Medical Encyclopedia

A Medical Encyclopedia is Handy

One book that I have had in my personal library for as long as I can remember is a medical encyclopedia. It is so useful for so many different reasons, but it can also be problematic in that, if you read from it enough, you can start to imagine that you have all the diseases that are listed. My mother used to work as a nurse and would always keep a medical encyclopedia around the house because she said they were very useful.

A Medical Encyclopedia Can Make You a Hypochondriac

I never gave it much thought until I sprained my ankle when I was 14 years old and decided to look up the symptoms to see if they matched up to what the doctor had told me. About three hours later, my mother had to take the book away from me because I was reading about every ailment and injury conceivable and convincing myself that I had all kinds of problems that I really didn't have.

I could swear that I had a brain tumor because I had been having a lot of headaches lately. As it turned out, I had been drinking a lot of sodas over a period of several months, and my parents had decided that I needed to cut back.

The headaches were very likely from a lack of caffeine and it took my body a few weeks to get adjusted.A few years later, I was sure that I was going to have a heart attack. I had chest pains, and I could hardly move without my chest throbbing in pain. I went to the doctor and told her what my problem was and she ultimately determined that I had pulled a muscle lifting weights.

She then explained to me, in a very polite manner, that 16-year-olds typically don't have heart attacks.It was actually my doctor who asked where I had gotten the idea that I was having a heart attack, and I told her about the medical encyclopedia.

I Still keep Medical Encyclopedia

She started to laugh, and said she had a number of patients that read from their medical encyclopedias about different health-related problems and then came to her convinced that they had some serious medical condition, and almost every time it was nothing to really worry about at all.She told me that having a medical encyclopedia around can be a very good thing, but not to jump to the conclusion that I have a horrible medical problem just because the symptoms I am having match some of the symptoms listed for that condition.

I still keep a medical encyclopedia around and I do like to flip through it every now and then, and it can help make you aware of a serious medical problem. I have still had moments where I will read about a certain condition and start to wonder if I have that problem, but then I think back to the advice I received from my doctor as a teenager and wait to see if the symptoms pass. In almost every instance, they have.