I can't imagine not looking online for health information, either to learn about something I have or to check out new symptoms. It's common practice, but it's not without pitfalls. You need to know how to:
- Conduct an effective search
- Identify a reliable source
- Present the information to your doctor
Effective Web Searches
As a Guide, I have access to all the search terms that bring people to my site, and I see that a lot of people don't understand how to search effectively. A few tips make your results a lot better.
Keywords: Search engines (Google, Yahoo!, site-specific searches) are simple things. They don't answer questions or take orders. I frequently see search terms like, "Can chronic fatigue syndrome be caused by a virus?" or "Give me names of all doctors who treat fibromyalgia in the San Diego area."
Those kinds of searches aren't the most effective because they contain too many words, and the search engine doesn't know which ones are the most important - in other words, which ones are keywords. To identify your keywords, look at the sentence and think about which ones are the most important. In the first example, your keywords would be:
- "Chronic fatigue syndrome"
- Cause
- Virus
Note the quotation marks around "chronic fatigue syndrome" - those ensure that the entire phrase is in your search results. It might seem weird to Google "chronic fatigue syndrome" cause virus, but don't worry. Search engines will understand that much better than a question.
In the second example, your keywords would be: fibromyalgia doctors "san diego." You're basically listing some words that need to be on a website in order for you to be interested.
If your first search doesn't land you where you want, you can try getting either more or less specific. Take "chronic fatigue syndrome" cause virus. If you don't find what you want, try again without "cause," or without "virus." Say you're looking for a symptoms list. Googling "fibromyalgia symptoms" will turn up some lists as well as a host of sites that refer to fibromyalgia symptoms but don't list them. Searching for "fibromyalgia symptoms list" might work better.
Some other tips:
- Don't use punctuation (except for quotes around phrases)
- Don't run words together (chronicfatiguesyndrome)
- Double check your spelling (I see a lot of "fatique")
Lastly, if you run across a word you don't understand (for example, ischemia), it's easy to get a definition. In a new tab or window, enter this as a search term: define ischemia. You'll be rewarded with a list of dictionary definitions of the word. (I use this trick almost daily.)
I hope that will help you conduct better searches. I'll be covering topics 2 & 3 (identifying a reliable source, presenting the information to your doctor) in my next two posts.
If you have any tricks and tips that help you find the information you want quickly, please let us all know by leaving a comment below!
Suggested Reading:
- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Causes
- Fibromyalgia Symptoms List
- Finding a Doctor (in San Diego or elsewhere!)
Photo © Buccina Studios/Getty Images
I love the “define:” search. Like you, I use it almost daily. It’s important to realize where it comes from,though, in interpreting results. It comes from other web pages which provide definitions for the word/phrase in question. So, you could get several different results, and some of those results could be inaccurate or wholly unrelated to the context you’re interested in.
Not to say you shouldn’t use it — I do, as I said. But you should be aware of the source of each definition and choose one carefully. When in doubt, nothing beats the dictionary, be it online or the old paper variety.
If the simple search doesn’t get me what I want, then the advanced search screen options can help. One thing on the Google (and many other) advanced search screen that I use to get more reliable information is to limit by the domain, such as “about.com” or “.gov” (for NIH/NLM materials). Don’t use quotation marks, though, in those fields.
Also, the “NOT” field (or drop-down option, depending on how the search engine you’re using is set up) can be useful as well. For example, if I want to find out about health insurance options for people with fibromyalgia, but I don’t want results with car insurance, I might put “car” in the “NOT” field.
Finally, don’t do serious searches when you have fibrofog. This is really important, because if you’re not careful you could bring something that isn’t want you wanted to your doctor.
Margo
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