Google Used To Diagnose Disease 167
dptalia writes "About 20% of all diseases are misdiagnosed, a percentage that has remained steady since the 1930s. However, scientists have discovered that by inputting the key symptoms into Google they can get the correct diagnosis about 58% of the time. For rare and unusual diseases, this provides doctors the information they need to get a correct cure. Of course, Google is only as good as its knowledge base, and its users, so this isn't a cure for everything."
Gives you ideas (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a long term and quite painful medical problem to do with the eustation tube in my ear being blocked. The doctors, and even the ENT specialist didn't really have much of a clue. We tried steroids (that helped a little), pinching the nose and blowing, decongestants and all sorts.
What Google did for me was to keep going back to doctors with "would xxxx work?". It got me prompting them. Eventually, I tried out some massage, which someone had recommended on groups (that Google found) as a way to relieve the tension. And met a massage therapist who applied some Bowen Technique which solved the problem (the jaw alignment was out after dental work).
I wouldn't use Google alone, but sometimes, doctors don't think of everything. Some of their suggestions were little more than "switch it off and on again".
Don't trust things like this 100%... not even 58% (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gives you ideas - got to compare it to PUBMED (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gives you ideas (Score:2, Interesting)
Did Bowen work for me? Yes. Absolutely. Has it been scientifically tested? No (although there is some testing being done now).
Before doing my Bowen, I was struggling to concentrate. I would fall asleep at about 8pm, be grumpy with my family because of the discomfort. Afterwards, I functioned much better. Where my ear had not been secreting wax, it started doing so.
Real case: Google helped my daughter. (Score:1, Interesting)
Doctors then prescribed corticoid creams which never worked (after more than one year usage). Corticoids, if you don't know, are a sort of hormone or alike, with _very_ dangerous effects on health and growth.
So we were getting a lot worried about the disease and the treatment alike.
I resorted to Google and found papers about this problem having increased over the years in England. Some researchers found it seemed to be associated with deficiency in omega-3 or omega-6 (something-linoleic acid).
Google again to find out where this could be obtained... evening primrose oil, which can be bought in capsules.
We were cautious in the beginning, but it is a kind of food anyway... after two weeks, her hands were clearly getting healed.
End of story, but another time medical science simply did not work. One wonders if "science" would be a correct designation for Medicine. 8-/
Well google saved my fiancee's life (Score:5, Interesting)
Did the doctor work out what was going on? No the arrogant son of a bitch didn't bother to give the fact that his patient had developed seizures a second thought. Fucker wanted her to stay on the medication. I had googled it, and after we pointed out to him that it was a contraindication and asked to have her come off it for a while, he said okay. Again I'm the one who looked up the fact that suddenly stopping would have made her suicidal.
Three things were re-enforced for me:
1) Yes Google is only as good as the researcher. Using Google to find a specialist site is probably one of the better ways to go. Thing is you have to learn some of the lingo and understand what you're seeing. Takes a bit of plugging away to do that.
2) The medical profession is full of arrogant tossers. The only less practical, more corrupt systems I know of are our legal and political systems. Some doctors are good despite the system. However the system encourages self serving educated idiots who take no interest in themselves (not to mention overworked perpetually tired doctors making life and death decisions). Most doctors don't take kindly to being second guessed, think they know best even when they haven't considered something properly, and think themselves above using technology to diagnose a patient. In the 21st Century the medical profession remains very 16th Century.
3) Get a good doctor and they make you better. Get a bad one and they'll take a minor problem you have and kill you with their incorrect treatment. It is entirely possible to know better than your doctor. In that case you still do need someone medically trained. Get a second or third opinion. Your life can depend on it.
She was deteriorating so quickly that I have no doubt whatsoever that had I not worked out what was wrong with my fiancee she'd have been dead within about 6 months from the time I did work it out (if not sooner). Having a search engine there to be able to research her condition was literally a life saver. Google happened to be king of the hill at the time.
Internet (possibly) Saved My Life (Score:4, Interesting)
2 months after finishing college and starting a new job in a new area, I woke up one morning with an odd stomach pain. I didn't think anything of it, so I went to work. By lunch time, the pain did not relax at all. It didn't get worse... just a steady piercing pain. I told a co-worker I was taking a half day. By 5pm, I was starting to get really worried because this was not a normal feeling stomach pain, and it was still there.
I went to Google and typed in stomach pain, and that's when I was starting to really get worried. Several websites started directing me to Appendicitis. After reading more, I had all the Appendicitis symptoms except "nauseated". I called a friend, and he said, "Nah, man! It's probably just something you ate! You said you aren't feeling nauseated, right? I'd wait until you were nauseated."
I had crappy insurance. I didn't want to go to the hospital unless I needed to, but since everything I read online was pointing to Appendicitis, I eventually decided that peace of mind was worth an out-of-pocket exam, so I jumped in the car and drove myself to the ER.
I went to the front desk, and he asked, "What do you think is wrong?"
I said, "I think I have Appendicitis."
"All right, fill this out and sit over there."
When I got to finally see a nurse, I said, "I think I have Appendicitis."
"Does this hurt?" "Yes."
When I got to finally a doctor, I said, "I think I have Appendicitis."
"We'll run some tests."
They ran a blood test. Came back positive.
They ran some x-ray type test. Came back positive.
By 10pm, the doctor came and said, "You have Appendicitis." By 5am, they were operating on me.
After one flaming bag of pus removed, and ~$5,000 worth of medical debt, I spent the next week on disability leave playing Final Fantasy X in my apartment. Good game, btw.
Re:Since we're using famous websites (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most interesting cases in our group was a friend who had osteonecrosis in one of his knees. Some of the doctors he went to weren't keeping up with modern practice, and they recommended full knee replacements. He finally found a younger doctor who was up to date, and the surgery he had involved boring small holes into his knee, so that blood would enter those areas and rebuild the bone there.
The surgery was a complete success, my friend didn't need an artificial knee (at age 30!), and now he's perfectly healthy. The recovery time for the new surgery was much lower, and it was an all around good solution.
I am a doctor and I use Google (Score:4, Interesting)
But for diagnosis, no. Here are the limitations of this study as I see them. The New England Journal cases are weird, uncommon diseases. They often feature a constellation of uncommon symptoms, such as the example used in the article - IPEX (immunodeficiency, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, X linked). If you search for just immunodeficiency and polyendocrinopathy, you will get the answer. This is because those are rare symptoms and their combination is even rarer. You would get the same result on any of the well-traveled medical professional sites. If you had a patient with more common symptoms such as with fatigue, weight loss, and night sweats, the prospects of a successful search are low. Another problem with the study is that diagnosis requires a determination of which symptoms are important. If you search for "immunodeficiency polyendocrinopathy hangnail" you don't get IPEX. The researchers in the study got to choose which features of the disease to include and made sure to search for them in medical language. If they had searched for "immunodeficiency low thyroid" they would get an article about greyhounds. It's the same symptom, but not searched medically (polyendocrinopathy). A final issue is that one of the reason these cases are so hard (they all come from Massachusetts General Hospital, where I've cared for a few of them) is that they take awhile to unfold. Usually by the time they are written up nicely, they are far easier than when only one or two symptoms have developed or when the bloodwork is only half finished. When a case appears in the New England Journal, you start thinking rare things immediately. When it appears in your clinic, you should think of common things first.
Anyway, I definitely think that google (or more likely other diagnostic algorithms) has a role in the future of diagnosis. I don't think that it is anywhere near that point yet. I think the study actually supports that (58% is pretty poor!)