Misdiagnosis and It's Repercussions

 Hey everyone!

In last week's post I had published a small piece of poetry I had written. The main problem I intended to tackle was misdiagnosis of various mental disorders, how certain disorders are stereotyped to a large extent and what we see on the net is not always true. 

As promised, today's post is based on what exactly misdiagnosis is-what leads to it and what are it's consequences. 

Without further ado, let's get to it! 

Misdiagnosis kya hota hai?

It's definition is more or less self explanatory. It is basically the act of wrongly diagnosing yourself with a particular disorder or illness without consulting a doctor or a professional. One tends to decide what condition they suffer from on the basis of what they can grasp from the first few sites on the net. They tend to start medication themselves which as we all are aware of, is extremely dangerous.    

Now that we answered that, it leads us to the next question:

How does it arise?

There are several factors which have contributed to the spread of misdiagnosis. I'll be covering the top 3 ones being,

• Frivolous websites: Or basically the internet as a whole. Though there are some positive influences of it, to a large extent it has been normalised to think that one suffers from a particular disorder just by checking off hardly one or two symptoms. There are also some non-medical websites online in which you fill out a form and it tell you what percentage of depressed or anxious you are. Not only is this absolutely futile, but also spreads the wrong idea about mental problems. 
• Masking their symptoms: After great contemplation if a person does decide to visit a doctor, they may tend to feel a little scared-that's alright it's a human tendency. However, they may also try hiding a lot of their symptoms from the consultant which may lead to the misdiagnosis due to lack of information. This is more common than you may think. 
• In psychiatry's transformation from primarily an asylum-based profession to a community-oriented profession, diagnoses that mistakenly classify normal intense reactions to stress as mental disorders has become a major challenge to the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. This is not pertinent to every professional in the field, however, is occurs pretty often.
  Note: Please do not consider this to be a red flag to visit a consultant. 

What are its consequences?

A misdiagnosed mental illness can confuse the patient. Very few people know enough about mental illness to spot incongruence between their symptoms and their diagnosis, and fewer still would question the judgment of their clinician. A misdiagnosis will result in the patient becoming confused and potentially distraught when the course of treatment recommended isn’t working. They may feel it’s a personal failing, and even develop feelings of guilt or shame when they don’t make progress under the diagnosis. 
As mentioned earlier too, improper medication leads to numerous number of physical symptoms which are likely to last for a long time and can cause various problems in the functioning of the body. Taking medications for a disorder you don’t have can also cause other side effects that lead to additional stress and anxiety, worsening the person's condition.

As I have been repeatedly mentioning in all my posts, visit a doctor if you feel your health declining- be it mental or physical. Get a professional opinion from a person who has been involved in this field rather than diagnosing yourself by the means of a random website a person created without having the knowledge of this field.

That was it for today's post! Hope I could help clear out the various mix-up's in this matter. Don't forget to share and comment down some recommendations for next week's post!

Signing off,

Kuhu :)