Self diagnosis and hypochondria

[Setzer]

We all hear that the best way to get rid of an illness is to treat it before it becomes too serious. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that. What I'd like to know is, how can one legitimately ascertain if you have a problem, without running to the doctor for every unexplained ache and pain?

[Kamakazie Sith]

We all hear that the best way to get rid of an illness is to treat it before it becomes too serious. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that. What I'd like to know is, how can one legitimately ascertain if you have a problem, without running to the doctor for every unexplained ache and pain?

Maybe you should ask a doctor this question?

[Superman]

Obviously, the solution lies in getting rid of all germs. My suggestion would be to sterilize your living environment. Use disinfectant sprays on your walls, curtains, etc., and make sure to do this every single day. Next, wash your hands as much as possible. The skin might start drying and peeling, but you can't risk the germs. You might want to shave your head bald too... I can only imagine how many germs are in the hair. Make sure all your dishes are sterilized, maybe stop eating meat... I think you can take it from here.

Oh, and make sure you tell any and all women you date about doing this. They love it.

[Knife]

We all hear that the best way to get rid of an illness is to treat it before it becomes too serious. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that. What I'd like to know is, how can one legitimately ascertain if you have a problem, without running to the doctor for every unexplained ache and pain?

The problem is, and always has been, people can't be honest with themselves. Hell, long time joke is a doctor makes the worst patient. There's also the med school syndrome where as people start learning the intracate details of how the body works and how pathology works, they see those patterns in themselves (usually falsely).

[Darth Wong]

At the same time, doctors miss diagnoses all the time, and why wouldn't they? They rely far too heavily on memory.

I have to suspect that the future is in computer AI diagnosis wizards. Nurses and medical assistants could assess your symptoms and feed them into an AI, which would spit out a list of possible diagnoses for further investigation.

They need to look at ways of spreading out the medical workload as the population ages.

[Junghalli]

We all hear that the best way to get rid of an illness is to treat it before it becomes too serious. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that. What I'd like to know is, how can one legitimately ascertain if you have a problem, without running to the doctor for every unexplained ache and pain?

Well, a certain amount of basic common sense would probably help. A random headache or something probably isn't a good reason to go to the doctor, but if you have a chronic recurring problem it might not be a bad idea to have it checked out.

[Ariphaos]

At the same time, doctors miss diagnoses all the time, and why wouldn't they? They rely far too heavily on memory.

I have to suspect that the future is in computer AI diagnosis wizards. Nurses and medical assistants could assess your symptoms and feed them into an AI, which would spit out a list of possible diagnoses for further investigation.

They need to look at ways of spreading out the medical workload as the population ages.

These are called expert systems, and medical versions have been in development for some time now.

[FSTargetDrone]

I have to suspect that the future is in computer AI diagnosis wizards. Nurses and medical assistants could assess your symptoms and feed them into an AI, which would spit out a list of possible diagnoses for further investigation.

Sounds like WebMD.

[Broomstick]

At the same time, doctors miss diagnoses all the time, and why wouldn't they? They rely far too heavily on memory.

I have to suspect that the future is in computer AI diagnosis wizards. Nurses and medical assistants could assess your symptoms and feed them into an AI, which would spit out a list of possible diagnoses for further investigation.

They need to look at ways of spreading out the medical workload as the population ages.

These are called expert systems, and medical versions have been in development for some time now.

Some of them are pretty good, actually. However, strong resistance to adopting them exists in the older doctor population (younger ones, raised on using computers, tend to be much less resistant). There is also the problem, as always, that such systems are only as good as the information in them and require constant updating to remain current.

Right now such systems are probably more common in pharmacy than many more "doctor" forms of medicine - drug interactions are a huge problem and it used to be that the pharmacist had to spot them. Now such systems are common where prescriptions are filled - the trick there being that if someone fills prescriptions in two different places neither one may have all pertinent information on hand. Still have to account for those silly humans messing up the system.