All roads lead to lupus

"I feel perpetually tired, and I think perhaps my left hand is a little swollen compared to the right?"

"Me too!  I looked it up and found out I've got Lymphogranuloma Venereum; I've got all the symptoms"...

Ah, the wonders of self-diagnosis.  Anyone who's spent a good amount of time looking up their various ailments on Web MD will be no stranger to the notion that every symptom eventually leads to a conclusion of some type of cancer.  In fact, if you really try, you could progress yourself from a picture of health to a diabolical cot-case with one click of the mouse.

I work a full-time job with a 3 hour daily commute.  On weekends, I spend my spare time jumping out of a small plane and for six hours a week I learn French.  As a result of this, I am tired.  Quite tired, a lot of the time.  Occasionally I combine that tiredness with a slight headache, a mild nausea, a few aches and pains or a stiff neck.  While undoubtedly the result of long hours, a body-intensive hobby, too much tea or not enough water, I have been drawn more than once to the enticing world of online diagnosis.  The process of deciphering one's condition progresses as follows:

Step one:  Log in to the unreliable medical website of your choice.  (These are, without exception, money-grabbing and inaccurate sources of scaremongering).  For those without a good internet connection, Doctor Oz or a similar television-based medium can be substituted.

Step two:  Add your symptoms to the website search engine.  The more vague the symptoms, the larger the range of diseases you'll have access to.  Good examples of symptoms to use are:
tiredness
joint pain
abdominal bloating/cramping
headache
nausea
diarrhoea

These are present in at least 97.831% of all possible diseases, so adding these in any order can lead to a fun game of "Guess the illness".  Invariably, the choice will be between 5 autoimmune diseases and 15 types of cancer.  Lupus will ALWAYS be one of them.

Step three:  Click 'Search'.  

The results will be displayed as a list of potential conditions.  I particularly like WebMD, which provides a schematic diagram of a human body and some extremely descriptive symptoms (for example:  Vomit the colour of coffee grounds... urgh).  

Step four:  Call your boss.  Someone as sick as you should definitely not be going to work tomorrow.  I'm surprised that someone with Wegener's Granulomatosus can even function enough to operate the computer.

The only rule of self-diagnosis is simple:  At no point during the disease determination should you ever consult a medical professional.  However, you may seek guidance from any number of professions proclaiming to treat or cure with absolutely no scientific credibility.  These include:

Astrologists
Priests
Kinesiologists
Exorcists
Tarot readers
Shamen
Faith Healers

*Please note, the above list is not exhaustive and any other self-proclaimed (but not accredited) medicinal occupation can be added. 

I've worked for the past few years in a job that deals a lot with autoimmune disease.  As a result, I have developed a deep-seated paranoia about lupus and scleroderma.  As the temperature cools, I see a blue tinge to my nail beds and immediately diagnose myself with Raynaud's Syndrome.  If I have a nuclear-hot shower and turn my stomach a fetching shade of fire truck, I have been known to talk myself into all kinds of rashes and complaints.  I've calmed my own nerves after I've convinced myself that I have kidney failure, melanoma, brain tumours, hepatitis, menangitis and many broken bones.  

Through my work and my physically demanding free time, I know first-hand just how unreliable self-diagnosis can be, and how devastating it can be in the wrong hands.  Alexander Pope wrote that "a little learning is a dangerous thing"; and these words have never been truer than with the example of a paranoid person with an internet connection.  So please, if you're feeling under the weather and you're not surrounded by empty beer cans, please consult your GP before you turn to the internet!


*Please note:  I do not want any reader to assume that I take the diagnoses of serious disease lightly.  I am very aware of the severity of many conditions (including cancers), and the above is intended to be read as light-hearted satire.

Under no conditions do I advocate the services of any untrained medical treatment (unless under strict supervision of a qualified medical professional), so please, if you think there's something wrong, head to the doctor :)


Blue skies,

Ez