Please be wary of giving or asking for medical advice

[Victoria-NRAS]

Hi all

Please can I just remind people to be mindful of not asking questions that request medical advice. Whilst we are happy for people to share experiences of symptoms/side effects etc, medical questions/advice should be directed at the individual's healthcare team, as it puts other forum users in a difficult position and can lead to people giving what could be deemed medical advice, which can of course be dangerous, especially without knowing the full facts.

Many thanks

Victoria

NRAS Helpline

[Hidden]

Thank you for reminding us all. xxx

[earthwitch]

yes, good to have a reminder every now and then. Thanks Victoria.

[GranAmie]

Since the replies to you were 3 yearsago I don't know if you'll pick this up but as a retired academic with RA I have to agree wholeheartedly BUT so many questions are about acronyms ... RA, RD, OA, cccp? esr, pip, dla sero+ and sero-ve, and normal range of esr etc. I'd love to see a mini ref section to explain these!!

thanks

[Victoria-NRAS Partner Moderator NRAS in reply to GranAmie]

Hi GranAmie

I completely agree. The acronyms and abbreviations can be very confusing on this site. The site is set up by HealthUnlocked, and we just moderate it, so don't have control over that unfortunately.

Funnily enough, I've just seen that a feature HealthUnlocked have added fairly recently is a 'tips' box which comes up next to the screen people use when they post a new topic. One of the tips suggests avoiding acronyms and abbreviations so that newcomers can understand the posts, but people who are used to them still fall into the trap.

I think this is an excellent point, and what I think I'll do is set up a new post, which I will put in the 'pinned posts' section, where this post sits, so that it's easier to find. I will explain some of the common abbreviations on here and will encourage people to add to this.

Hope that helps!

Victoria

[Victoria-NRAS Partner Moderator NRAS in reply to GranAmie]

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