Why You Shouldn't Self-Diagnose

For the past two days, my left wrist hasn't been feeling so swell. Simple movements send shooting pains around the area and my wrist has been rendered pretty motionless. My sister seems to think the pain is due to my constant need to be on the computer, but I throw my head back and laugh at this ridiculousness. Plus, it would make more sense if it was my right wrist that was hurting. Seeing as how this ailment is affecting pretty much every aspect of my daily life (and most importantly, my at-office chatting), I've taken to the internet for help.

My sister stumbled upon this website a little while back - a heaven for hypochondriacs. The site allows you to enter your symptoms (on a naked human replica!) and suggests possible conditions you may (but probably don't) have. The site has successfully instilled fear in both of us, but we continue to race to it the minute we feel a little scratchiness in our throats. You can imagine the heyday we had trying to diagnose my salmonella.

I've revisited the site this morning to try to wrap my head around this wrist pain, and the results aren't good. See below:


20 possible conditions? Really? From some measly wrist pain? And what - not even a "don't worry - it's just a little overuse" condition? There are some serious diseases in here! Sarcoidosis (also known as Schaumann's Disease [right, because that helps]), Lyme disease, Crohn's disease, SHINGLES?!

It's official. I'm dying.