Do any doctors follow this support group to help us ?

I don't think many doctors follow any forum. I can't say I blame them because they hear complaints from patients everyday. I sometimes feel bad for doctors because they need to put up a wall sometimes to protect themselves from feeling down.

I recently had the most profound visit with a young rheumatologist. I felt "connected" to him somehow in a strange way. He seemed overly interested in my case. He was very excited about how well I was doing. He also seemed very knowledgeable so I asked him how he knew so much. He was reluctant to share information about himself because he said it was my visit and it was about me. Then he said that he had an autoimmune condition too.

It would be nice for a doctor to weigh in with their opinions sometimes. I suspect they don't want to give medical advice or even their opinions that might be construed as medical advice over the internet.

No. They wouldn’t want to practice medicine on a chat board for obvious reasons. You’ll need to find your own. 🙂

@klmint Mayo Connect is a patient and caregiver support group. Our purpose is to link people who are walking the same walk with one another, to share our experiences and stories of what has worked (or not) for each of us.

There are medical professionals among our members, but they participate as patients and caregivers, not as docs and others giving advice. No member should be giving medical advice based on the our brief, anonymous interactions with one another.

The goal of these chat rooms is peer support and sharing ideas, not clinical assistance. It would not be appropriate for anyone to give medical advice, even if they are a licensed practitioner. To the contrary, they don't know any chat room member's medical history well enough to comment.
Please understand we are here to support each other emotionally and to possibility share ideas based on personal experiences.

Kudos to this forum!

I think this forum does a great job! I have been on other forums where people identify themselves as a pro and give medical advice all the time. They tell people when to increase their dose and how to taper. There is a fine line between sharing personal experiences and giving medical advice. This forum seems to recognize where that line is.

totally get that and am lovin' this support group. i wasn't really looking for actual medical advise, just trying to work out all this stuff. we're all old enuf that it's getting to hard to know what is a symptom of these horrible diseases and what is a new "medical issue". there is only so much online and even my great docs don't have some answers. cheers to everyone and keep the faith

@klmint

I don’t think there are any great answers that apply to everyone. I’m sometimes reluctant to share personal information about what works for me because it could be disastrous for someone else.

On the other hand, what didn’t work for me might be the best thing for someone else.

At least doctors have a license to give medical advice. I don’t have a license to do that. I like and trust my doctor. It is sad some people don’t — it can make things worse.

I am guilty of self medicating but my doctor knew I was. We didn’t always agree and we both made mistakes. Overall things were respectful and very good.