though that's pretty much what they are.
If you type the word "anxiety" in with the symptom, you'll get a more realistic answer.
For Example:
Pain in chest - Heart attack
Pain in chest/anxiety - Common symptom of anxiety
Shortness of breath - Everything from heart attack to lung cancer
Shortness of breath/anxiety - Common symptom of anxiety
Positive thoughts
I've actually did that a couple of times. You'd be amazed as to what comes up. I've never been diagnosed with anxiety disorder, but I do have ADHD and you'd be surprised at the number of people who have it.
One thing I will say is I absolutely hate how you can't be logical whenever fear gets it's disgusting grip on you. Whenever I start to get nervous and think that I have some horrible debilitating illness, I can never seem to rationalize and tell myself it's nothing and I've got nothing to worry about, :(
Ok ravernako my symptoms are same as u with some sore throat. Are u even try to ask ur dr for mri or ct of ur head and neck if yes than what he said.
---------- Post added at 17:43 ---------- Previous post was at 17:40 ----------
One thing more to ask u my neck pain is feel at sone front and side of neck but back side also my neck feels stiff. Urs also feel like this.
---------- Post added at 17:44 ---------- Previous post was at 17:43 ----------
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WorriedTeen221
04-08-14, 19:32
What did the eye doctor say?
Paul78: To be honest I never tried to ask that. When I told initially told the doctor that Google said I have a brain tumor, she basically told me there's no way that could happen and explained to me the various symptoms of brain tumors, practically none I have. About the neck stiffness/pain, mine almost seems to be in the back and a smidge on the sides.
WorriedTeen221: When I made my eye doctor appointment, they said I could get an eye exam done. When I walked in, they told me I didn't need an eye exam because it's been under a year. I really wanted to figure out what's wrong with my eyes, especially because today I experienced something that almost seemed like a retinal detachment, :(
Hi RaverNeko,
It seems like you are getting a handle on not letting your anxiety do the thinking for you, which is great.
Two things that Dr Google can't do are (1) order a test (which is what most doctors do for just about anything these days), and (2) reassure you and tell you there is nothing seriously wrong physically. When you go to Dr Google, you are being the doctor without the experience, and just symptoms to go on, not test results.
As for eyes, there are several harmless conditions that can cause visual disturbances. Two well-known ones are "floaters" and "flashes". It's also possible to have what's called an "optical migraine", which causes visual disturbances but with no headache. Just once in my life, I experienced what is known as a "scintillating scotoma" (one to Google), a visual disturbance which has led some to think they are having a mystical vision (Hildegard of Bingen comes to mind) - that was in the days before Google.
I really appreciate you replying to my thread man! I'm doing my absolute best to not let anxiety and Dr. Google to get the best of me. It seems like some days I'm successful and others I'm not. Today, unfortunately, isn't one of those days.
I think you're completely right about Dr. Google. I remember reading on here that going to Dr. Google with your health problems is the same thing as diagnosing car problems without a mechanic. You can say "my car is slow." and there will be a million different reasons for that, but usually a mechanic can tell what's wrong with an inspection. Despite this though, and various other reasons to not listen to Dr. Google, I find myself Googling things all the time, just for that glimmer of hope that nothing is truly wrong with me.
I think you're right about the eye floaters and flashes. I've seen to have been getting a decent amount of flashes this past week, but it was really bad today. Like, I was sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I started to see a bunch of them. Then, out of the corner of my eye, it felt like it went dark for a split second. Kinda like someone turned the lights off and on. I've never experienced anything like that in my life. The flashes haven't been as bad since then, but stuff like that is just fueling my anxiety. My family hates it when I ask to go to the doctor because they think it's nothing and usually it is.
WorriedTeen221
05-08-14, 13:53
I really appreciate you replying to my thread man! I'm doing my absolute best to not let anxiety and Dr. Google to get the best of me. It seems like some days I'm successful and others I'm not. Today, unfortunately, isn't one of those days.
I think you're completely right about Dr. Google. I remember reading on here that going to Dr. Google with your health problems is the same thing as diagnosing car problems without a mechanic. You can say "my car is slow." and there will be a million different reasons for that, but usually a mechanic can tell what's wrong with an inspection. Despite this though, and various other reasons to not listen to Dr. Google, I find myself Googling things all the time, just for that glimmer of hope that nothing is truly wrong with me.
I think you're right about the eye floaters and flashes. I've seen to have been getting a decent amount of flashes this past week, but it was really bad today. Like, I was sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I started to see a bunch of them. Then, out of the corner of my eye, it felt like it went dark for a split second. Kinda like someone turned the lights off and on. I've never experienced anything like that in my life. The flashes haven't been as bad since then, but stuff like that is just fueling my anxiety. My family hates it when I ask to go to the doctor because they think it's nothing and usually it is.
I have this flash in the bottom of my vision when looking at anything white, it only happens when I blink :(
I have this flash in the bottom of my vision when looking at anything white, it only happens when I blink :(
Y'know I've been noticing that too. Like, if I'm using my PC or phone a lot, then stop using it, I'll get a bunch of flashers. Although I will say that I'm starting to feel better about my eyes. I'm still getting flashes of light, but I'm honestly beginning to think it's just from anxiety and me being hyper-vigilant on what my eyes are doing. A lot of the time I'll notice a flash of light, then look around the area to see what caused it and notice that it's just like a mark on the wall, a light from a piece of electronic equipment, etc. It still causes me a lot of anxiety though.
On this thread on Anxiety Zone (http://www.anxietyzone.com/index.php?topic=66784.0), a user explains the various visual symptoms that people with anxiety can go through, and I pretty much have every single one.
Over the last three years of suffering from HA DR google has diagnosed me with the following:
Bowel cancer five times ( ate too much beetroot, and recurrent piles)
Breast cancer ( simply getting older)
Anal cancer (piles)
Lip cancer (sunburn on lips)
Eye tumour (tmj)
Brain tumour (tmj)
Tonsil cancer ( shock horror it was tonsillitis)
Health anxiety sucks. Yes it is the way we interpret the information but that is the way this illness makes us behave.
My cbt dude has made me make a list of things to do before I hit google. Things that will distract me in the hope that the urge will pass. It doesn't work every time but it definitely helps. Plus I'm a wizz at candy crush now!
I'm with you on the tmj thing. Absolute nightmare. Sometimes I wake up and my teeth are clenched so tight that my jaw is frozen shut!
Over the last three years of suffering from HA DR google has diagnosed me with the following:
Bowel cancer five times ( ate too much beetroot, and recurrent piles)
Breast cancer ( simply getting older)
Anal cancer (piles)
Lip cancer (sunburn on lips)
Eye tumour (tmj)
Brain tumour (tmj)
Tonsil cancer ( shock horror it was tonsillitis)
Health anxiety sucks. Yes it is the way we interpret the information but that is the way this illness makes us behave.
My cbt dude has made me make a list of things to do before I hit google. Things that will distract me in the hope that the urge will pass. It doesn't work every time but it definitely helps. Plus I'm a wizz at candy crush now!
I'm with you on the tmj thing. Absolute nightmare. Sometimes I wake up and my teeth are clenched so tight that my jaw is frozen shut!
In a couple of days I'm going to see my psychiatrist about getting some kind of treatment for my hypochondria. Yesterday I woke up with a bump on my back and I was constantly checking it thinking that I got bit by a black widow or a brown recluse. I was doing so much Googling that I could've sworn it was a spider bite of some kind. After a couple hours it turned out to be just a measly pimple. This, along with the issue of flashers I was talking about earlier, is just showing me that my health anxiety is getting out of hand.
Can I ask you a question about your TMJ symptoms? Are the things that I mentioned in my post sound like things that you've gone through? And another question: What did you mean about "eye tumor"?
I tried lots of ways of of getting around doctor google. I used to make my mam or husband read it and print things off for me re said disease but that was not good enough. It was not good enough because they would do this in a rational way. With HA this is not what you want. That dragon want's feeding and google is his favourite food!! Izzysmum the list idea is good but I would also be tempted to come up with a list of what positives you are gonna get out of hitting that search button.
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