Medical Advice No No

harringtonp

There are a lot of rules on this forum but the mind boggles at the Medical Advice one. There are a lot of ailments cyclists can have. For many of these GPs are clueless where as readers here may have had similar symptoms and can put a poster on the right track.

Advice is only advice and nobody here is going to take it as gospel. Anybody care to explain the rationale behind this rather odd rule ? Is it a general boards rule or just a cycling forum one ?

I suspect its vaguely related to litigation, somebody at some point in time thought it was a good idea and its never been question since...

circular flexing

It's a general boards rule and is probably related to litigation.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/faq.php?faq=bie_faq_guidelines#faq_bie_faq_guidelines_medicalpro

robyntmorton

The trouble with things like this is that someone will claim that randomposter123 told them that x treatment is their only course of action, and they'll go and do it. When it all goes wrong they'll sue randomposter123 and boards for giving them wrong information.

Hence, go to a professional only. There are some forums here where discussing generalaties is okay (legal, long term illlness etc.) but even then the no professional advice rule stands.

harringtonp

Litigation culture has us all messed up. We read and accept this reason but it is complete madness.

magicbastarder

iirc, qualified doctors are not allowed provide diagnoses from people they have not examined.
i think that should go doubly for random internet strangers who are not able to to distinguish what worked for them or their uncle, or their cat, to what might or should work for other people.

Kaisr Sose

It’s not just about litigation. It a health and safety one too.

It takes years to be become a doctor, yet some people will attempt to diagnose somebody, or give advice without knowing a thing about that person.

It’s just wrong. Why even come to Boards? People can ask Dr Google any question they want and get an answer that may be any one of a number of things they are not suffering from.

magicbastarder

i had some minor - thankfully temporary - neurological spells (caused by a virus) a few years back. the number of people who were simply convinced that they knew what was wrong with me was incredible; to the point it became actually really ****ing irritating. it was all well meaning, but the general rule of thumb with people is 'if i had vaguely similar symptoms to you, you had the same thing as me and i'm actually going to badger you about why you're not taking my advice'.

there's some irish saying which translates as 'there's no expert surgeon like the cured man', and by god, it's true.

It's bad when my doctor handed me a print out last week and says this is what you need to know and don't be consulting "Doctor Google"

bucketybuck

Deleted User wrote: »

It's bad when my doctor handed me a print out last week and says this is what you need to know and don't be consulting "Doctor Google"

I once went to my GP with an issue that I have always had and always will have, but it was my first time asking this particular GP about it. He basically googled it in front of me. It wasn't "Google" as such, it was some online database that doctors probably have access to, but he typed the name and symptoms into a search bar and printed out some pages describing what I had and some common treatments.

Not a single thing he gave me or told me was new to me, I had had the condition for years and knew as much as any layperson at that point. It was genuinely one of those life lessons for a young man as I sat there and realised that I knew a lot more about the topic than this doctor did. I got my referral and never bothered him again.

Doctors deserve respect, but they are not infallible, not even close.

Note: This is just an anecdote and does not deserve over thinking.

Traumadoc

Medical advice from an internet forum is never a good idea, as symptoms can have many causes.

For example, back pain is a common ailment among cyclists , but back pain can be caused by a number of serious conditions.



If you want medical advice ask a medic.

bucketybuck

bucketybuck wrote: »

I once went to my GP with an issue that I have always had and always will have, but it was my first time asking this particular GP about it. He basically googled it in front of me. It wasn't "Google" as such, it was some online database that doctors probably have access to, but he typed the name and symptoms into a search bar and printed out some pages describing what I had and some common treatments.

Not a single thing he gave me or told me was new to me, I had had the condition for years and knew as much as any layperson at that point. It was genuinely one of those life lessons for a young man as I sat there and realised that I knew a lot more about the topic than this doctor did. I got my referral and never bothered him again.

Doctors deserve respect, but they are not infallible, not even close.

Note: This is just an anecdote and does not deserve over thinking.

I get what you saying but my thoughts on the print out I was handed last week were that the person handing me the information was educated enough to know that what they were giving me was accurate and correct. Even if I knew everything on there at least I'd have that reassurance that a professional handed it to me and they they were at least in touch with the fact people google these things.

Zaph

Boards doesn't, and never has permitted posters to either seek or give medical advice. If you're in a position where you need someone to tell you what's wrong with you, it's better that that person is a qualified medical professional rather than some randomer on an internet forum who knew a guy once whose cousin had a similar ailment 35 years ago. This rule isn't intended to specifically protect Boards, but rather it's for the good of the person seeking help to ensure that they don't further aggravate whatever is wrong with them by following advice, albeit usually well-meaning to be fair, from someone who isn't medically qualified to give that advice.

For broadly similar reasons we also don't permit people to seek or give legal advice on Boards.

Lumen

There are doctors on this forum who won't give medical advice here.

The appropriate place for advice is a GP surgery.

There are loads of crap doctors out there, they're only people, but if you don't like yours get a different one.

My favourite crap doctor anecdote is when we were advised to abort our son because he'd been conceived while my wife was taking anti malarials. That was a fun week.

fat bloke

magicbastarder wrote: »

there's some irish saying which translates as 'there's no expert surgeon like the cured man', and by god, it's true.

none so chaste as a reformed whore close enough?

irishrover99

One of the benefits of taking the car this morning for a change was been able to listen to a report on Newstalk about painkiller addiction in young people and especially in athletes. The lady was talking about Doctors giving out meds to easily for ailments and people taking too much due to wanting to not miss a sports event.
The Newstalk reporter was trying to paint Doctors as dealers which i believe is wrong as its hard to turn someone away who is in pain or saying they are in pain
I certainly wouldn't be an addict with pain killers but have took them on the day of an event to keep a fever down or perhaps during the event like the Evil 200 when the body is on the limit.

ford2600

irishrover99 wrote: »

when the body is on the limit.

Pain is part of a negative feedback loop telling you to stop/slow/cop the fcuk on.



If you have an interest in cycling and want to be diagnosed online this is the spot for you
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=8.0

Colonic gas/IBS/heart issue its all there for you

harringtonp

Zaph wrote: »

Boards doesn't, and never has permitted posters to either seek or give medical advice. If you're in a position where you need someone to tell you what's wrong with you, it's better that that person is a qualified medical professional rather than some randomer on an internet forum who knew a guy once whose cousin had a similar ailment 35 years ago. This rule isn't intended to specifically protect Boards, but rather it's for the good of the person seeking help to ensure that they don't further aggravate whatever is wrong with them by following advice, albeit usually well-meaning to be fair, from someone who isn't medically qualified to give that advice.

For broadly similar reasons we also don't permit people to seek or give legal advice on Boards.

Have to say I'm surprised that the majority of posters here think the rule is actually a good thing. Why is there no presumption that a poster is well capable of taking advice with a pinch of salt or just use it as one piece in a large jigsaw. And if you can already ask Dr Google a medical question and sift through a whole pile of (sometimes contradictory) answers why not ask Dr Boards too where you at least have an opportunity to clarify an answer.

Not all cycling related ailments are serious. There are a lot of small niggly ones not worthy of a trip to a doctor where the poster is already experimenting and trying different things. So why not in these cases bounce ideas of a community where you may well get a helpful answer. A typical example may be knee trouble (thread opened by another poster recently which was knocked on the head and got me going on this) which could be purely related to cleat position. Few GPs will suggest looking at bike setup where as other cyclists quickly will !

Chips Lovell

OP has gotten their answer from an admin. As it's a sitewide rule, the local mods here can't change it, even if we wanted to (which we don't).

Therefore, as both a doctor and a lawyer, my professional opinion is that it's time to close this thread.