Goeie dag almal ek hoop jy het ‘n goeie week so ver. This is Afrikaans and means “Good day everyone, I hope you are having a good week so far. For this weeks article we’re going to discuss self-diagnosis and diagnosing in general. It’s an interesting topic and I’m sure there are a lot of people unaware of certain facts which we’ll be discussing.

The first interesting fact is that the United States and New Zealand are the only two countries able to advertise prescription drugs. I’m originally from South Africa so I found it amazing to watch and hear so many advertisements for medications when moving to the US.

I also found it interesting how there were so many side effects to these medications. To me it seemed that these side effects outweighed the benefits in many cases. If the cons outweigh the pros then why would anyone want to do something or take something?

Let us use going to a car dealership to purchase a brand new car as an example. You have your mind set on a certain car when you walk into a dealership. The dealer starts telling you the facts and he mentions that the car has terrible gas mileage, it will break down in a month, there are too many electrical issues, the breaks will go out in 3 months, the air bags only work half the time….but it’s a really nice looking car and rides nicely. Looking at this situation, would you want to purchase the vehicle???

After seeing/hearing a lot of these medication advertisements they put some leading questions that make you think. They want you to think that you might be experiencing the condition they are trying to sell the medication for. When I first came to the US there were times that an advertisement came on and made me start thinking that I might have a certain ailment. It’s a sales ploy and can be often times be very persuasive. We need to stop for a second and ask ourselves “why are there only two countries in the entire world that allow these advertisements?”. Perhaps there is an issue behind this that the rest of the world has identified?

Now I know we have done this at least once in our life time….self-diagnose. There has been a very popular website that has made us think we have at least 4 diseases, sicknesses or ailments. This website is called WebMd. This website has a lot of information but can make people paranoid.

There was a very recent study done in the Journal Of The American Medical Association (JAMA). This study revealed some shocking statistics about physicians diagnostic accuracy and confidence. (1) Turns out the 118 MDs who participated in the study were right only 55% of the time on easy cases and just 6% on the tough ones. Even more surprising that there was an earlier survey called the PEWE Survey that showed that patients were 41% accurate in their own self-diagnosis from online resources, giving them statistical advantage over their more ‘learned’ MD counterparts (2)

Now we can all see why there is such a health crisis within the United States. People are often being over prescribed medications which all have some kind of side effect, then you are taking even more medication to counter act the side effects of the ones you were given in the first place.

If you are experiencing a health issue or problem, always seek a second opinion before going for your first choice. There are a lot of holistic approaches that can help without the use of drugs or medications. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for medications and I’m happy that we have them to help… but they should only be used at a later stages when the more holistic approach is not working. Chiropractic is one of these approaches and can be very helpful for a variety of health concerns. If you have any questions make sure you consult a Chiropractor to see if they can help you without the use of drugs or surgery.

References
(1) JAMA- Physicians Diagnostic Accuracy and confidence Nov 2013, Meyer et al
(2) Pew Research Internet Project- Health online 2013, Fox et al