That's just the way it goes with the internet, but you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, you just need to weigh the advice you get accordingly.
I think the increasingly common practice of forbidding medical advice in online forums is deleterious. For a lot of people professional medical care provides no solutions, hearing other people's personal experiences is helpful and comforting.
The first rule of the internet is don't take medical advice from anonymous people on the internet. The second rule of the internet is don't take medical advice from anonymous people on the internet.
You asked why the down-votes, but clearly didn't parse what I wrote.
I made no statements as to the efficacy of your proposed remedy, just that the problem is giving medical advice is dangerous, even if the substance is ultimately harmless (or even beneficial!).
There's nothing wrong with pursuing your own treatments, and I'm glad you've found things that work for you. I don't wish RSI on anyone.
It is, however, extremely wrong to give medical advice to strangers based on a single comment on an internet forum. You know virtually nothing about the individual, their symptoms or really anything at all about the specifics of the situation at hand.
Experts will want to know more about the specifics before providing advice. Fools tread where angels fear to go.
I'm sure you're in an expert in something. Whatever it is, think about the people who think they're experts in that from reading a wikipedia or newspaper article. Or heck, the newbies just starting out learning about that something. They are almost always so confident that they know the answer and share it with everyone around them. That confidence can be endearing and usually nothing horrible in consequences.
Not in the case of people's health. Consequences are too severe.
> I love HN sometimes. A long thread of nutritional bro science getting basic physiology wildly wrong, literally leading off with the comment “don’t listen to what those doctors tell you”? All kosher.
So you are agreeing with me? Not to take medical advice from anonymous internet sources? Seems like you are saying the same thing I'm saying.
No one should be accepting anything online as medical advice. It's like high finance, if you base every purchase on what you read on Yahoo finance you are going to lose your shirt. If you take health advice online you might die. Nobody is giving advice here. We are having a discussion.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
> Unless you have a list of all the posters, and their qualifications, you can not make that claim
No qualified psychiatrist or psychologist in their right mind would give medical advice to some anonymous person over the internet so this point is moot.
> The real problem is that people are looking for solid medical advice on YouTube
The thing is... solid medical advice does exist on YouTube, so it's not entirely unreasonable to go looking for it there!
"Just go to your doctor"
Yes well, a) that's not free in America while YouTube is, and b) your local doctor could have been bottom of his class, you have no way of knowing. It's like saying don't watch world class programmers on youtube, hire a local programmer instead.
I'm also hesitant to take medical advice from a new account on an internet forum who is disputing medical research. Definitely not saying anything fishy is up, just that we should keep things in perspective.
> But you don't have to believe me as I read and don't make bibliographies in all of my posts.
We certainly don't have to make them in all posts, but I think it's reasonable to request that we make them in what are hopefully a small number of posts wherein we offer medical advice.
> Your post is, patently obviously, medical advice.
Or it is the provision of basic information to avoid "not knowing about what you don't know". Knowing that this option might exist, you can ask medical professionals about it.
> I should probably stick with a doctor's opinion, but you may have a better intuition.
Yes, you should trust your doctor over strangers over the internet. They should have much more context as well. It's one thing to comment on equipment, but it is another to comment on what that result means for you.
> However, I don't think reading articles, however scientific, is a substitute for five years of training to be a psychiatrist or psychologist
Why do you keep pushing this line? The page quite clearly says on line 4 and line 6 that you should talk to a doctor. It even suggests discussing the listed things with a doctor.
If a doctor prescribed me a statin to help with my cholesterol, then I went away and read up and found that reducing the amount of bacon I was eating would also help, then I went back and discussed that with my doctor, am I better or worse off?
If I delete my Github account right now does the information I linked to go away? In lots of cases I have linked to the discussion rather than the article, where the extraordinarily critical HN crowd have pulled the article apart, searched for p-hacking and other frauds and discussed any merits. Is that better or worse than the tabloid stories that abound on health? I don't see how more information about your condition could be a bad thing?
To be fair, and I don’t say this in a spirit of criticism toward you, but taking medical advice from Internet strangers is not recommended generally.
Many (myself included) have relied upon Reddit in the past for niche advice or recommendations. My key is to only do so in applying topics I already understand enough to apply safely, so I know whether I’m reading a clever idea or someone talking out their ass.
It may not be a good idea but if it exists, it means there's a lack of information out there.
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