#42 Wellness: Staying Well

Activity 1
I looked at Mayo Clinic's symptom checker and found that it gave good general information about the topics I investigated. It did not have a lot of detail about any one topic. There were some basic suggestions for self treatment, such as suggestions for whether heat or ice, exercise or rest, over-the-counter medications, etc. were appropriate. I thought it contained some useful information.

I liked the Drugs.com site, and entered my medications to check for interactions. Everything looked good, which I expected, since I have a very attentive physician. The pill identifier is a great idea. However, I tried to find a couple of generic and store brand medications and it did not find them. There are just so many variations out there. I am sure it would contain all major brand name medications and commonly abused drugs, so hopefully a parent could use this as a resource if they found something in their child's possession.

Activity 2
Medline Plus would be useful for some people if they had no idea where to start in looking for medical services. The search parameters allowed only a search by county, so the listings were only limited to being in Harris County. I think Aetna's DocFind is preferrable, and also more specific and user-friendly. With DocFind, one can enter a ZipCode and find providers that are both in Aetna's provider group, and within a selected radius from the home of the patient. This is my preferred search location for finding care. Perhaps if one had an rare condition, Medline Plus would help find some possible provider names, which could then be checked on Aetna's site to see of they are included in our insurance plan.

Activity 3
I looked at My Family Health Portrait, but did not create the personal health record. In spite of the declaration that my information will not be stored or accessed by anyone but me, I am reluctant to enter that much personal information on a government website. The issue of privacy, especially in light of the current health care legislation pending in Congress, makes me very reluctant to download this information onto the internet. I do believe that it is important for family members to share health information between themselves, but I will not be using this forum for doing so. For a person doing genealogy research, it would be very useful to include any available information on health issues, so that it could be shared with other family members.