Unpopular Opinion
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I'm onboard with this statement purely because nobody is posting asking for advice while sitting around just fucking oblivious to the idea that doctors exist. Like we arent aware that the best advice will come from a trained medical professional who has my complete medical history and access to all manner of tests to confirm their diagnosis.
Saying "Speak to your doctor" is useless, its just you involving yourself in the conversation for the sake of it. Its the advice equivalent of "Thoughts and Prayers". Do you also go on a automotive community and reply to every car repair advice question with "take it to a mechanic"?
For me, "Speak to "your doctor" means getting an appointment for 10 weeks from now OR taking the first available appointment (11am next tuesday, so... take a day off work) at the revolving door medical clinic staffed by doctors who legit have a "patients per hour" quota to keep and you never see the same one twice. Who skimreads 40 years of medical history, pays no heed to what I actually want and pushes me out the door.
Actually a great many people honestly believe they know better than doctors, that their snake oil will fix them. Look at the entire antivax movement. Look at the pandemic deniers.
So, uh, we can't take it for granted that people actually know that they should talk to a trained professional. Because many don't.
And that's important. If we find out that we're talking to a certain kind of fundie or antivaxxer or COVID denier, depending on the context of course, often there's no point wasting time. Get the good advice on paper in hopes that other readers see it, and move along with life.
What people DO with advice they asked for is on them.
I was having issues with positional hypertension, I posted about it in a bodybuilding forum. Someone said "I bet your caffeine intake is too high. I had the same issue after my morning coffees and whenever I had preworkout. Dial back the caf and see what happens" That advice was safe, free and easy to test. It worked too. The thread has a bunch of people saying "Go see a doctor" and a bunch of people recommending supplements to help. I looked at what I asked rationally and thought about it.
I think the type of people who will.apply internet quackery as fact are probably the same people who put "doctors" in inverted commas and shop for the opinion they want anyway.
Yeah I largely agree with you. If I think that OP (of whatever topic) is not going to be receptive to reasonable advice, clearly I don't want to waste my time, but I might spend just enough time to get good information out there so that other readers can see it.
That doesn't mean this is the right course of action. A doctor will actually examine you rather than just listening to your explanation of things that may or may not be relevant. The point isn't that people don't know doctors exist, it's that they want to find the cheapest route rather than spend the money to see one in addition to the fact that you have zero idea who the person you're talking to is.
Asking for medical advice online is no different than asking a magic 8-ball.
If people want to blindly apply the advice, do no followup or apply any kind of common sense to the answers thats on them.
Theres no folk remedy OR prescription for fucking stupid.
Your last sentence explains perfectly why people say “see your doctor”.
Nobody wants to participate in some idiot hurting themselves because they don’t have the ability to apply common sense in the first place.
People that ask for “tips and tricks” regarding healthcare also can’t fathom how incredibly complex modern medicine can be.
what if they can't spend the money?? just suffer? someone who's suffering from the same thing as me is frankly someone i respect more than a normal successful guy who went to school for 20 years
If asking online cures your illness then you probably didn't need to go to the doctor in the first place and you never know if someone is truly suffering from the same thing as you since so many illnesses have overlapping symptoms. Remember it wasn't too long ago that people online were recommending bleach and horse dewormer to cure COVID. Is that the type of advice you're looking for?
You're angry at the (I'm guessing) US healthcare system. I get it. It sucks. But that anger is woefully misplaced going against doctors or random people on the internet. The doctor that treats your ailment is not responsible for how much the clinic, the hospital or insurance charges you. But they will always be on your side and give you advice that they are sure will work and will help you get better.
People on the internet however, a few of them will give you advice that kills you or cause permanent harm without even an inch of remorse. They'll frame it as medical advice as well. Often without even recognizing that what they're doing is harmful. The internet has told little kids to chew on detergent pods, drink bleach, people with COVID to do bleach enemas and horse dewormer, told psychiatric patients to stop taking their medications (leading to accidents and suicides), caused ear infections with recipes for extraneous concoctions for tinnitus, and the list goes on.
The vast majority of the people on the internet do not want to be responsible for stuff like the ones above, so we tell people asking for advice to go see a doctor. If it's so much trouble, there are alternatives, asks for a friend to help you call and set up the appointment, they can come with you into consultation if you feel unsafe. You rely so much on the internet, make a gofundme or some similar donations page and get people to help you pay for the doctor. Hell I would rather help you with that, than give you potentially bad advice. The point is, “go to the doctor” doesn't come from a place of malice, quite the contrary, it comes from a place of care.
And finally, yes, the guy who went to school for 20 years knows more than the one guy who is suffering the same thing as you. Because, the one guy who suffers the same symptoms as you has very intimate experience with one body and one expression of the disease. Without even considering the fact that you have to find that one guy in the sea of million of users who have no idea what they're talking about. However, the guy who went to school has direct experience with thousands of bodies who have had the same disease, and indirect experience with millions of bodies that have been documented with the same disease in scientific and practice journals. He has seen your symptoms not once, but expressing in a million different ways, in a million lifestyles, treated with thousand different ways with control for hundreds of possible variables. He knows what works and what doesn't and can adapt his advice to your specific body, lifestyle and circumstances in ways that a random on the internet simply cannot.
Even if you think "talk to a doctor" is useless, misinformation is still actively harmful. So giving advice is worse than useless. It's not a "something is better than nothing" scenario.
it's not automatically misinformation because it's advice
There's no way to know without a medical expert, and the liklihood of it being misinformation is high given people's penchant for offering advice they know nothing about.
Don't ask strangers on the internet for medical advice.
thank you, this is exactly what i mean. the problem shouldn't be, as the comments are saying, 'stupid people will do the horse injections' -- it's pretty obvious when the tips are common sense and benign yet clever and helpful -- like taking a bath if you're stressed. it's just such a preachy, syrupy empty message to shut off everyone else from saying anything because you need to repeat the boring disclaimer we've heard 1000 times. it's so smug, i've never seen such smugness resonate off of plain text before.
it's not "dangerous" to read people's advice online, my god, you can get all sorts of horrible advice about relationships or sex or professional life or tech support or anything else you can think of, but medical advice -- something that could be the most crucial thing you need in an emergency, if you have one of the many, many situations it's not trivial to talk to a doctor -- that's where we draw the line and leave it to the esteemed doctor class, only they may know the secrets. why can't people talk to fellow people about their health without getting yelled at that they should, nay, they MUST speak to a medical professional. we are not allowed to discuss the hippocratic realm
I replied this to someone else but...
I was having issues with positional hypertension, I posted about it in a bodybuilding forum. Someone said "I bet your caffeine intake is too high. I had the same issue after my morning coffees and whenever I had preworkout. Dial back the caf and see what happens" That advice was safe, free and easy to test. It worked too. The thread has a bunch of people saying "Go see a doctor" and a bunch of people recommending supplements to help. I looked at all the advice rationally and thought about it. Id never had issues with caffeine before, but Id also never been working out as hard as I was and in a caloric deficit at the same time.