Despite what WebMD and Wikipedia say, you may not have a fatal disease
Perhaps you are one of the world’s most self-measured people, using wearables to track upwards of 150 parameters relating to your health. Or perhaps not—if you experience an unusual ache or pain or other symptom, you simply Google it.
“Roughly 1% of the billions of Google searches performed every day are symptom-related,” reports Julia Belluz at Vox. “Most of the time, these searches lead you down a WebMD- and Wikipedia-fueled rabbit hole that usually ends on a diagnosis of cancer or a sexually transmitted disease.”
The good news is, you may not actually suffer from such dreaded afflictions. Google knows that, reports Belluz, and the company is trying to have fewer unnecessarily scary conditions show up in your search results. Consequently, Google has recently launched an improved symptom search, headlined “I’m feeling yucky.”
Belluz interviewed Veronica Pinchin, a product manager on Google’s search team, about the new symptom search. You can read the complete interview here. The good news is that of 13 common symptoms searched for (such as knee pain, headache on one side, skin rash, sore throat, fever, and “tummy hurts”), none appear to be incurable.
Reports Belluz, “The symptom search provides physician-vetted, plain-language summaries of common medical ailments, as well as self-treatment options and advice about when that rash ought to be checked out by a living, breathing doctor.” And “headache on one side” is more likely to be a migraine, a tension headache, or sinusitis than brain cancer.
Of course, Google warns, “…symptom search (like all medical information on Google) is intended for informational purposes only, and you should always consult a doctor for medical advice.”
