Getting Medical Advice on the Web from Other Patients

Patient information on the web

TheVisualMD.com is also an excellent source for very valuable information about diagnosing and treating prostate, breast and colorectal cancers. Anatomical Travelogue's scientists and artists have worked with Philips Healthcare to create stunning visualizations from actual CT and MR clinical images. Content is intended to help patients navigate their body's response to cancer, showing diagnosis and treatment options. Patients and physicians are interviewed. Remarkable, rich content. www.thevisualmd.com/thevisualmd_breastpromo.html

SEVERE COPD-ashhme

i would like to get information about severe copd, i have it and the medications i am taking are not helping me, i would love to chat on line or find a different city to visit a new doctor. i live in mobile, al. thanks cindy carroll

LOSS OF TASTE AND NASTY TASTE IN MY MOUTH

i HAVE LOSS MY SUGAR TASTE FOR 2 MONTHS NOW AND I HAVE A BAD TASTE IN MY MOUTH ITS LIKE PERFUME OR SOMETHING WHAT COULD THIS BE.

Searching for medical information on the web

One must use common sense and logic in doing this, but I agree - the Web has transformed the world's medical area. Lives have been saved, diagnoses gained and doctors are now aware that if they don't keep up, their clients will fire them, in favor of someone who does.

Some doctors yet poo poo information on the web but inside they are really fearful - as they KNOW that there is often knowledge that they don't have out there in cyberworld.

The intelligent medical professionals will update themselves all they can, if they want to keep their jobs.

Yes, there are more great patient sites out there

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments! I"ve learned a lot. Ann, thanks particularly for mentioning medhelp, mdjunction, and dailystrength. I had to leave out many terrific sites; space is a problem, even on the web. Do you have other patient sites you like? Please share them!

Nancy

Patients Who Make a Difference

We are excited to reach out to many people who have invisible illnesses at www,invisbilellnessweek.com Sept 4-20, 2009, where we will have a free virtual conference online for 5 days. I also just recently began Illness Twitters www.illnesstwitters.ning.com . Bringing patients together to improve their own lives and making them part of bringing awareness to their diseases is an instrumental step in improving our own care, emotionally AND physically!

Thanks for a great article.

funny article

you mention curetogether which is one of the smallest in the niche and patientslikeme which is relatively small too whereas the three biggest ones being medhelp, mdjunction and dailystrength are not even mentioned...

When you find doctors

READING the comments at these sites for "continuing education", then you'll know we have come full circle.

The patient sharing is here now and, like cell phones, will never be going away.

One thing to be careful about.

Patients are people who got themselves sick in the first place and are people who are often still pretty sick.

The problem then is that taking advice from a person who is sick is a bit of the blind leading the blind or worse. Why? Because the reason people are sick in the first place is that they are making life choices, have misconceptions and live in ways that create sickness.

So while some of the information is good, some of the information one gets from other patients can lead one further into sickness.

The sharing of medical info and advice from other patients...

Talk about hitting the nail on the head, there's nothing like patients helping patients via the internet. This is like positive reinforcement and a shot in the arm for all who care to participate in such a worthy venture. It's sort of like getting a 2nd opinion in a sense. But I like the sound of it. Hey, I'm all for it...as they say, great looking out!