Dr Google

Just type "sneeze cancer" in Google. Now press "Search". Whoa!

Over 400,000 hits! Yes, there are evidence of "sneeze" and "cancer" can be associated, at least as two words appearing on the same web page. By this research, I can conclude your one-off sneeze this morning could be caused by a malignant neoplastic process.

Oh! My! Goodness! ... How many times have I seen a worried person coming in with a briefcase full of printed pages of Google results on his or her symptoms.

"Are you sure doctor? That my sneeze is only a cold, and not this hideous post nasal cancer? - And just you look at that picture there. How horrible! Are you sure I am not ending up with that thing in my mouth???"

Half of the time (mainly in the morning) I will try to reassure you. But when I am tired (say 6PM), I'd let Dr Google ruin your day.

The thing about the web is that the web authors must try to attract viewers by making the information interesting. In order from most to least interesting causes for sneezing, post nasal cancer beats hay fever and common cold; and sniffing pepper comes last. So there are more web pages associating sneezing with cancer than with sniffing pepper. The real-life incidence is in reverse order. I have the feeling the pepper aetiology is a lot more common than the neoplastic one.

Examples:

A guy who coughed up a piece of foul-smelling old food, that was tucked behind his tonsils in the last god knows how long, was convinced it was a "broncholith" - and Dr Google diagnosed it as lung cancer.

A man presented with an itch in the perineum (the area between the scrotum and the anus) was convinced it was due to prostate cancer. The malignancy was cured by changing his underpants more frequently.

The crying mother brought in her pubertal son with a tender swollen nipple. She had consulted Dr Google earlier that morning and was told even famous men like Tom Cruise could have breast cancer. The boy was petrified. I had a hard time telling him some milk may come out later and that he was lucky to have it in only one breast. I also revealed to him a secret : both of mine were more sore and even bigger during my early teen years!

Google is good in helping you find out more about your problem once it has been diagnosed. I use Google myself to find information about drugs, diseases etc, often with the patient present so we learn together. It is a great tool.

However, Googling is not so good in working out the diagnosis by yourself.

So first get a diagnosis from your doctor, THEN Google. And try to filter out the silly webpages. I don't know how they do it, but the silly hoax sites full of inappropriate advertisements always seem to get to the top of the search list.