Medical Advice over the Internet

especially when all the info they give is 'it's not x. what is it?'
just got a butthurt nastygram, and yet another admonition from the PTB to play nice.
i guess they'd all prefer that we offer our ever-so-official medical advice, after being given no information, and have their frickin' kids nosedive.
ETA i think it's rude to peremptorily demand information without giving any in the question. i think it's rude (and stupid) to ask a global network for information about a specific location. i COULD run to the mods and demand that all these rude posts get removed. or cry when i get a nasty pm. but i don't, because i'm not a sniveler.
the new rules are incredibly sniveler-enabling.
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khairete
S.

I think anyone can give advice.
But the responsibility falls on the person who makes the decision to take it (or not).

Ear candling for instance.
One of the most stupid things you can do - putting the end of a flaming object in your ear.
Who's the greater fool - the person who recommends it or the person who actually tries it?

I side with getting medical opinions from accredited medical sites or actual professionals who are licensed to dispense medical opinions.
They can pull me all they want but "what does your doctor say?" when I think it's appropriate is going to be my go to answer whether anyone likes it or not.
If it's rude to say don't get your info from a quack - then I'm rude and I'm fine with that.

I think what does your doctor say is an acceptable response. We're all just moms with no medical background. Its hard enough to diagnose our own family members when they are right in front of us.

I'll never understand why someone who ask a question on the internet about a child's condition without asking a medical person first. To me its not being a responsible parent.

I think the underlying motivation of a lot of those medical questions is simply to feel less alone. For example, if someone is asking about a symptom or cluster of symptoms, most likely that person is frightened and concerned, and will eventually seek medical help, but in the meantime wants reassurance that someone else has been there, done that.

At the same time, whether it's physical or mental health, somewhere in the response it is always appropriate and responsible to direct the person to a medical professional, which is what I think most people here do.
Ultimately, we can share our experiences, sure, but only within our limitations. That's not being rude or dismissive, that is being mature and responsible.

I just asked another member a boat load of questions because the question was so vague.

You can't use the internet to diagnose a problem. People can share their experience - but overall?? No. i do NOT think it's rude to tell or ask someone to call their doctor.

My kid may have experienced something SIMILAR but my kid is NOT your kid so the results might not be the same....

Doctors will tell you that the internet and "Dr Google" are one of the most confounding things they have to deal with. Equally confounding is the idea that we have to candy-coat what should be ***COMMON SENSE*** because people find it so offensive to be told "go see a doctor". Personally, I find it offensive that the onus is on me to treat everyone as though they might be an emotional cripple and can't handle straight talk. Perhaps this is generational and we are now doubling down on the "special snowflake/your words make me feel sad" messages of Barney ...I don't know. I do know that I have an 8 year old who sometimes will ask me about something his teacher assigned and if I'm unfamiliar with it, I tell him "I don't know, I'm not your teacher, go ask her". Somehow, he is emotionally resilient enough not to curl up in a fetal ball on the floor-- amazingly, he just goes and asks his teacher without any hurt feelings. It's not personal, it's common sense. How far would the human race have survived if they cowered in fear because a saber toothed cat or neanderthal looked at them funny? We are creating a frail generation who is constantly offended and this is only validated by people's posts getting pulled and slap-on-the-wrist PMs.

Seriously, we tell our kids to 'shake off' things far more upsetting than 99% of the stuff posted here. I feel like this site is getting our level of 'politeness' dumbed-down by what might be described as "over-moderation". Its as though we have a helicopter parent constantly hovering to protect anyone from boo-boos, emotional or otherwise. It IS crippling and if this is the direction we go, it's likely to create a community of narcissistic ninnies who don't even have the emotional resilience of an 8 year old.

Earlier today I answered a question from a woman who had good reason to be distressed about an upsetting event. While I took umbrage at one person's comment which I found incredibly insensitive and 'talking down' to that OP, I didn't feel compelled to report it. Why? Because I imagined that the OP was an adult and could handle reading it. Instead, I decided to politely empathize with the OP and moved on. There's a way to be supportive without hitting the report button. It's a little like running to mommy or daddy to fix your boo boo. We are adults. Let's act like it.

I personally think that telling someone to go to the doctor is an important thing to say, because like many people have said, we aren't doctors and even though our experience may be similar, we don't know all the background information.

That being said, I like to hear about other people's experiences because I can go to my doctor and say, "What about this?" I did that just this week. After seeing on Facebook about someone else's experience with whopping cough, I asked about it when I went in on Friday about my horrible cough. I also asked if I was due for the Pertussis vaccine again. I never would have asked about that if I hadn't heard about someone else's experience. And I learned something from my doctor that I didn't know before. Because of someone else's experience shared here on Mamapedia, I knew to ask about a treatment for molluscum that had never been mentioned before. And I got a medical explanation as to why they had never suggested it. I got ideas for treating eczema from others here on Mampedia that our doctor had never mentioned. Those suggestions worked better then what our doctor had suggested. A friend of mine knew to ask her doctor about a rash on her breast because of something she saw on Facebook. She was diagnosed with Stage 3 Inflammatory Breast Cancer--something she had never heard of before. Sometimes hearing about someone else's experience with a medical issue helps us to feel a little better about things. I wasn't nearly as nervous for my first colonoscopy as I might have been because of things others had shared when someone asked the question here.

So yes, I think it is important to tell someone to see their doctor, but I also think there is value in saying, "It sounds like......" It may give someone the knowledge to ask about something that they normally wouldn't ask. It may help to calm some of the fear and worry being experienced. I never would have guessed that my son would have an allergic reaction to an antibiotic on the 7th day of taking it. Thank goodness I live with a pharmacist who did know. Now if a question was posted that is similar to what we experienced, I will be able to supply an answer that will cause a mom to be aware of or to ask about something she didn't know to ask about.

I'll have you know I have a medical degree from the Internet. If that doesn't make me qualified to answer medical related questions I'm not sure what would. Addionally, even if I am not familiar with a diagnosis or medical term a quick Google search gives me all the info I need to answer the question.😝😱😁😛

Edit...my BF is a nurse...she ran into the room of a screaming patient because he was flat lining right before his own eyes. Luckily, his heart rhythm went back to normal once my friend reconnected his wires to the machine.😆

Glad you are not dead J. S. What a scare you must have had!!!

Is it a sign of the times we live in? Texting abbreviations, tweets, vague Facebook posts - (my daughter knows a couple of her peers that frequently post on FB with things like "I'm so upset" or "you have insulted me for the last time" and the responses are things like "huh?" or "what's up" and then the original poster says "never mind" or "you know who you are". They're completely useless rantings, too public, and not the kind of talk that leads to resolution and understanding. And if it's not on Reddit or Wikipedia, many of the 20somethings don't know about it. Instead of turning to a doctor, or talking to a nurse, too many young people have come to depend on a vague post to the internet world. They say something in 140 characters or less, and they haven't learned to provide helpful details.

Plus, too many kids don't have insurance and can't afford the deductible. They need the 2016 version of the grandma or neighbor who knew all about babies and kids and bumps and bruises.

I certainly rely on my daughter's many specialists, but I have gained tremendous insight from browsing forums and asking questions, because her diagnoses and symptoms are complex. I've had to do a lot of my own research.

I do think there should be some kind of disclaimer on here, about asking medical questions. If you're asking "should I take my child to the doctor?" then this is not the place to seek medical advice. However, if you're asking about whether to seek a second opinion, or whether anyone else is going through this same disease, or seeking support, or asking for advice on things like "how did you shampoo your kid's hair when her arm was in a cast" which might produce some really clever ideas, then this is a great place for that.

No one teaches basic parenting any more. Things that were common sense for the women in my grandmother's, mother's and my generation are almost unheard of by young people trying to parent today. Home Ec has been taken out of schools and it was more than cooking and sewing, some parenting was also taught. First aid classes are no longer taught in schools, I had it in 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grade and a Home Nursing class from the Red Cross in 5th grade, through Girl Scouts.
Since the 1980's and the outbreak of HIV and AIDS and all the over reacting with anti-bacterial everything but no real education in how to take care of a sick or injured child, fear mongers have flooded the internet and TV commercials basically telling all of us we are too stupid or bad parents.
Young parents need a place to ask questions and seek advice. This is a good place to do this.
Not too long ago I read an article about the fact young doctors cannot diagnose childhood diseases such as measles because they have never seen a case... interesting huh?

I think there is a difference between a "diagnose me" question, a "my dr gave me X diagnosis but can you tell me your experience because I need help talking to my dr about alternatives", and "can you tell me your experience with X".

For the first - yes, see your dr for a diagnosis.

But for the others, I try to keep in mind that sometimes people don't even know what questions to ask a doctor. And if my experience can help them have this conversation, I'm happy to share that experience. I do usually include in my response the statement that they should see a dr, because that's obviously important, but try include a bit more context as well.

In what way do the "powers that be" think it's rude to ask if someone has spoken to the doctor? I haven't seen a post on that, so perhaps I've missed it or perhaps there is some PMing going on.

I wonder if it's more that they are concerned with the TONE someone uses to ask that. There's a big difference between "we are not doctors, you idiot" and something more along the lines of "What have you already tried, what has or hasn't been ruled out by a doctor?" For a new poster, maybe we should be a little more willing to elicit the info: "Can you elaborate on what's already been discussed, what treatments you have pursued without results, what confusing answers you have already been given?" I think a ton of the new questions from first-timers are very brief (and I wonder if it has to do with what one of the moderators said about more and more people accessing Mamapedia from cell phones) - and it's just impossible to know if they just don't realize that they have a lot of space to add details (this isn't Twitter, after all) or if they are so overwhelmed with their concerns that they sort of blurt out a question without understanding how important the supporting details are.

I agree with you that we can't be giving medical advice, but I also think that some people come to this forum because they've gotten the runaround or have been improperly or incompletely treated from the very medical establishment we are sending them back to. That doesn't necessarily help them.

Giving someone some questions to ask or avenues to pursue isn't the same as diagnosing and treating, there are often non-medical approaches to many conditions, and on some level it's reasonable to think that a poster who gets 25 different opinions on Mamapedia isn't going to just pick one randomly to pursue and have a disaster result. That's not on the mom who suggested it, in my view. There are plenty of people on here who differ in opinions on a lot of things - any one of us might think some of those are crackpot answers, especially if there's someone we disagree with on most everything.

Just some random thoughts to consider.

I think, now a days, the right thing to do is to encourage them to call their doctor, nurse or medical hotline.

I agree with your distinction between the questions, but I also think some people are in panic mode, not thinking clearly because of the panic, which then renders them unable to just make a decision.

I think in this day of information overload worry starts to govern common sense and we start to believe that the 101* fever that is happening at 2:00am is going to turn into Ebola and people panic. Instead of just monitoring, giving fluids and watching for other symptoms.

I don't know if this makes sense, but I think some of these questions are just emotions over logic and the person just needs that directive loud and clear to call the doctor!

Added - Just saw your SWH. So sorry you're sick but glad you got to the hospital and didn't wait for us to diagnose you. (As if you would, J!) I hope they've got good medicine for you. :(

I guess I don't care if someone thinks it's rude to ask if they've talked to the doctor, and I'm going to keep doing it if I feel that it warrants it. I don't believe it's rude. I believe it's appropriate.

Not that I haven't seen rude with this before, but there's a difference in ugly and blunt. And people sometimes need blunt.

If there's any questions that bring out my snarky side, it's those. lol

I find a lot of the questions are kind of odd. To me, you'd ask your doctor medical questions. You'd ask your lawyer for legal advice. Especially custody terms. Last weekend, there was a grandmother who was asking us for psychiatric advice. We all suggested she get professional help and she wrote back that we were nasty and should be ashamed of ourselves. Now how is that not rude?

I think there should be a line on the Ask A Question page that says that - "Any advice given should not be taken as a replacement for seeing your doctor, etc.". Caution the ones who don't realize we may be experienced moms, but with our own kids. Not theirs.

I think of this site as support. Maybe they could market it more that way.

Meh. My doctor is a giant pain to get to, doesn't answer questions over the phone, etc....so unless I'm feeling half dead, have glaring symptoms of something scary or know that without a doubt I need an antibiotic, I don't go to her. Haven't had a physical in 3 years, saw her 18 months ago for a skin infection that clearly needed a prescription. And I live in an area where doctors are everywhere, but I just don't want to go through the rigmarole of finding a new one, moving my records, etc. So I can understand why the "what does your doctor say?" response isn't a helpful one (especially for people who live in areas where medical care is hard to access from a location and financial standpoint), or can understand why people ask questions when they're waiting for test results or waiting for an appointment.

I was quite grateful a couple of time for information I was able to get from sites that I was a regular member of. I once had a nagging pain in my thumb that wasn't really worth a trip to the doctor but was nonetheless pretty irritating and not going away. A fellow mommy board member had had the same thing and pointed me towards DeQuervain's Tendonitis, which was an exact fit for my symptoms. I was able to bypass my PCP (I called and basically said "I have symptoms of DQT and am going to an ortho, who do you recommend in my area?"), saw an orthopedist and was treated in 2 visits. Going to my PCP would have been a 3rd visit and a waste of time because she couldn't treat it anyway. I had a similar situation with pelvic bone inflammation, where someone with similar symptoms in the past was able to point me towards information that helped me get to the right practitioner quickly to get my problem solved.

For things like head injuries and other emergencies then of course the only appropriate response is "go get medical help" but for questions like "how long would you wait to have your kid seen for an ear infection?" (or a cough, or a mild rash, or a fever) then I think it's fine to share the "wisdom of moms" and opine. While my pediatrician's office is very local and they answer phone calls, when I had just my oldest I used to call them for everything and the answer was almost always "bring him in for a look" even when it was nothing they could treat. With my younger kids, I had the confidence and experience to know that we could wait out most things - as a result, they had fewer trips to the doctor, fewer questionable antibiotic prescriptions, etc.

ETA: Glad you got to the doctor quickly and hope you are on the mend soon.

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I agree with you on this one. There is absolutely nothing rude with asking or even telling the poster to talk with their doctor, nurse line, other health care provider, pharmacist, etc.

Let's face it---there are some folks in the world who JUST DO NOT KNOW what to do in a given situation, and they may be limited in their abilities (for whatever reasons) to access appropriate medical guidance. So what do they do instead? They come here seeking information that they should be getting elsewhere, namely from medical providers. I think it is incumbent upon those of us here with common sense to direct those people to those appropriate medical sources. Some people just need to hear, "You need to call your doctor." And sometimes, it takes hearing this from several different people for it to have an impact.

I've seen some really egregious violations here when it comes to medical advice. Not so much lately, but many times in the past, I have seen people here actually tell a poster to give their child a specific medication and even go as far as specifying particular dosages. I've seen people suggest this or that herbal supplement for depression or anxiety, not knowing if the person might be taking any other prescription medication that has a dangerous interaction with that supplement. Or, the anti-medication folks who tell people NOT to take what their doctor has prescribed. These are all very dangerous things because those very people who come here to an internet forum seeking healthcare advice from strangers are the same people who just might take that potentially very bad, potentially very dangerous advice.

There's no problem with people sharing their experiences and insights as long as it is CLEAR that it is just their experience---that they are not telling the poster to do x, y, or z. If it's just to give some perspective or another thing to consider, that's one thing and may be helpful. But diagnosing and prescribing is beyond the scope of this forum.

If I cannot say to someone, "Hey, Jenny, have you talked to the pediatrician about this?" or "You really need to contact your doctor now," then how in the world am I being helpful? Some people need that very specific direction to "talk to your doctor!" Suggesting someone contact their physician is the most rational, helpful thing we can do in many cases.

If the moderators have a problem with us telling people to contact their doctors, but have no problem with allowing non-medical people here to dole out medical advice, I think that would be very irresponsible site management.

I don't think anyone is ever asking for a diagnosis. They are asking if you have ever experienced something similar and to talk about your experience. I don't think anyone is replacing a visit to the doctor with a question on mamapedia.