Medical Resources

During the past couple of years, my wife's physical condition has forced me to become very educated about medical science. Before this time, I knew enough to get by, just a few things that I picked up here and there. Afterwards, I researched several specific conditions (especially asthma and Fibromyalgia) so heavily that I was able to not only understand what my doctor was saying, but I could help him create a better program for resolving my wife's condition. Due to this research, the doctor/patient relationship has changed to a partnership where we are searching for answers together.

My wife has had asthma for quite some time, and it occasionally flares up into life-threatening strength. There were times, several years ago, when I came home from work and found my wife laying in bed, gasping for breath, her fingers and skin a beautiful shade of purple. It got so bad sometimes that I was afraid to go to work for fear that Claudia would suffocate before I could get home.

I started my research by reading as much material as I could. One thing I discovered right away is medical books in general tend to assume (a) the doctor is god and the patient is stupid, or (b) the reader is a doctor. This was very frustrating, and asking doctors and other medical professionals was no help at all - they didn't seem to want educated patients.

A single event changed my life forever and directly caused be to begin using the internet for my medical researches. This occurred in the middle of 1999 - my wife went into a coma for five days due to a kidney failure. During this time, I discovered the truth: most medical professionals are arrogant and hide behind strange words for a reason ... quite often they do not have a clue as to what they are doing.

After Claudia returned from the hospital, I spent many long hours at home watching over her. It took her months to recover ... and the doctors could not figure out what to do about it. Thus, I turned to the internet for help, and quickly discovered the resources that I needed to help my wife return to health.

One of the first and best sites that I discovered was drkoop.com.  This wonderful reference contains articles on just about everything that I needed to know. The most important feature was a drug interaction tool. You enter the names of all of the prescriptions that a person is taking and the tool tells you about possible interactions.

Another excellent resource is WebMd.Com.  This wonderful medical resource has a doctor's only section and a patients section. The articles for patients are very well written and understandable - their target audience is people like me. People who have medical concerns but are not doctors or nurses. I found this site an excellent place to read about diseases and treatments.

The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Complete Home Medical Guide is one of the very best resources that I have found in a long time. This is more or less an interactive book containing much that you can use to increase your knowledge before you visit the doctor.

Of course, the American Medical Association has it's own web site. This is another good source of information, although it's not as easy to understand as Drkoop or Webmd.

There are many, many other medical resources available. In fact, the problem that I found was that there were so many sites available that it was difficult to narrow down my selections to something reasonable. However, after a few months I found myself using the four sites mentioned above almost exclusively. 

Other good resources include:

• Center For Disease Control and Prevention, the government web site on this topic. Excellent resource although a bit technical at times.
• Healthfinder, a selection of good health related resources.
• Healthweb, a directory of health related sites
• National Women's Health Information Center, a great source of medical information about women.

Using the information gathered from these sites as well as a few good books, my doctor and I were able to put together a program of prescription drugs, herbs and vitamins which helped my wife get her asthma under control. Perhaps the most useful resource was Drkoop's drug interaction tool, which helped prevent some very serious side effects from damaging my wife's health.

An important point about all of this is to use caution. In addition to some excellent resources, there are plenty of quacks and fakes on the internet, just as there are in real life. Be sure and discuss everything with medical professionals before taking any course of action.

The goal here is to become better educated, so you and your doctor can work together as necessary to come up with a solution to what ails you. The resources on the internet should never be used to replace your doctor or other professionals.