Good morning friends
A few months ago, an elderly family friend, who is a hypertensive but well controlled on antihypertensive medicines, saw a video on YouTube. This video claimed that we can cure high blood pressure without any medicines and urged their viewers to stop their medicines. This friend was so impressed by the contents of this video that he immediately decided to follow this advice. Incidentally, the video was not posted by a medical person. Unfortunately, this friend did not consult his regular doctor before stopping his drugs, nor did he monitor his BP at home. As expected, within a couple of days, his BP shot up very high and he suffered from a brain stroke. He had to be admitted in the ICU, but the damage done was irreversible and now, even after months of treatment, he is still wheelchair bound.
We have had similar experiences very often in our patients as well as in people known to us, with disastrous results many times.
Many of our juvenile diabetics and their families are carried away by advertisements and videos claiming to cure diabetes without medicines. Here too, we have seen the juvenile diabetic going into a coma and getting admitted in ICU as insulin is stopped abruptly. Sometimes, this situation can even be life threatening.
We have seen patients with major psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, spending lakhs and lakhs of rupees on treatments advocated in a YouTube channel by a person who cannot even pronounce the word schizophrenia. Unfortunately, well maintained patients stop their medicines, spend a huge amount of money on these so-called guaranteed treatments, which of course are bound to fail, and then return to the psychiatrist. By this time, however, the psychiatric disorder, which was under control with medicines, is out of control, and most of the times, the condition has become chronic which needs newer ( read costlier) drugs and higher doses of medicines.
While having access to medical problems on the internet is not a bad idea, more often than not, we find patients being lured by unscientific sites. In fact, very often, people totally disregard the advice of their doctor who has many years of experience and blindly follow the advice given on YouTube channels by people who have nothing to do with medicine and its practice.
I continue to be amazed with people, blatantly disregarding the advice of experienced doctors and blindly following the unscientific advice of a YouTuber ( who surprisingly has lakhs and lakhs of followers. ) I am also surprised that no legal action is taken against these people when they create such problems, ….. obviously they are not governed by the consumer protection laws, unlike doctors!
The internet is teeming with videos on every subject, some of them with a vast number of followers. But it is difficult to find authentic, scientific videos on any subject. …. It is as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.
As I was thinking about this phenomenon of more and more people giving in to unscientific, unproven methods of treatment, I realised that most of these videos focus on the possible side-effects of medicines. While it is true that some medicines may have major side-effects, most doctors would try to use ( or should try to use ! ) such medicines only for severe conditions.
And of course these videos claim that their methods are the best with no side effects and also offer hundred percent guarantee for cure which actually no doctor can ever give you. In fact, if a doctor attempts to advertise 100 % results of his treatment, he is likely to be penalised for such advertising; but as these videos are not made by doctors, their creators go scot- free in the face of problems.
I don’t think there is any harm in trying out an alternative method of treatment as long as you are under medical observation, as long as you are not stopping the medicines which are life saving, which are absolutely essential for keeping your BP or sugar or mental health under control . If you do decide to stop any such medicines, it is better to taper them off gradually, while watching the medical parameters rather than stopping them suddenly and landing in trouble.
I do hope that the consumer guidance forums start taking action against potentially harmful videos on YouTube,
Love,
Anjali Bhatawdekar
