Has anyone used the Isabel Symptom checker?

[ellarose1234]

OK I admit it I take the Daily Mail, I read the Daily Mail and I enjoy the "Good Health" articles on a Tuesday. I love Quentin Letts and Littlejohn and Richard Kay gets up my nose.

Seems our doctors have been using an online symptom checker for years.... well not all of them or we wouldn't have so much bother getting our hypothyroidism diagnosed.

Seems 51% of adults search the Internet for health advice rather than ask a doctor....Noooooooo really???

symptomchecker.isabelhealth...

I put in as my symptoms:

Always Cold

Low body temp

Low pulse

Thin hair

dry skin

foggy brain

Guess what came up???? Yes! Hypothyroidism....also Hashimotos and one or two others such as plant poisoning!!

Seems 55 practices in the Vale of York have had access to "Isabel" for 7 months.

Doctor:

"This system allows you to think outside the box. We don't use it for every patient but it is useful for complex cases"

the system costs around £1400 a year although there is a free version for patients to use.

The doctors say the costs are recouped because more patients are referred to the right consultant the first time. (ha ha ha ha!! sorry that's me)

Well I never...and we have been doing this for years and getting told we are hypochondriacs and shouldn't read all the rubbish on the Internet.

You couldn't make it up!!! ( Littlejohn)

[Link corrected by Admin 16:34 26/03/2013 - Added full stop]

[ellarose1234]

symptomchecker.isabelhealth...

[helvella Administrator]

I came across it ages ago - then completely forgot it existed.

Thanks for pointing it out. A really positive response to the original incident.

Rod

[Ansteynomad]

I was impressed that this software diagnosed me in a matter of seconds while my current endo is, in his own admission, 'struggling to find a cause for [my] symptoms'.

On other things it is not so good - my DH's symptoms of a reaction to his new BP tablets came out as Hodgkin's Disease!

AN

[Margo]

I read the Daily Mail too, love Littlejohn, and particularly Quentin Letts, maybe it is a thyroid symptom?!!

[ellarose1234 in reply to Margo]

I'm glad there are at least two of us who admit to reading the Daily Mail!! Perhaps you're right about the Littlejohn/Letts symptom lol!

[nightingale-56]

Here's another one for the Daily Mail and the same journalists. Really don't know what people have got against the paper. Find most of their health reports are repeated in \the Telegraph, which I also read after my husband has finished with it. He will not read the DM though! Janet.

[Hidden in reply to nightingale-56]

Me to love the Daily mail,from experience there are too many people who bury their heads in the sand, rather the dm than the guardian,sun,star etc, but each to there own i guess.x