Thursday, March 27, 2008

Doctor Web

Do you trust your doc?

Most do.

And we believe most docs are competent.

But are all docs up to speed on all medical situations and treatment?

Not necessarily.

After all, even specialists treat multiple patients and multiple conditions and each treatment protocol is different.

So what is a patient to do?

Consult Dr. Web.

14 years ago Todd Small was diagnosed with M.S. (multiple sclerosis).

For 14 years Todd took a daily 10mg dose of Baclofen. His doc told him that was the maximum dosage.

Granted, that was years ago and perhaps when Todd first started on Baclofen 10mg was the maximum.

To Todd's surprise, he discovered patients taking up to 80mg daily.

There are a little more than 7,000 Todd Smalls at PatientsLikeMe, congregating around diseases like Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis (M.S.) and AIDS, all of them contributing their experiences and tweaking their treatments. At first glance, the Web site looks like just any other online community, a kind of MySpace for the afflicted. Members have user names, post pictures of themselves and post updates and encouragements. As such, it's related to the chat rooms and online communities that have inhabited the Internet for more than a decade.

There are plenty of resources available to anyone with internet access. As the Yellow Pages used to say, let your fingers do the walking.
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