Review

Not for the worried well

A WOMAN’S DIAGNOSE-IT-YOURSELF GUIDE TO HEALTH
Sarah Jarvis, Keith Hopcroft and Alistair Moulds
Oxford University Press, 2000, £9.99

A follow-up to Hopcroft and Moulds’ A Bloke’s Diagnose-it-yourself Guide to Health, this book is aimed at women aged between 18 and 45 (and I am one) and uses a flow-chart format, covering common symptoms women may find themselves suffering from. Symptoms are listed alphabetically and include such things as earache, loss of sex drive, and vomiting – quite a range.

I found part one of the book quite useful: a general overview of the health services available and how to access them, with a particular focus on how to make the most of a consultation with your GP. It has taken me over six months to review this book, as it is not intended to be read cover to cover, but rather dipped into as and when the need arises – which I did. I also thought back to past symptoms and used the flow chart to ‘test’ whether it would arrive at the correct result. The flow charts are easy to follow and give good detail on conditions and the various treatments for them. However, in the hands of a hypochondriac, this book could potentially increase visits to GP surgeries or calls to NHS Direct.

I consider myself to be fairly non-alarmist with my own health: I am not the type of person who has a headache and considers the possibility of a brain tumour. However, I felt this book brought out the closet hypochondriac in me. After a bout of lower abdominal pain I reached for my DIY guide, followed the flow chart and discovered the pain could be due to an ovarian cyst. But perhaps this was a one-off – so when I was having trouble sleeping I thought it would be a good idea to give the guide the benefit of the doubt. Bad move. The flow chart guided me to post-traumatic stress disorder (although I struggled to think of an event that might have brought this on). Although the book stated that this was a rare cause, people who tend to buy such DIY medical books might nevertheless think it warrants a trip to the local A&E department.

The guide attempts to be a light antidote to the numerous bulky medical encyclopaedias that lurk in many household’s bookcases – and I think it is. As the authors note: ‘This book is tolerant on lifestyle – preaching the virtues of wine, sex and chocolate’, for which I applaud them. However, it would have been worth them also noting that it needs to be treated with a degree of care. For the natural-born worriers among us it is a licence to become an inappropriate user of health services.