What's That Disease? Ask Google

U.K. Docs Find Google Helps Diagnose Difficult Cases — With A Little Know-How

(WebMD)  What's ailing you? Ask Google, a British study suggests.

U.K. doctors Hangwi Tang and Jennifer Hwee Kwoon Ng find that their patients often use the popular Google Internet search engine to try to diagnose their own illnesses.

They wondered if it works.

To test the strategy, they took advantage of a feature in The New England Journal of Medicine. Every week, the journal offers doctors the chance to hone their diagnostic skills by presenting a puzzling case history.

So Tang and Ng gave Google a chance to solve 26 of the puzzles.

The two doctors selected three-to-five search terms for each case history. They then typed them into Google and looked over the first five pages of search results for a diagnosis.

Google came up with the correct diagnosis 58 percent of the time, Tang and Ng report in the current online issue of BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal.

"Our study suggests that in difficult diagnostic cases, it is often useful to 'google' for a diagnosis," the researchers conclude.

The catch: Tang and Ng are doctors, and their combined expertise was needed to choose the most likely search result.

"Patients doing a Google search may find the search less efficient and be less likely to reach the correct diagnosis," they note. "We believe that Google searches by a 'human expert' — a doctor — have a better yield."

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SOURCE: Tang, H. BMJ, Online First edition, Nov. 8, 2006.

[cornflower3]

wish google could help me. i've slowly become crippled over the years after a fall and am in intense pain and the doctors just kind of look at me. i'm now in a whellchair because i cannot walk very far without the numbness in my feet and leg becoming strangling, cannot sleep because laying in bed makes the pain in my feet worse and i cannot change positions, am so swollen my legs have to be wrapped every day. what could cause my nervous system to go so haywhire? i'm afraid of what will happen before i'm finaly diagnosed.

[rf35]

cornflower3...have you seen a chiropractor? Sounds like a spinal nerve is being pinched or compressed. Don't count on your family doctor to recommend a chiropractic doctor or even know to check this. Do make sure to check with your medical insurance provider to find one that covered (as far as I know, all insurance providers cover chiropractic care, though you may have to push on it with a few). Hope this helps.