Health problems are
part of life. The fact is that everyone gets ill sometimes though hopefully not
too often and when you develop a medical symptom you need to decide what to do
about it. For example, you may choose to see your pharmacist, consult your
doctor, go to the nearest Accident & Emergency (A&E) department or, in
the worst case, phone for an ambulance. You may even choose to do nothing at
all.
Medical problems come
in all shapes and sizes. Some are easy to recognise, simple or harmless,
whereas others may not be so obvious, are complex, or even dangerous. Telling
the difference between them can be quite tricky, and making a formal medical
diagnosis is best left to the professionals.
So that you stay
healthy and get the best available health advice and treatment when you fall
ill, you need to be able to make sensible decisions about your health. Doing so
can be tricky and occasionally a bit scary. Not surprisingly, you can feel out
of your depth all too easily. Most people successfully make decisions about
their healthcare just by using common sense, but instances do occur
when you’re not quite sure what to do or your health problems develop gradually
and you start to think about getting medical help.
These situations are
where Diagnosing Your Health Symptoms can help. In the same way that you
don’t have to be a professional mechanic or engineer to identify and deal with
simple problems relating to your car or dishwasher, you don’t have to be a
doctor to be able to recognise common or potentially serious health problems or
to have the confidence to decide what to do about them. You do have to be a
health professional, though, to deal with and treat a great many conditions,
and so knowing when you can treat an illness yourself and when to seek medical
advice is an essential skill.
How to Acquiring basic skills in self-diagnosis
When you’re in the
right frame of mind, you can approach health problems in the same way that you
tackle any other problem in your daily life, assessing your symptoms in the
following way:
1. Ask questions: Asking
yourself a number of questions relevant to your health problems can help you to
narrow down the causes of your symptom and make an initial diagnosis. But more
importantly, asking questions is really about prognosis that is, whether
your health problem is more likely to be benign or serious, and what this fact
means for your future health.
2.
Check your body: Looking for physical signs can help you find out what may be
going on. Looks at general physical pointers to illness, and how to
spot them.
Whenever you develop
a health problem, you automatically make a diagnosis yourself whether you
know it or not. If you develop a headache, for example, you may decide to
ignore it for a few days and see what happens, or take some simple painkillers
to relieve your symptoms.