PeanutAllergyUK

[tatt]

as admin closed a similar topic elsewhere I thought I'd post here.

We all know that doctors vary. Sometimes people see a doctor who helps a lot and they can pass that advice on to others whose doctors may be less well informed. Sometimes people with a medical problem discover alternative treatments (which may then become accepted by doctors) that help. I have personal experience of a medical condition where advice I first received from other sufferers is now recognised treatment and of a condition where a "natural" remedy (unusually one that has had double blind clinical trials) is now used in a major teaching hospital and is on the BMJ best treatments website.

So why can someone seeking help with a medical problem not just be directed to the chat section?

[admin]

[tatt]

[quote="admin"]

[admin]

[tatt]

[admin]

[Fizzwizz]

I have to say I totally agree with Admin here.

Giving specific medical advice over the Internet is both dangerous, and irresponsible. Your GP is the person to speak to about medical advice. It might have something to do with the 10+ years of medical training they receive, but strangely they do know a thing or two about medical matters. A good GP will also know a good bit about alternative treatments too.

Personally I'd prefer peanut allergy UK to stay clear of medical advice, and the fact that admin is prepared to lose hits to uphold this principle and deliver safe reliable information to his users is one of the reasons I respect this site.

Best wishes ... Fizz

[shellz2009]

im new to this site but also agree with the mod on this one as some people on other forums i've been on give out really bad advice

[tatt]

[shellz2009]

your very lucky to have good advice then tatt. completly diff forum but i was on a tropical fish forum and just because this person had the most posts people listened to their advice which in result killed their fish. i know completly different to this forum but you get the idea

[tatt]

yes I appreciate the problem. Sometimes posters give the impression they are well informed when they aren't.

It was lucky that I got the right treatment in the end only in that I had a gp who was prepared to look at information from the internet. Naturally I didn't rely on the first comment that was made - I did a lot of checking first. Once I had a suggestion for what might be wrong I was able to find websites from medical consultants in my sort of problem stating that it was something that should be considered for my symptoms. It wasn't even a particularly rare problem. I was unlucky to see 2 NHS consultants who were less well informed and to have an entirely unnecessary investigation using NHS resources that could have been better spent elsewhere.

Btw - my experience of tropical fish is that with the best advice possible they still died, it just took a little longer. Never did find out what was wrong (we had other, but not tropical, fish later without problems) but I'd never tell anyone what we did without saying the fish died anyway.

[Victoria Plum]

I made a huge mistake at the weekend.

I googled a weedkiller and stupidly looked at a yahoo answers forum and took the replies as red.

I happily used the weedkiller in my garden, as I had a spare ten minutes without the kids to get the job done, and then thought... doh! Better check that out again! And the advice was WRONG!!!! I now have to wait six weeks before I can plant crops in my garden as the weedkiller stays in the soil for six weeks! The yahoo answers forum said it was harmless once it reached the soil.

I know it is a different topic, but sometimes, when you are in a hurry, or snowed under, you take advice more literally than you should.

[emmaj24]

absolutely and sometimes when you want to believe something you allow yourself to even though you know you shouldn't, the internet can be very good for finding someone who will tell you you're right without any evidence whatsoever. so easy but so tempting. You have to be so careful.