New craze of turning to google for diagnosis

Two weeks ago, Peterson Irungu was driving home from work when he felt a sharp pain on the left side of his head.

The street lights became blurry. Then he felt waves of nausea, followed by enhanced sense of smell and sensitivity to noise.

“I panicked. I parked by the road, went to the chemist and fetched strong pain killers,” he says.

By the time he was getting home, the headache had reduced to a slight pounding on his temples.

Before sleeping, he went to the Internet to find what could be ailing him.

His symptoms checked with several diseases. As he got into the crevasses of the World Wide Web, it dawned on him that he could be sicker than he felt.

“One site discussing brain tumour described every symptom I had. Victims were discussing how their condition started. What they said matched what I was feeling,” he says.

He rushed to hospital. As soon as he arrived, he demanded a scan and a brain surgeon. He knew what ailed him; at least he thought he did. He had a tumour, and from what the internet told him, if he did not get an operation in 48 hours, he would be dead.

It took two doctors, his wife and a few nurses to calm him and convince him to get into the consultation room.

It was discovered that he had migraine that could be controlled with medication.

“I was ashamed when I walked out. I had been so used to ‘googling’ things affecting my health, I was convinced I was dying,” he says.

He is among millions of cyberchondriacs – people who compulsively search the Internet for information about real or imagined symptoms of illness.

Cyberchondria is defined as medical anxiety after researching your own symptoms online. Dr Alex Muturi, a surgeon in Tigoni, says he has come across many patients who get convinced they are suffering from a serious ailment based on results from an Internet search engine.

“Getting medical information from the Internet is not wrong. The problem comes when people do it before getting diagnosis from a doctor,” he says, adding that doctors in the digital era often find themselves working with suspicious patients who walk into hospitals armed with scattered info got from the web and demanding specific modes of treatment.

Williams Magunga, a writer, recently shared his experience on social media. In an update that read: “I have been having some lower back pains. Then I made the mistake of Googling possible causes.

Let's just say it's been nice knowing you guys. Till we meet again on that beautiful shore,” drew several reactions from social media users, including a man who hilariously confessed that doing an Internet search of his symptoms got him a pregnancy diagnosis.

Dr Sammy Mahugu, head of the health promotion unit at Ministry of Health, cautions enthusiastic ‘web patients’ from getting prescriptions based on what they suspect they could be suffering from.

“It is through such self-diagnosis that we get people reacting to medication, or developing a resistance,” he says.

Rose Gakii, a counsellor in Nairobi, says she cannot count the number of times a patient walked to her and declared: “I am moody, I am unpredictable, and the Internet says I am bipolar. Help me!”

She says it often takes a lot of time for her to explain that mental health requires a series of sessions before one can be started on any form of medical therapy.

“The Internet can make you paranoid, especially if you land on the wrong site,” she says.

In 2015, a study by Harvard University analysed 23 symptom checkers and found that they produced accurate diagnosis only 34 per cent of the time. People who spoke to the standard noted that the ‘googling phenomenal’ is not confined to patients. They said there are doctors, especially the younger ones, who depend heavily on internet to diagnose a patient.

“You will see them typing furiously on their computers or phones as you explain your symptoms,” says Irene Moraa.

Dr Fredrick Kairithia, gynaecologist in Nairobi, says there is nothing wrong with a doctor referring to cases. He says before the wide spread of Internet use, doctors would step out and refer to text books in the hospital library.

“It is better to refer than pretend you know everything. We go to specific sites approved by the profession,” he says.

The doctors say the Internet cannot be wished away. Humans, in their curious ways will sneak into the web to find solutions.

“Internet searches should be done to know more about a condition – and they should only be done after consulting a doctor and getting a proper diagnosis,” says Dr Muturi.