NO MEDICAL ADVICE IN POSTS

thirtyfoot

Can everyone be reminded that there is a 'no medical advice' rule in the charter. So, don't ask for it or don't give it.

I have a pain in my a*se deleting posts, locking threads etc relating to this.:(

RJC

Agreed. sorry if my answer was construed as medical advice. A pro is the only person to diagnose.

cfitz

Tingle wrote: »

I have a pain in my a*se deleting posts

Just do some light jogging for the next few days. Then do some strengthening exercises for the glutes.

Bobby04

May I respectfully ask, can we no longer discuss simple measures/remedies for common running relating niggles eg. stretching, rest, foam rollers etc.?
I found this forum invaluable in the past for such info, and it actually helped steer me in the direction of professional help when I had serious issues. I'm not advocating the "take this and do that because your problem is xyz" type of advice or approach. I just think the forum may be heading too far in the opposite direction, banning any constructive discussion I know it's a very tough call for you mods.

thirtyfoot

cfitz wrote: »

Just do some light jogging for the next few days. Then do some strengthening exercises for the glutes.

My glutes are strong but my right shoulder is sore and I have tendonitis in my wrist from clicking 'delete post' and 'close thread'. I tried light jogging but my chin started to hurt because seeing as its jogging I know I should run at a pace that I can talk at but I talked so much. I think its chin splints. Any remedies?

shels4ever

Tingle wrote: »

My glutes are strong but my right shoulder is sore and I have tendonitis in my wrist from clicking 'delete post' and 'close thread'. I tried light jogging but my chin started to hurt because seeing as its jogging I know I should run at a pace that I can talk at but I talked so much. I think its chin splints. Any remedies?

Check your LT , Vo2 , Vdot and you'll feel better.

TheRoadRunner

Tingle wrote: »

I think its chin splints.

Boom Boom, classic

Hard Worker

shels4ever wrote: »

Check your LT , Vo2 , Vdot and you'll feel better.

No medical advice please.:)

thirtyfoot

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Boom Boom, classic

Chin splints was an actual ailment enquired about on Fitness last year. Sounds sore.

RICHIE-RICH

I second Bobby04 - surely we are all adults here, and aware of the issues of getting a diagnosis over the internet, from a stranger, who cannot see you, and most probably is not qualified.

I think discussion on niggles, strains etc are commonplace amonst runners, but no-one I know would risk injury or their health, just because POSTER_X off the internet said so.

Sure, restrict specific medical diagnosis (e.g. you have torn ligaments, cut off your leg), but the most I have seen on this forum is the type of answer that says "well I had a similar issue but you should really see your doctor/physio to be sure"

If you are taking medical advice from a forum, then you really need to see a doctor to get your head sorted.

(Having said all that, I am not a Mod, and cannot comment on how many of these types of comments are posted daily)

thirtyfoot

RICHIE-RICH wrote: »

I second Bobby04 - surely we are all adults here, and aware of the issues of getting a diagnosis over the internet, from a stranger, who cannot see you, and most probably is not qualified.

I think discussion on niggles, strains etc are commonplace amonst runners, but no-one I know would risk injury or their health, just because POSTER_X off the internet said so.

Sure, restrict specific medical diagnosis (e.g. you have torn ligaments, cut off your leg), but the most I have seen on this forum is the type of answer that says "well I had a similar issue but you should really see your doctor/physio to be sure"

If you are taking medical advice from a forum, then you really need to see a doctor to get your head sorted.

(Having said all that, I am not a Mod, and cannot comment on how many of these types of comments are posted daily)

Who will moderate the content of medical advice and say whats good and bad? The devil is in the detail as always.

If we are going to try and moderate what good or bad medical advice is we don't have the experience or knowledge to do so (well I don't despite having most injuries in my career).

If I did have the experience I would ask the poster to maybe call around to my house and I could examine the injury. Then I would be able to ascertain what is the good or bad medical advice, return to Boards and then delete the quacky advice and give the Thumbs Up to the good advice. The poster could then return to Boards after leaving my house and the good advice will be available for them online. If I was going to do this and had the correct qualifications I would charge maybe €60-75 per Boards visitor. I can see it working smoothly.

Alternatively, the poster could not seek medical advice on Boards, go straight to a physio, pay €60-75 and get treatment there and then.

Honestly, I don't care if we give medical advice or not, it'll be easier to moderate if its a free for all but the general consensus was that giving medical advice is not a good idea on an internet forum and from my limited experince that makes sense. I'd prefer to talk about 800m splits, special endurance, vVo2, the sport in general etc etc than the semantics of what should and shouldn't be allowed to be posted regarding a pain somebody may have in their gluteus maximus.

If the people want a free for all, speak and be heard. Any other opinions?

RJC

I agree that the devil is in the detail. A question like - 'Has any body had such and such an injury?' will generally give the original poster answers and support that give them the feeling that they are not alone on a desert island of injury and pain. A question like - 'what do you do with an injury like such and such?' may elicit well intentioned but inappropriate advice.

In terms of the origins of this I was not offering advice on a pro to treat the injury but confirming that I had had similar symptoms to the original poster and confirming what the professional diagnosis and treatment was for me.

I did sign off with a good luck (but not good luck with finding someone to treat you).

I agree with Richie-rich in that if an adult asks a question and the answer is in good faith then a level of discretion should be exercised - but I understand that fuzzy rules for moderators are hard to enforce.

ChickenTikka

RJC wrote: »

I agree with Richie-rich in that if an adult asks a question ....

wat f da adlt tlks lik dis, mayb der nt n adlt?

Its a difficult one to deal with - if there is any doubt that someone will go off on the wrong diagnosis, it maybe best not to have any medical advice. Or maybe the conversation would be ... i have such and such an injury, please PM me if you've had similar problem.

mrak

ChickenTikka wrote: »

wat f da adlt tlks lik dis, mayb der nt n adlt?

Its a difficult one to deal with - if there is any doubt that someone will go off on the wrong diagnosis, it maybe best not to have any medical advice. Or maybe the conversation would be ... i have such and such an injury, please PM me if you've had similar problem.

Lol! You've been hanging with the youngsters. On the pm thing.. I still don't think it'd work as people could be getting pm'd by any old freak and wouldn't even have the sanity check of moderators/other folk to make sure they aren't advising total nonsense. The end result is the same .. medical advice handed out by boards ac - safest thing to do is not say anything on injuries... apart from perhaps describing some generic injury prevention exercises or links in a skicky.

Running Bing

mrak wrote: »

Lol! You've been hanging with the youngsters. On the pm thing.. I still don't think it'd work as people could be getting pm'd by any old freak and wouldn't even have the sanity check of moderators/other folk to make sure they aren't advising total nonsense. The end result is the same .. medical advice handed out by boards ac - safest thing to do is not say anything on injuries... apart from perhaps describing some generic injury prevention exercises or links in a skicky.

See I think this is a case of you cant get a little bit pregnant.

You either need to have it so its all ok to talk about or you cant mention it otherwise it becomes too difficult to mod.

A lot of other running forums (Im thinking specifically of runners world) allow injury talk and it doesnt seem to be a problem. In fact its been pretty helpful to me personally on a number of occasions.

I can fully 100% understand the mods apprehension about allowing discussion but I think in general users of this forum are a pretty sensible bunch and I dont think it would cause too many problems.

Just my 2 cents.

robinph

It is still possible to give medical advice, without giving any medical advice.

I give you exhibit A and exhibit B, just coincidence that it's two threads both started by me but they just happen to be the examples that I knew where to find. A total ban on anything even mentioning anything concerning the areas of medical professionals expertise is going a touch too far IMHO.

--amadeus--

Right, this one is NOT up for a total turn around.

There was a monster thread in the Mods forum about medical advice recently, started by the two doctors who mod teh medical forum on here. The general consensus from the various medics, all the mods and the site owners was that medical advice is pretty much a strict no-no as a site wide policy, no matter what the mods of the various forums think. The reason for this is that symptoms that might seem innocuous to us could be a danger signal to someone who knows what they are looking for. Likewise without knowing the full history and a physical exam there is no way that the advisors can give good advice. And wrong medical advice can be very angerous.

Added to which is the issue in a sports forum of race entry and performances. The wrong advice can either greatly extend recovery time by making an injury worse or leave you under training for longer than needed. I could say "ahh your fine, I had that and trained through it" and leave you unable to run a race you had trained for months for and maybe spent a lot of money to enter, book flights and hotels for and what have you.

Now my personal (non-mod) opinion is that "I had something like that and I..." posts are ok but "What you need to do is..." are not. But drawing that line is difficult so there has been a blanket ban on it. I can see the benefit of having a more relaxed attitude but we'll need to work hard to mod it and you'll have to trust our judgements. As always we are up for discussion but ultimately if the site owners say we can't do medical advice then we can't do medical advice, end of.

thirtyfoot

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Right, this one is NOT up for a total turn around.

There was a monster thread in the Mods forum about medical advice recently, started by the two doctors who mod teh medical forum on here. The general consensus from the various medics, all the mods and the site owners was that medical advice is pretty much a strict no-no as a site wide policy, no matter what the mods of the various forums think. The reason for this is that symptoms that might seem innocuous to us could be a danger signal to someone who knows what they are looking for. Likewise without knowing the full history and a physical exam there is no way that the advisors can give good advice. And wrong medical advice can be very angerous.

Added to which is the issue in a sports forum of race entry and performances. The wrong advice can either greatly extend recovery time by making an injury worse or leave you under training for longer than needed. I could say "ahh your fine, I had that and trained through it" and leave you unable to run a race you had trained for months for and maybe spent a lot of money to enter, book flights and hotels for and what have you.

Now my personal (non-mod) opinion is that "I had something like that and I..." posts are ok but "What you need to do is..." are not. But drawing that line is difficult so there has been a blanket ban on it. I can see the benefit of having a more relaxed attitude but we'll need to work hard to mod it and you'll have to trust our judgements. As always we are up for discussion but ultimately if the site owners say we can't do medical advice then we can't do medical advice, end of.

Nice one. So it'll be locking and deleting as is then.

robinph

I should clarify what I was saying wasn't that I'm dissagreeing with the opinion from upon high. Just that there is a difference between asking for medical advice and asking for advice to do with a medical situation.

Although that may not actually be much clearer I guess.

MarieC

I've asked for advice here before, listened to it, researched it and then proceeded as I thought best. I would like to think that the people here are in general a mature and sensible bunch and know that they need to take any advice over the internet with due caution.

I would think it a tad on the extreme side for a blanket ban on all injury related issues. Hard to moderate I know but still everything in moderation.

--amadeus--

I can't speak for Tingle and HM but I'd be happy enough to relax it a bit and allow personal experiences ("I had that too and I did x") type discussions but we'd need some give and take from teh regulars.

If you spotted a post that you felt crossed the line into advice then you'd need to report it and the first reply in a thread would need to give the disclaimer ("we can only give our experience, no advice, if in doubt or pain see a medical professional") so that randomers or newbies know where we stand. To keep those at a higher pay grade happy we would also need to be pretty strict on those who still breach the rules - infractions and bans rather than just deletes and locks.

If you are all willing to do that I'd be happy to moderate it, but I'd like to hear what Tingle and HM think?

RJC

The real issue at play is do you moderate for a median level of common sense or a 95%-ile idiot level (i.e. he/she who believes everything they read).

The conflict exists between issues of legality and usability/purpose and intent of the forum and post.

As this has come up in other fora it has nothing to do with athletics/running/triathlon.

MrCreosote

I've only been on this forum for a month or so, but I think you hit the balance fairly well really. The problem isn't the 99.9% of times people get good advice, it's the one time somebody doesn't- "my leg hurt, they told me to exercise my glutes, and THEN IT FELL OFF!" kind of thing. Do they blame someone or complain? The advice will always be visible on the site.

At least if a physio or dr mucks up, they should be insured to their eyeballs.

Hard to know where to draw the line, but I reckon you do a pretty good job of it.

hunnymonster

I'm with you Amadeus, personal experiences can be useful but we should always be aware that we are not diognosticians and the proper person to prescribe therapy is the guy with a certificate hanging on the wall.

thirtyfoot

Ok, so its not locking and deleting then.

I think this will get messy though but sure we can give it a go. While suggestions may not be medical advice explicitly they may go against medical advice. I have a sore leg. Reply - worked for me was running on grass and after two weeks I was fine. Correct medical advice maybe rest.

But we can give it a go.