Google with care

Google is a dangerous thing. It can lead you down a very scary road to a small padded cell if you're not careful.

You know you've done it before. Something seems off. You don't feel well. And instead of making a doctor's appointment like any sane person would do, you run to your computer and Google something like "why does my pee smell like celery". And BOOM! Up pops hundreds of thousands of search results. You skim past the rather benign ones, and zero in on the results that make your gut clench.

It's scurvy!

No, it's Lyme disease (never mind that you haven't been anywhere near a wooded area in 10 years)!

Actually, if you're a wily veteran of all things Google searching, you know that plugging in any symptoms of any kind will always result in a diagnosis of cancer.

But...

I do wonder how many times Google has saved a life? Or prevented a child from getting very, very ill? How many times has a Mom been pooh-poohed by their child's pediatrician, but going on a gut instinct decided to Google terms like "my child is always thirsty", or "2 year old is peeing a lot"?

And when page after page about diabetes popped up, did that mother feel an icy chill in her heart, and a slow, sinking feeling of recognition in her gut? I wonder if her Google search gave her the confidence to go back to the pediatrician and demand a BG test.

These days I refrain from Googling symptoms too much because it's always a very short trip to Freakout-ville. I think it is such a double-edged sword. It's good to be informed, but too much (of the wrong) information can make you a little nuts. I'll end this post with a rather funny story:

A few months ago, I took Mattias into our pedi's office because he had some sort of sore on his man-bits. Since it was a Thursday, our regular pedi wasn't there, but the poor doc who got stuck with me listened as I rambled on about all the many things I was concerned with (this was during the height of one of my worried-about-D frenzies).

She looked him over, checked his BG (79), and took a urine sample (negative for sugar and ketones). She then gave me a sheet of paper with the diagnosis on it and proceeded to tell me NOT to Google what she had diagnosed him with because D (sugar in the urine) will come up as a cause. I believe she started the sentence of with, "I can tell you like to look things up on the Internet..."

Even though she quite possibly called me crazy, I'm okay with that. Because it's true... you just can't believe everything you read on the Internet.

And sometimes you need to Google with care.