45 Times Patients Googled Their Symptoms Before Seeing A Doctor And Shared What Happened Next

For a stretch towards the end of high school and beginning of college I repeatedly had sinus infections. We're talking one every 3 to 4 months for the span of about 2 years. The nurse I got initially told me not to believe everything I read on the internet and to stop googling my symptoms just for my doctor to come in about 2 minutes later and say "so you have another sinus infection?" knowing I was going to be right without her checking.

Not a doctor but worked at a hospital for a while. One of our doctors came back to the nurses station laughing because someone was fully convinced they were diabetic because they were "craving" water and webmd said that makes them diabetic. Turns out they are just human and require it to live..

Not Web MD, but bloggers....

My husband just graduated Med school and during his pediatrics rotation he ran into morbidly obese 10 year old girl who was showing very clear signs of type 2 diabetes. He and his supervising physican calmly explained to the mom (who was well over 400lbs herself) how serious this was. The mom pulled out some card written by a blogger how the questions they were asking were showing clear anti-fat bias. She quoted things about statatisics and genetics that were absolute nonsense and she got it all from HAES (health at any size) bloggers. she tore both my husband and the MD a new on on Health Grades so that really pissed me off so I looked into the blogger she quoted and the blogger is such a clear liar it's not even funny. She doesn't understand the first thing about stats or science despite claiming advanced degrees, she claims to be a world record marathon holder at 300lbs and an ironman Triathelte. It was so ludicrous and as dangerous as anti-vaxx and as silly as flat earth.

Worst self diagnosis as a doctor. I was in a rough part of training, not sleeping, working 90+ hr weeks, and losing weight. I crawl into bed after 40 hrs awake at the hospital, too tired to eat. I notice my laptop on my lap is twitching. I realize I can feel my abdominal aorta pulsing. I freak out thinking I have an aneurysm (0 risk factors). Then realize I am hungry and tired and thinner than I have ever been.

Paramedic student here. Last week we had a call for an imminent delivery. Pt started having abdominal pain that would last a little bit and stop. And about 2-3 min later would start again. She googled her symptoms and everything she found was saying she was in labor. She called her husband and he told her to call 911. We walked in as the baby was crowning. She had no idea she was pregnant.

I had a patient come into the clinic who insisted she had radiculopathy because her feet were numb and painful, and she wanted a surgical evaluation. I asked her why she felt that way, the only thing she could say was she looked it up on the internet. She was very aggressive about it, saying she needed an MRI and she was mad that her PCP didn't order one. I explained to her what diabetic neuropathy was, and she insisted it wasn't that. I told her that the fact that she had diabetes, the stocking glove pattern, and the fact that at least two doctors at her PCP office said this was diabetic neuropathy meant she didn't need further workup for back surgery. She threw a fit.

I recently dealt with a bilateral pulmonary embolism and went to the er with chest pain and shortness of breath.

At first, it wasn't so bad and i really thought it was just indigestion because not 5 hours before it started, i was at a concert, drinking, and eating edibles and then eating tons of fried food at a diner.

The pain ultimately went on for 14 hours and was very specific, it got 10x worse if i tried to lay down, and was somewhat alleviated if i sat and leaned forward.

So after getting nowhere googling "chest pain" i finally googled that leaning forward bit , and "Pericarditis " was the result.

So by the time i got to the er, instead of saying "hey doc, i asked Dr. Google and this is what I'm diagnosing myself with because I'm cleary smarter than you"...i just explained the details of my pain exactly as they were.

He at first responded, "well, sounds like a blood clot, but you dont smoke cigarettes and youre fairly young [29] so i sincerely doubt that, probably pericarditis " and i just looked over at my boyfriend and smirked and then texted my mom and was like " yea he totally thinks it's that peri whatever thing, I'm basicallya doctor now"

SCORE.

Anyways, turned out to have 2 blood clots, 1 in each lung and i was a ticking time bomb apparently, lucky to be alive and stupid for waiting 14 hours to go to the er.

A mother who was convinced her son had familial Mediterranean fever. He did not. She was repeatedly told this, nicely of course. Yes the child had had genetic testing by the time I saw the family. Oh, but a small percentage aren’t detected by the testing!

Thing is, her kid was fine. Healthy kid. Mom was just obsessed with this diagnosis. (Not exactly Munchausen by proxy, she never did anything to him to make him sick, or subjected him to a lot of unnecessary procedures. But on that spectrum.).

I've been on the opposite end of this when I was in college and wasn't felling well. Looked up my symptoms and came to the conclusion I had strep throat.

Went to the free clinic on campus and told the doctor there that I think I had strep. She chuckles and says, "Well, we'll see about that." So, she does the test on me and later comes back and says, "Wow, you were actually right!"

I guess being on campus she had a lot of people coming in saying that when really it was nothing more than a sore throat.

Not a doctor but worked in emergency services. Guy went to bed after convincing himself that his chest pain was indigestion. Took some antacid and climbed in bed.



Wife was in tears the next morning when he was no longer alive.

One time I accompanied my wife to the doctor's office. She had looked up her symptoms on the internet and diagnosed her calf pain, a strained muscle in hindsight, as peripheral artery disease. The doctor was not in the least sympathetic or tactful in explaining that PAD doesn't appear suddenly during an exercise session.

She felt humiliated, and immediately changed to a more sympathetic doctor. Twenty years on, the self diagnosis errors continue.

I had a woman come to see me because of abdominal pain. I spent a good 10-15 minutes of asking her questions to get a better understanding of what could be happening. I ended up ordering an ultrasound to assess for an ovarian cysts and some blood work. As she’s leaving she goes “are you doing lab work for my prostate?” I had to bite my tongue so as not to laugh and said “no, because you’re not a male and you don’t have one.” She just said “oh.” and left.

Spoiler alert - she had an ovarian cyst.

The person who refused to tell me what symptoms they were actually having xD they had decided that they had pneumonia and any time I tried to ask what they were experiencing they just said "I have pneumonia! Don't you know what the symptoms of pneumonia are?!" Pretty sure they looked it up, decided they had, but couldn't remember the exact symptoms...

*Not a doctor but,* my boyfriend woke me up at 4am saying he had appendicitis and needed to be taken to the ER. It had to be the hospital, no urgent care, because his appendix could burst anytime. He gathered that all from googling.

We walked into the ER, the guy at the check-in desk took on look at him clutching his abdomen and said “how long has that kidney stone been bothering you?” Bf swears no, no, I have appendicitis for sure.

One CAT scan and a few thousand dollars later and yes, it’s was a kidney stone, they sent him home to pass it.

Not a doctor but.....I developed a rash on my lower back that began to blister the day after the rash appeared. I googled and came back with shingles. I went to the doctor, told them it was shingles and I got an eye roll and the entire, "You're too young for shingles (21)" and "You would be in so much pain if it was." I didn't even get my shirt up all the way before the doctor JUMPED up and said, "Nevermind, that's shingles." The doctor didn't believe me because I have never had the chicken pox as a kid.

P.S. I had absolutely no pain with my shingles. Had I not felt the blistering on my back while taking a shower, I wouldn't of known.

Patient here, was on recovery from gallbladder removal and began having a sharp pain in my right calf muscle. Of course I googled it!

I found tons of info about blood clots post surgery and decided to see my doctor. Had an EKG performed in the office, was sent to the hospital for a d-dimer and veinous doppler. During the veinous Doppler the results from the d-dimer came back positive.

Went from having two blood clots just behind my right knee to going through a CT scan and being told I had pulmonary embolism. Wasn't allowed to walk anywhere.

Took Xarelto for 6 weeks and all the clots dissolved.

Thinking back on it, I remember feeling so silly even bringing up the fact that I had googled my symptoms and telling my doctor I had done so.

Glad I did!

Opposite sort of happened to me but I had some sores that were itchy and spreading across my stomach. Naturally I looked up what it could be and pulled up a page on various spiders and what their bites look like. Thinking that I probably shouldn't use the Internet to self-diagnose, I made the decision to see my doctor.

While I was in the waiting room after checking in, noting the reason for my visit, I had to go to the bathroom which was past the doctor's office. I glanced in and noticed he was looking up something on the Internet and lo and behold it happened to be the exact same page on spider bites I was looking at myself. Shouldn't have to explain what his diagnosis for me was soon after.

To be fair, in the end they weren't bites but rather a pretty rare skin disease I happened to contract. Doctors said it's often confused for bug bites.

This is somewhat related but I'm not a Dr.

The only time I self prescribed was when I thought I had rhabdomyolysis. Never had even heard of it before.

I woke up that morning feeling like I’d been in a car accident (had done a very heavy workout 2 days prior) and literally wondered why it was the worst soreness of my life. I didn't start doing any webmd stuff though until after I went to the bathroom and realised my urine looked like coca cola.

What's funny is even going to the er I was thinking, "this is a total waste of time and I'm going to be laughed at by a Dr today for being an idiot who looks up stuff online."

Then I spent the next 5 days in the hospital and went through 70 IV bags before I was finally discharged.

NAD but
My daughter was suffering from amazing bruises all over her body that you could just about watch spread. It was very scary. The pain she was in was excruciating and she couldn't move her limbs.
We started sunny doctor after doctor who said it was nothing, or passed it off as growing pains.
Eventually our sister in law, who was a nursing student, suggested vasculitis. We told the doctor what we thought, and he agreed when we took her into the ER. We successfully self diagnosed with internet help.
Soon enough, the tending doctor was bringing in other doctors to quiz them one after another.
My only thought was, "I'm not paying for this one.".

I went to an ENT doctor after a couple of weeks of getting world-spinningly dizzy - literally not knowing which way was up for a few seconds at a time - when I moved my head in certain ways. It was so bad it would wake me up when I moved in my sleep. I was nauseous all the time and started to get brain fog and become irritable and confused at work as a result of constantly feeling like I was falling over.

I looked it up and it sounded just like something called BPPV - benign paroxsymal positional vertigo, I think. It's where (salt?) crystals form in your ear canal and start messing with your balance. It's easily diagnosed by moving the patient into a position that triggers it, and for something like 90% of people, easily cured by moving them into a different position to dislodge the crystals. I read online though that people can make it worse by attempting these positions themselves so I decided to go to a doctor to do it.

The doctor carried out the diagnostic test wrong (didn't tip my head back when laying me down), so failed to trigger it and declared no BPPV despite me triggering it myself when I got up off the bed. He gave me a leaflet for labyrinthitis and said it would clear itself up but might be another month or so.

I got home, had my husband carry out the diagnostic test properly, confirmed it, then had him carry out the treatment procedure. Immediately cured.

Then again this is the same guy who diagnosed a perforated eardrum but told me I didn't need to get it fixed or take any precautions when swimming or anything. Now I am half deaf from glue ear following a nasty middle ear infection.