The Drs Internet

[sienamystic]

WHY DID I GO CONSULT DR.GOOGLE AND DR.WIKIPEDIA I KNOW BETTER

But I did and now I'm attempting to not freak out in the middle of the office.

My sister is attempting to soothe me by sending me articles from scientific journals but my stomach feels like it's going to turn inside out. I'm so scared right now.

ETA: link to an article in case I don't finish reading it and need to find it again quickly.

Comments

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to say to you, but I do hope that your husband's and your situation improves soon and that whatever treatment you choose works for him.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Thank you thank you thank you.

Stupid impulse to self-destruction. Stupid internet doctors.

[stephanieburgis.livejournal.com]

I can't even begin to tell you how many times my willpower broke and I looked online for internet medical answers when my son was so sick when he was a baby...or how bitterly I regretted having looked. What good did it do me? ZERO. How much stress and pain did it cause me, from the hideous possibilities it suggested? INFINITE amounts.

...None of which possibilities, btw, EVER materialized in reality.

*HUGS*

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

It's so true. The information out there is so seductive, and so bad for you, because it just rolls over you like a tsunami and you're not able to process it at all except by worrying. And I'm a gold-medal worrier as it is.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Yeah. There are many useful things you can learn on Google. But you can also panic yourself to no avail.

I had a course of isotretinoin (US - Accutane) a couple of years ago. The internet says some really scary things about it, out of all proportion to the risk. It wasn't that there was no risk, and I did want to inform myself and the internet was helpful for that, but it also misinforms people. I was lucky that I was only making a decision for myself, that even the high risks were, relatively speaking low, that I had enough scientific background to be able to read key papers, and that the more worrying issues raised were mostly not ones directly applicable to me. In a more vulnerable situation, I could have been in a much more stressful situation. But it still angers me that people who could be helped are being frightened by scare stories, as opposed to being supported in an informed decision (which might go either way).

sienamystic I hope you're able to control the entirely understandable freaking out and make an informed decision, whichever way that goes.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I know I have an idiotic fatalistic streak, where all the good stuff gets overlooked and every bad thing is like an icepick to the heart, and I know how vulnerable I am to the vast unfiltered wasteland that the internet can be. I'm still a little teetery, but starting to settle down and distract myself.