When Google doctor goes bad

I am a big fan of Google doctor, I have diagnosed myself on several occasions. I'm not completely stupid, I go to a real doctor to confirm my diagnosis, nevertheless there is something immensely satisfying about working it out first.

Yesterday Elissa got conjunctivitis (just when I thought we had run out of diseases), and she was also throwing up a little, and seemed slightly feverish. I figured I would just check there wasn't some illness that actually had all these symptoms that I was unaware of. Trust me, this seemed much less ridiculous when I was looking it up than it does retelling it.

So I googled "conjunctivitis vomiting fever" and I got a link that was titled "Are vomiting and diarrhea ever associated with conjunctivitis?", with the subtext "She also seems to have a low-grade fever". "Aha!", I thought. So I followed the link to this Yahoo answers page. I hadn't noticed it was Yahoo answers, or I might not have followed the link with any hope of anything useful. This, offered as the best answer, is definitely one of the Best of the Web.

It has nothing to do with the pink eye. But she could have given pink eye to herself from touching her eye after touching or blowing her nose. Pink eye is caused by the same germs that cause colds and is easily given to your self if you don't wash your hands often. Sounds like she has a stomach bug or something

So the conjunctivitis has nothing to do with the stomach bug, it is just caused by the same thing. Great, that has cleared it right up.

Looks like we'll have to go to a real doctor after all. I need it gone by Tuesday as we both need to be in the city which means she has to be fit for childcare....