30 December 2023 , 08:00
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A man was left feeling red-faced after discovering the 'embarrassing' reason his legs turned blue.
Poor health can lead to many of us feeling worried and sometimes we go to extreme lengths to find ways to get better. It's become increasingly common for people to use their mobile phones to search for the symptoms of an illness and fight disease by using homemade remedies, which isn't reccomended.
While most people book an appointment to see their GP if they discover an alarming rash on their body or a change in the colour of their skin, some tend to self-diagnose after researching symptoms on the internet.
However, experts encourage people to seek professional medical advice even if they feel embarrassed, as there are dangers to self-diagnosing including not receiving immediate medical attention and taking information from unreliable sources, according to some websites.
We might end up thinking of the worst-case scenario when online searches convince us that relatively minor medical symptoms are sure to result in certain death. And this has been the case for Mark.
Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him
He had spent hours on the internet researching his symptoms back in 2020 on a health website and was certain he had deep vein thrombosis. Left concerned, he decided he should visit a doctor - but it wasn't what he thought.
Taking to social media at the time, Mark opened up about the unfortunate incident, revealing he'd dashed to the hospital only to be told his worry was for nothing. On the platform X, formerly Twitter, he wrote: "Went to the ER because 'my legs have turned blue and Web MD says I have deep vein thrombosis'.
"Was this it? The big one? No! I have the 'dumb**s who doesn't wash his new jeans before wearing them' disease and I would like to be executed immediately."
While some laughed at Mark's misfortune, a few other brave souls shared their own stories of when self-diagnosis had proved to be a little inaccurate. One person commented: "Went through a phase where I was seriously concerned I had a brain tumor or something because everything I ate - including things like pasta with marinara sauce - tasted like peppermint. Finally realized a bottle of peppermint extract had spilled all over my pots and pans."
A mum replied to say: "Reminds me of the time I was about to take my 6 month old to the ER because his foot was purple. Turned out SOMEBODY forgot to add on his daycare sheet that they were doing foot print painting that day."