Tag Archives: Resources

Google Health

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I was just taking a look at the beta from Google, Google Health, which is an application to track your health information in a central location.

According to the FAQ,

Google Health offers a single location to consolidate and store your medical records and personal health information. Saving medical information in one secure location helps you and your doctors have accurate and up-to-date information about your health when you need it the most. This in turn means that your medical treatments may be safer and more effective. You can also use Google Health to access a host of online services and tools, from a variety of third-party companies, that can help you better manage your care.

I have some mixed feelings about this application. I do think that it would be convenient to have all of our medical records in a single location. Google won me over a couple of years ago, and I use three or four of their applications every day. I suppose I have some concern over privacy issues, but I imagine that the online security will be better than our pharmacy. My only concern would be the use of the host of online services and tools.

There’s a whole lot of conflicting information out here on the internet, and I worry about people using these online services to do a bit too much self-diagnosis.

What do you guys think? Do you use any of the online medical applications? Do you tend to self-diagnose?

Ask the Experts at LFA

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The Lupus Foundation of America provides an Ask The Experts section on their website, where you can submit a lupus related health question.

I know many of you know about this already, but I thought I would mention it for anyone who didn’t.

You can find answers to many common questions in the same section. Here’s a good example:

Q: How common is it to have both Lupus and RA?

A: Believe it or not, it is more common than you think to have more than one disease. This is called overlapping connective tissue diseases. The connective tissue diseases are a family of closely related disorders. They include: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE or lupus), Polymyositis-Dermatomyositis (PM-DM), Systemic Sclerosis (SSc or scleroderma), Sjogren’s Syndrome (SS), and various forms of Vasculitis. Although lupus most often occurs alone, many people with lupus also have symptoms characteristic of one or more of the other connective tissue diseases. In this circumstance, a physician may use the term “overlap” to describe the illness. There are several well-recognized overlaps that may affect people with lupus this includes the overlap of SLE and RA.

Strangely enough, I haven’t submitted a question yet. I tend to just look things up. Has anyone used this service to ask a specific question? If so, how long did it take to get a response?