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" You think you&amp;#039;re pregnant or you have a strange headache or there&amp;#039;s a bump under your eyelid.... You&amp;#039;d call your doctor, but it&amp;#039;s Sunday. So you turn to your new source of medical advice \u2014 the Internet. For many of us, going online has replaced home medical guides, our best friend, and Mom. Or, maybe you&amp;#039;ve already been to the doctor. You know what&amp;#039;s wrong. Now you&amp;#039;d like to learn more about your problem or connect with others who are going through the same thing.  But will you? Not easily. Type in &amp;quot;health&amp;quot; and you&amp;#039;ll get four billion results. Even a query about an eyelid bump brings you 130,000 choices. A search for &amp;quot;pregnancy&amp;quot; yields 191 million. You will have given birth by the time you sort them all out. More worrisome, online information may be out-of-date or even dangerous. And many sites are suspiciously incomplete \u2014 you might not find many exercises on a Web page that was developed by back surgeons, for example. And if you&amp;#039;re not very careful, you can find yourself clicking from one site to a &amp;quot;sponsored link&amp;quot; (also known as an advertisement), where the information may not be objective. That&amp;#039;s why we turned to leading doctors and medical librarians to bring you this two-part guide. Part one features the best Web addresses for looking up symptoms, finding great medical care, and dealing with common conditions and illnesses. (Of course, you&amp;#039;ll want to check out what you&amp;#039;ve learned online with a doctor.)  Checking Out Your Symptoms  You wake up with a stomachache: Is it indigestion or appendicitis? Many general health sites feature a symptom checker. But with some, by the time you get your &amp;quot;answer,&amp;quot; you may well have carpal tunnel syndrome from all the clicking you will have done. At health.msn.com, for example, we had to travel through four links before learning that if the stomach pain was severe, we needed to call a health professional immediately! At WebMD, you can click for your symptom on a body graphic or alphabet. But we didn&amp;#039;t find &amp;quot;stomachache&amp;quot; under S. It&amp;#039;s under A for &amp;quot;abdominal pain.&amp;quot;  The site we like: familydoctor.org, home of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Its symptom finder is set up in flowchart format; we were asked a series of clear questions, with each answer bringing us closer to a diagnosis. We also got helpful self-care instructions. Best Breast Cancer Sites  You&amp;#039;ve Just Found a Lump The ABCs of Breast Cancer Guide at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation site (komen.org) will walk you through all the decisions you&amp;#039;ll need to make, from type of biopsy to kind of treatment. The site is also noted for its inclusion of alternative treatments.  You&amp;#039;re Especially Interested in New Findings In addition to basic information, breastcancer.org features clear analyses of the latest studies, with an emphasis on how the results may apply to you. You Want to Connect with Other Patients The Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization (y-me.org) offers a hotline, guides to local support groups, and more. Problem solving: After Clarice Richter of Southington, Connecticut, was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, connecting with the support group at the Komen Foundation&amp;#039;s Website was like &amp;quot;having a best friend all the time. I&amp;#039;d wake up at two in the morning, go online, and someone would be there to talk.&amp;quot; Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Cancer on page 2. Best Sites for Diabetes  You&amp;#039;re Newly Diagnosed From now on, you&amp;#039;ll need to know that U-100 isn&amp;#039;t a rock band (it&amp;#039;s a measure of insulin). For a complete guide to diabetes care, bookmark the Website of the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (diabetes.niddk.nih.gov).  You Want the Latest News We found studies on everything from prevention of eye complications to nutrition during pregnancy on the Website of the American Diabetes Association (diabetes.org). It also includes extensive message boards. Your Child Has Diabetes At the site of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International (jdrf.org), info comes from medical experts and other kids \u2014 your child can choose a pen pal too. Print out &amp;quot;A Child with Diabetes Is in Your Care&amp;quot; for grandparents, teachers, babysitters, and camp counselors. Best Heart Disease Sites  You Want to Gauge Your Risk At the site for the government&amp;#039;s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (nhlbi.nih.gov), you&amp;#039;ll find a 10-year heart attack risk calculator and a body mass index calculator, in addition to clear info on symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment.  You Have Heart Disease \u2014 or Warning Signs The official Website of the American Heart Association (americanheart.org) features a Heart &amp;amp;amp; Stroke Encyclopedia, as well as quizzes, training guides, advice on medication, and more. For info specifically on stroke, go to strokeassociation.org. You Want to Know More MayoClinic.com&amp;#039;s Heart Disease Center site (mayoclinic.com/health/heart-disease/HB99999) is also comprehensive, with lots of videos and interactive features. The site has a particularly strong section on nutritional supplements. You&amp;#039;re Dying for Fettuccine Alfredo, but... The cooking site deliciousdecisions.org provides favorite recipes adapted to meet heart-healthy guidelines (yes, there&amp;#039;s a low-fat version of fettuccine Alfredo). You&amp;#039;ll also find detailed shopping and dining-out information. You Know That You Should Exercise, but...  An online exercise guide, justmove.org, features ideas on choosing an activity, reaching your target heart rate, and keeping a workout diary, plus links to other sources of fitness info. Problem solving: Without health insurance, Mary Belz of Dewey, Illinois, isn&amp;#039;t able to see doctors very often. So when she developed severe hypertension, she used the profiler at the American Heart Association&amp;#039;s Website to get the lowdown on a healthy diet (more fruits and veggies, she was told) and other lifestyle changes that could improve her health. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m the type of person who always wants to know more,&amp;quot; says Belz. Best Cancer Websites  You&amp;#039;ve Just Been Diagnosed The American Cancer Society&amp;#039;s site (cancer.org) provides easy-to-understand (but not dumbed-down) information. Print out Questions to Ask Your Doctor for your next visit.  You Have a Rare Cancer Even such unusual ones as pheochromocytoma (a tumor of the adrenal glands) are included on the A-to-Z list at the National Cancer Institute&amp;#039;s site (cancer.gov). You&amp;#039;ll also find details on treatment, genetics, research, and clinical trials. You Want to Dig Deep Specialists from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania have produced a comprehensive site that includes a vast library of journals and books (oncolink.upenn.edu). The site includes an Ask the Cancer Expert feature (past questions are archived). You can also send in your own, but the group cannot guarantee an answer. You Have a Gynecologic Cancer The Women&amp;#039;s Cancer Network site (wcn.org) covers vaginal, cervical, uterine, and other malignancies. Click on Find a Doctor, which directs you to local specialists; all are members of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists. Your Child Has Cancer Find treatment descriptions, discussion boards (for kids too), and more at curesearch.org. Created by the CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation and the Children&amp;#039;s Oncology Group (a network of 5,000 pediatric-cancer specialists), this site is pitched to both parents and young patients. You Need a Support Network Sign up for one of the 135 specialized email lists maintained by the nonprofit Association of Cancer Online Resources (acor.org). Lists are available for patients and families. You Have Pressing Personal Concerns The specially trained social workers at CancerCare (cancercare.org) can help you navigate everything from how to tell your kids you&amp;#039;ve got cancer to financial resources in your area. You can communicate online, by email or phone, or in person. Drug info, Reliability, and Privacy on page 3. Best Drug Information  You Forgot the Directions Drugs.com provides essentials on more than 24,000 prescription and over-the-counter medications, including how to take a drug, side effects, interactions, and what to do if you miss a dose. The handy Pill Identification Wizard helps you identify stray tablets you may find in your medicine cabinet.  You Want More Details At Rxlist.com, you&amp;#039;ll also find all the basics, plus easy-to-understand discussions of clinical studies conducted on a drug&amp;#039;s side effects and interactions. You Want to Know About Supplements In addition to covering the standard medications, the government&amp;#039;s medlineplus.gov includes info on vitamins, minerals, and herbals (click on Drugs &amp;amp;amp; Supplements). You&amp;#039;re Worried About Safety At the site for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the FDA (fda.gov/cder), you&amp;#039;ll find up-to-the-minute research on medications. The site flags current FDA alerts and public health advisories and lets you check out safety info on many prescription and OTC drugs. Reliable or Unreliable Info?  Five Signs a Site Is...Reliable  It has real doctors behind it. Click on a site&amp;#039;s Advisory Board link; you want to see physicians with university or medical center affiliations. It has a seal. Sites that have applied for accreditation by the Health on the Net Foundation are more likely to uphold ethical standards of medical reporting. It&amp;#039;s unbiased. Commercial (.com) sites can be fine, but click the About Us link to understand who&amp;#039;s behind the info \u2014 a hospital? a natural-cure center? It&amp;#039;s current. Look for the &amp;quot;last updated&amp;quot; notation (usually at the bottom of the page). Be wary if no one has reviewed the information in the last couple of years It&amp;#039;s easy on the eyes \u2014 and the brain. The best sites are highly readable and logically organized, notes Barbara Schloman, Ph.D., associate dean of Libraries and Media Services at Kent State University in Ohio.  Five Signs a Site is...Unreliable  You&amp;#039;re bombarded \u2014 by advertisements, pop-up windows, requests to fill out surveys, or weird information unrelated to your search. There&amp;#039;s no About Us section. Why? Are they hiding something? The facts are &amp;quot;unique.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s a bad sign if you can&amp;#039;t verify the information on another site. All symptoms lead to the same treatment. If every type of back pain seems to require a &amp;quot;revolutionary, new&amp;quot; bone graft, click elsewhere. ?tHe inFo loks &amp;quot;likE tHiss! Reputable sites rarely include spelling or punctuation mistakes, notes Schloman. That may be why we found papilloma misspelled as &amp;quot;papaloma&amp;quot; on a site ostensibly offering &amp;quot;health science reports.&amp;quot; The real agenda? To sell nutritional supplements  Worried About Privacy?  Click on a Website about arthritis and you may find your email inbox filled with offers for joint-pain treatments. Annoying, but &amp;quot;you shouldn&amp;#039;t be so paranoid about privacy that you stop using the Internet as a source of health information,&amp;quot; says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC. Still, you can take some precautions:  Don&amp;#039;t give your name to just anyone. Register only with established organizations, like the American Cancer Society, that won&amp;#039;t follow your online activity.  Check for confidentiality. You want the site to promise that it won&amp;#039;t share your information with any third parties.  Look for security. Make sure that any info you send can&amp;#039;t be intercepted. There should be a closed padlock or an unbroken key icon in the lower corner of your browser window. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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