This is why web MD is dangerous

[KristyHall]

a series of painful leg cramps woke me up so I wandered into the kitchen, drank a glass of water, ate some yogurt and a banana then came back to bed.
I am in bed, waiting to get sleepy again. I decided to look up leg cramps out of curiosity. Stupid thing to do when you are trying to sleep. I end up down a rabbit hole reading all these things it "could" be.

Ten minutes and several web pages later I am convinced that I have Cirrhosis, Addison's, Parkinson's, and hysterical pregnancy and now I really can't sleep.
Or... I could just be a little dehydrated, low on potassium (from it being summer and me sweating a lot in the garden) and I needed to stretch more. But that would be too easy of a reason for the leg cramps and my paranoid brain can't use that as an excuse for keeping me up half the night. *sighs*

 

[duckinnut]

Good Morning Kristy. While we both agree that we disagree on a lot of things we are both in agreement here. I have been guilty of this several times myself. I have known what was going on with me but went searching for something other than what was going on looking for an easier fix. It all came crashing down when I had to go to the ER and subsequent stomach surgery for what was really going on. Incarcerated ventral hernia was the term they used and I have dealt with pain over the years but it would quickly go away. But one Saturday about a month ago the pain didn't go away.

Even after all my self diagnosis or misdirect diagnosis is more like it. I was trying to avoid my innate fear of being put under. But it all has passed now.

 

[KristyHall]

Ouch! I hope you feel better, and good morning to you as well.

 

[duckinnut]

Ouch! I hope you feel better, and good morning to you as well.

Thanks. This getting old stuff really bites it.

 

[mom'sfolly]

I call it the immediate worst case trick....a headache must be a brain tumor, a mouth sore is scurvy, any rash is leprosy...you get the picture. Web surfing makes it worse.

My mom, at 80, has some health issues. With every new symptom, she sends me to the web, and I find hundreds of things that may cause the tremor, or whatever. Some of them are amazingly dire, some are so minor as to be ignored. I think most of it has to do with being 80, 5' 10" and 98 pounds and smoking.

Never web surf when you want to sleep!

 

[duckinnut]

. I think most of it has to do with being 80, 5' 10" and 98 pounds and smoking.

Never web surf when you want to sleep!

My God sounds like my mother to a T. She is 78 and has had a boat load of health issues. Minor heart attack and 2 brain aneurysms one which leaked. While it was about 9 years ago that all happened and with all that and age she has forgotten much through it all but she remembered she smoked. The funny thing is that my brothers and I would say mum you have to get some exercise and you would get oh this hurts or this is sore but boy could she get her butt over to the store for cigarettes. My brother caught her one day and here is the punchline "I was just going for a walk". She refuses to acknowledge the fact that smoking was key to her health woes even after people other than her 3 sons have told her that. She is like a teenager when you show up at the house and tries to hide the fact she was smoking. Still love her to death though.

 

[galanie]

You're talking about 78 and 80 year old people. Smoking makes it worse I'm sure, but w/out smoking they'd still be hurting and aching.

My mother got cancer after not smoking for 20 years. The doctors insisted that she still smoked because they smelled it on her. They smelled it on her because she had been around me, who was smoking. No, she wasn't hiding anything, she hadn't smoked for 20 years and was 80. Her mother died at 80 of cancer having never smoked in her life.

Smoking is awful. But please don't attribute every ache and pain and illness to it.

 

[duckinnut]

Smoking is awful. But please don't attribute every ache and pain and illness to it.

Not saying her aches and pains were caused by smoking but the major illnesses were as diagnosed by a Doctor and not me. It is no secret that heart disease and narrowing and weakening of arteries are a direct result of smoking amongst other things. Although indirectly smoking was a source of her aches and pains because due to those other problems limited her mobility essentially causing muscle atrophy in my mothers case.

 

[MamaRoo]

a series of painful leg cramps woke me up so I wandered into the kitchen, drank a glass of water, ate some yogurt and a banana then came back to bed.
I am in bed, waiting to get sleepy again. I decided to look up leg cramps out of curiosity. Stupid thing to do when you are trying to sleep. I end up down a rabbit hole reading all these things it "could" be.

Ten minutes and several web pages later I am convinced that I have Cirrhosis, Addison's, Parkinson's, and hysterical pregnancy and now I really can't sleep.
Or... I could just be a little dehydrated, low on potassium (from it being summer and me sweating a lot in the garden) and I needed to stretch more. But that would be too easy of a reason for the leg cramps and my paranoid brain can't use that as an excuse for keeping me up half the night. *sighs*

You missed "blood clots" and "malabsorption".

 

[KristyHall]

Not saying her aches and pains were caused by smoking but the major illnesses were as diagnosed by a Doctor and not me. It is no secret that heart disease and narrowing and weakening of arteries are a direct result of smoking amongst other things. Although indirectly smoking was a source of her aches and pains because due to those other problems limited her mobility essentially causing muscle atrophy in my mothers case.

It is hard watching a parent ail. Even harder when you can't sit on them and make them take better care of themselves.