Is it possible to know too much? The long and the short of it is that it is possible to know too much, but not enough. As a retired Doc, I have thousands of patient stories of rare and abnormal circumstances leading to disease or disorders you would never expect to see.
An example is the story of Mr. P. Mr. P’s son brought him to the office complaining that “Dad’s just not right. He can’t write and he’s walking kinda funny.” I scanned Mr. Ps head and found a large subdural hematoma (bleed in skull). The neurosurgeon took him to surgery and evacuated the hematoma. Once the blood was removed, the patient remembered passing out in the barn and hitting his head, six months earlier.
So, I fell in Mexico and hit my head on asphalt. I abraded my scalp, did not pass out, and got up quickly without even a headache. Despite not having symptoms, I started worrying. Slowly, my gait disorder worsened. Was the worsening due to Parkinson’s, subdural bleed, or anxiety?
In the meantime, my friend Facetimed me and asked what’s with my eye. My answer was, “Nothing”. Then I looked in the mirror and, sure enough, my left eyelid was swollen. I saw an optometrist who thought my eye was bulging a little. Again, I had no symptoms other than being nervous.
My symptoms seemed to worsen as the night wore on. At midnight, Renee took me to the ER. I know too much. I convinced myself I had a blow out fracture of my left eye socket and a subdural hematoma.
I know too much, yet I didn’t know enough. I knew the mechanism of injury should not cause the ocular or gait disturbance, so I put off going to the ER. My brother pointed out that, if it was him, I’d recommend he go to the ER. Putting off going to the ER worsened my anxiety.
As it turns out, my CTs were normal! I was worried about nothing. I saw the eye doc today and he diagnosed a swollen eyelid. The moral of the story is:
See your doctor and let him/her/other decide what to do. Ignore Dr. Google and your gut and see your doc. Seeing your doc will most likely spare you the anxiety of over diagnosing yourself.
Here is today’s joke:
Doctor: “I have some bad news and some very bad news.”
Patient: “Well, might as well give me the bad news first.”
Doctor: “The lab called with your test results. They said you have 24 hours to live.”
Patient: “24 HOURS! That’s terrible!! What could be worse? What’s the very bad news?”
Doctor: “I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday.”
All I have for this one is : ). My husband who is an engineer goes through this kind of stuff so much. He goes to Google….silly man. I keep telling him, call your doctor. Here you are a doctor and self diagnose too. Funny to me.