Nowadays, everyone wants answers to their questions as quickly as possible. You may call your doctors office and ask to speak to a nurse. If you are lucky, a nurse may call you back in a few hours. You may get an appointment within a few days. But, it is nearly impossible to get an answer to your urgent questions immediately. Thanks to the invention of the internet, the ability to ask medical questions and get a fast response is very possible. There are dozens upon dozens of sites designed to for you to ask medical questions and get answers quickly and for free. Finding those sites takes less than a few seconds of your time. However, navigating through the sites that will actually offer solid advice may take longer than a few seconds.
Being able to ask medical questions online can be a blessing when its the middle of the night and you are needing your issue addressed immediately. Some health insurance companies are kind enough to have on-call nurses and doctors that are available on a hotline 24 hours a day. You can always call and get answers to your questions if you have that available to you as well. Some people prefer to get their questions answered online while others would prefer to speak to an actual person. Of course, the best way to ask medical questions would be in person, meeting with an actual doctor or nurse and letting them examine the situation and correctly identify and treat whatever your concern happens to be.
As we all know, there are times that you simply cannot wait for an answer. Your baby is screaming in the middle of the night and has an unidentified rash but you know it does not warrant a trip to the emergency room but you want answers and you want them fast. The internet just may provide those answers and solutions.
However, there are some drawbacks to being able to ask medical questions online. More and more actual doctors are advising against taking medical advice off of the internet. Why? Because people surfing the web and looking for answers have a tendency to diagnose themselves with diseases and conditions that dont even remotely pertain to them. You are looking for a solution to why you have a stomach ache for several days in a row. Suddenly, you find yourself on a site that talks about stomach cancer and you have convinced yourself that you have all of the symptoms that are mentioned. You panic and call your doctor insisting on being tested for cancer. As humorous as that scenario may sound, it happens over and over again. You ask medical questions on the internet and you end up being convinced that every single medical condition that you happen to find pertains to you. If you are going to search for medical answers online, make sure that you dont jump to any conclusions. Before you convince yourself that you
or a family member is dying from some exotic disease, keep an open mind and dont invent symptoms that do not truly exist. Keep everything in perspective and before you jump to any conclusions, talk to a real doctor or nurse if it isnt something that you can medicate yourself with over the counter medications. Medical concerns can turn out to be absolutely nothing and the simple answers can be found online. However, use some common sense if you feel that your concerns need to be addressed more in depth.