Health

Use the Internet to Self-Diagnose? Why Not? Here's How

By Trisha Torrey, About.com GuideFebruary 12, 2013

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I was recently contacted by Jason Maude, a gentleman who lives in Great Britain, and who I've known about since the very early days of doing the patient empowerment work I do. It was like hearing from an old friend.

You see, about 10 years ago, Jason's young daughter, Isabel, was misdiagnosed, and it almost cost her her life. She has since recovered (is now in her mid-20s!) but Jason, a proactive survivor, knew what he needed to do once Isabel recovered.

He developed an extensive and exhaustive system to help doctors more accurately diagnose their patients. Its capabilities are well known today among doctors and the health centers that purchase the system. In a conversation not long ago with a doctor, I asked him whether his hospital used the Isabel system. "If only we could afford it, we'd install it in a heartbeat," he told me.

As you can imagine, when I began my very public, online patient empowerment work in 2005, talking about misdiagnosis in a blog (how many people do you know who had a blog in 2005?) - Jason got in touch. Since then his company's capabilities and reach have expanded to its global reputation today.

The reason Jason contacted me more recently was to tell me that there is now a patient-friendly version of the Isabel system. It's free for patients to use, but it was developed with that same goal in mind - to help patients more accurately diagnose themselves, or to provide access to good information about a diagnosis they already have.

So it got me to thinking. Hmmm.... self-diagnosis.... everything you read says "don't try to diagnose yourself using the internet!" But with a tool like Isabel (and a few others available now) -- I have to ask, "why not?"

Now - please understand - I am not suggesting you can bypass your doctor all together when you have troubling symptoms. Not at all. That's not an empowered patient approach.

But what I am suggesting is that the tools and support are now available to make it much easier for a patient to learn far, far more about a potential diagnosis, even if it's only to eliminate it as a possibility. That a patient can learn to develop his or her own differential diagnosis, and get enough information online to come to an accurate conclusion, or at least one that's very close. Having done so, that patient can then see his or her doctor and be far more confident about both the conversation, the need for subsequent testing, and even the conclusion.

So here you go: How to Self-Diagnose Using the Internet with a clear nod to Jason and his hard work, and his willingness to share the Isabel system with us patients.