I'm stunned that so many people choose to self-diagnose and treat their conditions rather than get the advice of medical professionals.
Well, in my case, it's because the vast majority of medical professionals I've gone to in the past several years have all pretty consistently failed to diagnose my issues or to provide much in the way of real help.
Take my current knee issue (going on since November) - have been to D.O. 4 separate times now. First time was "your muscles are very tight, so go to PT 3X/week". No, I don't just have tight muscles..I have a knee joint issue. Did he ever even LOOK at my knee to check for swelling, alignment, etc or compare it to my other knee? (Nope). Have done X-Rays, MRI and PT for almost 2 months now. STILL have an issue, and $1,500+ later in Med costs, no idea whatsoever what is causing the pain and lack of ability to exercise without it and increased swelling. I'm about ready to change D.O.s on this one..
Ditto Family Doctor. Call, and it's "sorry, we can't get you in - go to the Urgent Care". Last time I got downright tweaked about this..I'd been sick for over a week, had a recurring issue that was not going away, WANTED to go to the Doctor and they couldn't find it in their schedule to even have a Nurse Practitioner see me. Wound up being sick for 3 weeks total that time, and if they could have actually treated me, I'm convinced I would have saved at least a week and possibly two off all that - and hundreds of $$s in specialists (pulmonologist), tests (chest X-Ray) and various meds..
So, basically - at least in my case..it's been the lack of good, accessible medical care from practitioners that I trust and have confidence in. I would LOVE to be able to go the Doctor, be properly diagnosed and FIXED..but increasingly, that's just not been my experience. I spend the time and money..and they seem to not do anything much to figure out what is actually going on or more importantly figure out how to fix what's broken..
ETA - Doctors often don't believe in supplements, also. DW had to go to her cardiologist today and asked him about Magnesium to help with high BP (she's already on meds and is somewhat "resistant" to them). Instead of being open to it potentially helping despite lots of evidence out there that Magnesium can and does help high BP, he downplayed it and told her "don't expect much"..ditto my GI - I told him that the Prilosec (Omeprazole) that he prescribed appeared to have depleted my magnesium levels, causing severe bone pain. Lots of evidence out there this is a fairly common side effect. Instead of saying "yeah, that might be it..let me order some tests for you" basically told me "if that did happen, you'd be the first patient EVER to have that happen". Totally wrote off all the anecdotal evidence I found to the contrary with dozens and dozens of other people that had happened to.
Net, I do think we all need to be active participants in managing our own health, and that means "trust but verify" and sometimes go beyond what the professionals tell us, because no-one knows our bodies like we do..