News article

[vanilla1969]

Did anyone see the news article of the mom who saved her son by Googling his symptoms cause she knew something was wrong and the doctors weren't listening to her.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2265921/Mother-saves-sons-life-Googling-revealed-BRAIN-TUMOUR-simply-migraines.html

[MyMiddleNameisHypo]

This is similar to what got me started on my googling obsession many years ago.

My Mom kept having a load of symptoms, her doctor blamed it on her being over-weight and stress. I did research online and  found that her symptoms matched Diabetes. My Mom pushed for a glucose test and you know what? Turns out she's a Type 2 Diabetic. Her blood sugar that very first test was over 300.

[vanilla1969]

Yeah I have a fear of just brushing it off to being anxiety when it may be something worse.

I have a co-worker who was recently diagonsed with advanced non-Hodgkins lymphoma which has now spread to her liver, she kept telling these doctors something was wrong she told her PCP, GI and the emergency room and they kept mis-daignosing her. We would have conversations for months at work and I could tell she was in a bad mood and when I asked her she kept saying they keep giving me the run around and I know something is wrong. She didn't have an appetite and got full quickly and was losing weight (which is what happened to me in  2011 but I have since gained my weight and appetite back)

She is a very bad diabetic so I'm sure they chalked it off to complications from her diabetes, she finally begged her GI to investigate further cause by then she was in tears in pain. They kept telling her it was her kindeys cause she had a bad kidney infection prior and when she went to get an ultra sound on her kidneys the sono tech could see her liver and saw something wrong, by then she had already gotten the MRI from the GI and was waiting on results for it. So low and behold the GI doctors calls and tells her she need to go see a doctor who was an oncologist and she replied "Isn't that a cancer doctor" so that is when she found out. She told me she has a 70% chance of survival they didn't do any surgery just straight chemo.

[Hohum]

This is exactly what people with extreme HA shouldn't be reading I'm sorry to say. Another Internet horror story (there are so many out there). No newspaper is ever going to print a story of "Mother searches Google for headaches and finds brain tumour as symptom, but child only had a normal tension headache" which is the case 99.999% of the time.

Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes people may be misdiagnosed. The important thing to remember is that these are the one-in-a-million odds. It makes for a good story in the newspaper, but it's not going to do your (or anyone elses) anxiety any good at all by reading too much into it.

[colls22]

I have to agree with hohum - not what we should be reading.

There will always be stories like this. Doctors, same as any other professional, aren't perfect. The fact of the matter is that for every story like this that's put on the Internet, there are literally millions of others where the doctors were correct, and knew exactly what they were doing. Those aren't newsworthy though, so we don't see them.

We also need to keep in mind that when we read an article, a story, a post, etc, we are only getting some of the information.

[Hypomommy]

I have to keep in mind that the news likes to report these one in a million cases.  It is every hypos nightmare!!

I tell myself all the time - it must be a slow news day to report on this.  Low and behold you don't see these stories when there is else to report.  Try watching and see.  If the economy, gun violence, etc are heavy in the news - there are no weird "mom finds son's tumor after being misdiagnosed" stories. 

If I see one of them, I try not to look at them.  I put googling, webmd and stories like that in my Don't Look At category.

You will know if something is wrong with you.  Your body will let you know.  Try to ignore the everyday life pains.  Now I know what all of friends meant when they said getting older sucks.  Things hurt, our bodies ache, make noises and let us know all of the time we are not 21 anymore.  It took me a while to get to this point and I will admit that I have days that I fall off of the wagon and think that a headache is more than a headache.  You just have to roll with the punches and accept that we are getting older and our bodies are changing.  (Trust me - I know it's easier said than done!!!)

Hope you have a great day!

[sixpack]

This is exactly what people with extreme HA shouldn't be reading I'm sorry to say. Another Internet horror story (there are so many out there). No newspaper is ever going to print a story of "Mother searches Google for headaches and finds brain tumour as symptom, but child only had a normal tension headache" which is the case 99.999% of the time.

Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes people may be misdiagnosed. The important thing to remember is that these are the one-in-a-million odds. It makes for a good story in the newspaper, but it's not going to do your (or anyone elses) anxiety any good at all by reading too much into it.

AGREED.

we hypoes LOVE these type stories in the original post because it gives us some kind of validation that our anxious over thinking is appropriate or proactive.  All that story does is drive us into more fear. 

IDK about anybody else, but I have never had a doc brush off REAL issues before. In fact my family and I seem to have docs that over test.  I just got back from a pediatric rheumy appt for my daughter based on a couple of "off" blood tests that the pediatrician took.  The ped rheumy told me that my daugther looks "pretty boring"  but wants her to see an opthamologist for a specific eye test.  Then we come back to her in about a month armed with another round of bloodwork.  She says, "she looks pretty boring now but I am not going to pass up checking stuff when I can stop things before they get bad."

so peeps if you want to freak yourself out further all for not, seek out news stories like the one posted above.

[vanilla1969]

I wish I could just get an all over body MRI then I will be fine but you know that's not happening.

[sixpack]

I wish I could just get an all over body MRI then I will be fine but you know that's not happening.

those cause more trouble than they are worth.  no body is perfect.  the scan would probably show some minor blip that NO DOCTOR would pay any mind to but a hypo would blow out of proportion and want any and all other tests to FURTHER rule out that the minor blip is, indeed, a minor blip.

THEN there is the other side of it-----you have a full body scan and miraculously there not even any minor blips............  that won't solve anything either because, well, after 6 months or a year, you'd wonder if you need another one.  OR you would figure out that an MRI doesn't detect all issues---like leukemia----and you'd still be living in fear.


I guess that leaves working on the thought disorder for lasting peace.   

[gcalex]

I wish I could just get an all over body MRI then I will be fine but you know that's not happening.

Don't even think about it.  It wouldn't make you fine at all.