You’ve seen it. It gets circulated multiple times across emails and Facebook and discussed in the local barbershops. What is “it,” you ask? Topics ranging from vaccines, natural treatments of common ailments, and how to cure certain diseases are the subjects of urban medical legends that are often inaccurate – and sometimes outright dangerous.
My absolute favorite urban medical legend: “I felt fine, so I stopped taking my blood pressure medicine.”
Although headaches and vision changes can be signs of elevated pressures, their absence is not evidence of normal blood pressure. That is why hypertension is known as “the silent killer.” Many times patients are being evaluated for an entirely different concern when they learn that they also have high blood pressure.
Hypertension is a microvascular disease. It can affect the small vessels in the back of the eye, the kidneys, the heart, and the brain. The damage can be slow and methodical, resulting in permanent damage like heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. Dialysis centers are overcrowded with people who felt like a million bucks for years until their hypertension reached its critical level of harm, causing the kidneys to fail.
My second favorite urban medical legend: “Doc, I don’t get flu shots because my buddy told me that if I get the shot, it will give me the flu.”
For the record, the influenza vaccine is not a live vaccine. Therefore, it cannot “give you the flu.” Common side effects from the injection are mild fever, nausea, soreness at the site of the injection, and mild muscle aches.
Influenza viruses are highly contagious and cause influenza illness (flu). Symptoms range from mild to severe and can cause death. Young children, the elderly, and persons who are immunocompromised are at high risk of complications from influenza.
My third and last urban medical legend is one that you would think only applies to teenagers, but I’m amazed at how many adults fall prey to this one: “I don’t understand how I caught this STD. We only had sex one time.”
These are real conversations, and people actually believe this nonsense. I’ve also delivered many babies who were born from this “only one time” method, which doesn’t protect you from pregnancy any more than from STDs.
Semen is released prior to ejaculation. Therefore, infections and those potent little sperm can enter the vagina and travel up into the uterus before complete ejaculation. The most reliable protection from infections and pregnancy is the use of condoms or abstinence.
In 2015, the rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis reached an all-time high. Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), syphilis rose by 19 percent and gonorrhea rose by almost 13 percent in 2015. These sexually transmitted diseases can be cured by antibiotics, but can potentially cause complications, such as fertility difficulties.
Now that information is at our fingertips 24 hours per day, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to distinguish between fact and fiction. As a result, it is imperative that we as consumers know where to look for trusted information.
I often send my patients to the websites of the CDC (cdc.gov) or the American Academy of Family Physicians (aafp.org). These sites possess a wealth of knowledge regarding a wide range of topics and the most current health recommendations. These sites are also far more reliable than some stranger you met at the hair stylist.
So instead of believing the latest hype, I encourage you to fact check the information against credible resources. Don’t be the next urban legend victim!
Denise Hooks-Anderson, M.D., is an assistant professor at SLUCare Family Medicine and the medical accuracy editor of The St. Louis American. Email her at yourhealthmatters@stlamerican.com.
