news conference hosted by the OMA<\/a> Wednesday, calling attention to the rising trend of do-it-yourself medical solutions. <\/p>\nDoctors on the panel said they are increasingly encountering self-diagnoses based on internet research or having to answer questions from patients about viral videos suggesting that fast food can cure migraines or that CBD oil can shrink tumours. <\/p>\n
Some are even trying to treat themselves. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had a patient who had a tube going into their kidney because it was blocked \u2013 it\u2019s called a nephrostomy tube \u2013 due to their cancer. And they actually tried to put the twine from a weed whacker in to get out the sludge that was in there,\u201d D\u2019Souza recalled. \u201cThey were asking about actually putting in a little bit of Lysol to clear it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he managed to dissuade them, other patients have chosen to go with alternate treatments based on their own research, sometimes with devastating effects. <\/p>\n
One young woman, D\u2019Souza recalled, came to him with a diagnosis of cervical cancer. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was not ready to accept conventional treatment and decided she was going to pursue other remedies that she had heard about,\u201d D\u2019Souza said. \u201cShe came back two years later, unfortunately, with her disease having progressed and spread, and in a lot of pain, and unfortunately, our ability to control her cancer and give her a long-term good outcome was severely compromised.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patients making diagnoses with online quizzes<\/p>\n
Dr. Valerie Primeau, a psychiatrist from North Bay, Ont., said she\u2019s seeing more and more people using quick online tools to diagnose themselves with Attention Deficit\/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, and other problems. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe first concern, obviously, is misdiagnosis,\u201d Primeau said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s certain disorders that are higher risk of misdiagnosis, specifically bipolar disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n
She noted that if you think you have an illness, that could increase anxiety about having an illness, which could itself have negative health impacts. Best practices around treatment can also change dramatically in just the space of a couple of years, she said, information that medical experts are more likely to be appraised of than online resources. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo that can be dangerous, as well as being given unfiltered advice about how to manage the illness, which is not likely to be evidence-based,\u201d Primeau said. <\/p>\n
She estimated around a third of the patients she sees come to her with self-diagnoses and estimates that proportion will increase. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s happening more right now, and I foresee it continuing to happen more and more, especially with AI technology getting more and more available and more and more sophisticated,\u201d Primeau said. \u201cI have patients now that talk to ChatGPT to get advice.\u201d <\/p>\n
Social media a source of medical misinformation <\/p>\n
Dr. Alyse Goldberg, a Toronto endocrinologist who focuses on fertility and treating hormonal conditions, said existing technologies, particularly social media, are already driving people to health information that may not be reliable. <\/p>\n
She showed examples of posts, presented to her by social media accounts she doesn\u2019t even follow, which described \u201cinvisible signs of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)\u201d and \u201ctips\u201d about other disorders she regularly discusses. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou get targeted in terms of what therapeutic options your physician may be giving you, but then reasons to avoid some evidence-based treatment,\u201d Goldberg said. <\/p>\n
While some of the solutions presented by the posts might sound amazing, they may not be tested or evidence-based. <\/p>\n
Nevertheless, seeing the posts could \u201cfracture the relationship with the physician,\u201d Goldberg said, especially if the patient feels that good options have been \u201cwithheld.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the posts might also push users toward products that aren\u2019t effective or appropriate and Goldberg said it\u2019s important to think about \u201cwho\u2019s trying to make money off of us and use our symptoms of medical experiences in order to self promote.\u201d<\/p>\n
OMA President Dr. Zainab Abdurrahman said the organization is particularly concerned about the rise in diagnosis and self-treatment among young people, who tend to lean heavily on information from the Internet. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you break it down by generations, we\u2019re also seeing a higher uptake, especially in some of our very young populations, who are still in their teens and early 20s, who are looking more at social media and in terms of how they quantify how reliable or credible a source is versus other generations,\u201d Abdurrahman said. <\/p>\n
She also pointed out that combatting misinformation is a wider problem society is grappling with right now. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to come and address and talk about this, and talk about how to get credible information, because we know misinformation and disinformation is something that, as a society we are managing, and health-care is not immune to this.\u201d<\/p>\n
While there are many pitfalls and problems with self-diagnosis and treatment, doctors point out that it can be beneficial to do some research from legitimate sources if it leads you to consult a physician who can more accurately diagnose a problem. <\/p>\n
The doctors also stress that it\u2019s important for medical professionals to be communicative with their patients rather than judgmental, recognizing that sometimes a prescribed course of treatment can leave patients feeling like they don\u2019t have control. <\/p>\n
\u201cRather than coming back with a judgmental tone, I embrace the fact that they are communicating,\u201d D\u2019Souza said. <\/p>\n
They also acknowledge that access to family doctors, and financial barriers to certain kinds of medical tests and assessments could also be driving people into the arms of Dr. Google, where quick answers are easy to come by. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur phones now are intelligent. They listen to us and they look at our trends,\u201d Primeau points out. \u201cAnd if we talk about something that we\u2019re concerned about, they will show us posts that relate to that. So the answers seem more immediate, and people want that. People are looking for answers, and they get that validation from that access on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ontario Medical Association says it is seeing a rise in people turning to AI and the internet…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4717,2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-53861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114828450413484219","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}