What Your Symptom's Really Mean

Hi All,

WebMD's Symptom Checker is a very useful and interactive tool that might help you diagnose what is really wrong with you when you don't feel well. 

The top of the page has a helpful ribbon of options - which include topics like 'Health A-Z', 'Drugs and Supplements', 'Living Healthy', 'Family and Pregnancy' and 'News and Experts'.  

The real value of the site is the Symptom Checker tool. In order to use it though, users need to fill out some information - which is completely useless since the user can enter false answers to questions like 'Who is the information for?', 'Gender' and 'Age'.  Other options include zip code and your email address. Once you submit the answers you see a screen with a body map. Users can click on the map to zoom in on various parts of the body.

For example, I chose the chest - then a list of chest symptoms appears next to the body map.  I chose a 'cough'.  Whereupon several questions related to the cough are asked.  Questions included 'what brought on the cough?', 'Cough developed after exposure to...', and 'Cough associated with...'.

A list of possible conditions is included on the screen once all the questions are successfully answered.  Whereupon the user can click on any of the possible conditions and will promptly be taken to the WebMD section of the site that discusses that condition.

At the top of the screen a list of the symptoms is included, an overview of the condition is given, what the patient can expect from the condition is also discussed. Furthermore a section of 'how common' the particular condition is? is listed on WebMD. Sections on Treatment, Self Care, Made Worse By, When to See Your Doctor and Questions to Ask Your Doctor is included in the WebMD Symptom Checker.

Readers can skip to the next condition, print the current condition and more. 

WebMD has a Cold and Flu newsletter for readers as well as options to Find a Doctor and Finding the Lowest Drug Prices.

The site is easy to navigate, reputable, current and well organized.  Its a good site to learn more about your present condition/illness or to learn what your present symptoms actually mean!

Regards,
Stu

New Year's Resolutions

Hi All,

Well the end of the year is almost upon us.  Instead of writing an entry about what New Year's resolutions you should make, I'm going to blog about how to make those resolutions - whatever they are - stick and become lifelong habits....

So...how did New Year's resolutions start...click on this link from Wikipedia for an interesting, fun and enlightening entry about resolutions.

The next bunch of links are from sites that will help you make those resolutions stick and become habits.

Huffington Post - New Year's Resolutions Are Bound to Fail. Try This Instead

WebMD - 10 Ways to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick

APA - Making Your New Year's Resolutions Stick 

Forbes - Most Powerful Way to Set New Year's Resolutions That Stick 

DailyMail.com -  How to Achieve Your New Year's Resolutions

Entrepreneur - 8 Ways You Can Use Science to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick 

New York Times - How To Stick to Your New Year's Resolutions 

LifeHacker - Top 10 Strategies For Making Your New Year's Resolution Stick 

USA Today - 6 Ways to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick 

Shape.com - Top 10 Reasons You Don't Stick to Your Resolutions  

Enjoy the links and here's to resolutions and making them stick for the new year!

Regards,
Stu 

Stress, angst, agita...relieve it now!!!

Hi All,

I'm sure you all are aware of the stresses of daily modern life. What with kids and a job, and retirement and college to worry about....what is a responsible person to do?

It is easy to talk about relieving stress, but it is another completely different thing to actually take time for yourself and actually relax! Forthwith a few sites and some library resources to help you reduce your stress level in a friendly, easy, relaxing environment!

First and foremost there many, many, many, many....links to stress reduction on the internet. As a matter of fact, it seems like there is a not-so-small cottage industry for giving advice to the stress laden and to angst filled people on the internet. That being said, let's discuss 2 unbiased, authoritative , easily accessible websites that talk about stress reduction.

The first site is from the National Institute of Health. The site is called MedlinePlus and is a wonderful place to start research on any health topic. I entered the term 'stress' in the dialog box and you can click here for the results of the search! Note that Medline is authoritative, up-to-date, unbiased and very well organized. Sounds like a great site to me!

Click on this link for just a small sample of what the site has to offer - this link is an interactive tutorial on how to deal with stress - great stuff!

Also, click here for MedlinePlus' version of what the difference is between stress and anxiety.

Now, on to another website that discusses stress. The site is - you might have heard of it before - WebMD.com. Click here for a link to the front page of WebMD.com

Again, I entered the phrase 'stress' in the dialog box and you can click here for the links and results.

The results of the search are interesting - and very helpful to say the least. First you see a link to a whole section on WebMD called the 'Stress Management Health Center'. Click the phrase in blue and you'll link to the section. On the left side of the screen you'll see a list of options you can choose from. Some of the are: Causes of Stress, Effects of Stress, Measuring Stress, Ways to Relieve Stress, Ways to Avoid Stress, Setting a Goal to Reduce Stress and links to 'If You Need More Help With Stress'. Again, you can click on any of these phrases and you'll go to that particular section on the WebMD site.

Finally, you can Click here for a link to the library card catalog for the search 'stress reduction'. I sorted the results by date - newest items will be first - and the results include books, DVD's, books-on-cd, and other material types.

Hope this helps!
Regards,
Stu

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