As practicing doctors, we’re all constantly striving to provide the most up to date and relevant information to our patients in regards to their particular situation. In an age where social media predominates how many people are obtaining the majority of their information regarding health, it can be a constant struggle to keep up with an ever growing landscape and sift through what is useful and what is downright bogus.
Social media has generated an interesting predicament. While it’s immensely useful in that it does provide people with endless resources to help themselves, it also potentially creates expectations that are harmfully unrealistic. People struggling with low back pain may read one post saying it’s as easy as “performing this stretch,” when their problem is much more complex. People who are struggling with stress may read another post saying to “use a sauna for 30 minutes a day to become the next dalai lama,” when stress excessively is multifactorial and can’t be boiled down to one factor.
And with all of that said, we are beginning to hear much of the same beat from numerous patients all coming in with different complaints - “It’s been weeks now and I’ve tried everything. I just don’t understand why it’s taking so long…”
This is what the overabundance of information has done to healthcare - creating an expectation that “if I try this, I should feel better immediately.” We have thousands upon thousands of people posting on social media telling people how to fix their pain without having an exam or solve chronic illness without getting to the root cause. There are people calling themselves “experts,” yet they still instruct people to stretch away their pain over and over again until the person is fed up and ends up needing surgery anyways. Or those “experts” claim a one-size-fits-all supplement or diet plan will heal their on-going symptoms in a matter of days.
(fun fact, literature has demonstrated that only stretching doesn’t do much in terms of long term pain relief and can actually hinder performance - that’s why we generally don’t only give patients stretching during their rehab plans).
The reality is - social media isn’t reality. It was never meant to be and we must frequently remind ourselves that it can create unrealistic expectations when it comes to our physical and mental well-being. There is no instant, quick fix with health!
If you need healthcare advice, ask your doctor, not your Instagram.