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" The Internet can be a gold mine of health information if you know how to use it. &amp;quot;It works out for both the patient and the doctor if everyone&amp;#039;s being proactive,&amp;quot; says Harry Shamoon, MD, professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. &amp;quot;The more information the doctor has, the better.&amp;quot; At the very least, it&amp;#039;ll spur questions and conversations you might not otherwise have had. Here&amp;#039;s how to do it right:   1. Visit credible websites that experts use.Dr. Shamoon recommends these sites to patients because he uses them as well: WebMD.com, MedlinePlus.gov, NIH.gov (National Institutes of Health), Cancer.gov (National Cancer Institute) and MayoClinic.com. When in doubt, look for sites that are affiliated with big, well-known medical institutions, like the Mayo Clinic, and patient advocacy groups, like the American Heart Association (AmericanHeart.org).   2. Watch out for sites that are trying to sell you something.Most websites have advertisements, but if the whole purpose of a site is to sell a product, the info presented could be slanted. Sometimes it&amp;#039;s hard to tell (such as when a drug manufacturer sets up an informational website about a condition). How to suss it out? Check to see whom the site is affiliated with or sponsored by. You&amp;#039;ll usually find that info under an &amp;quot;About Us&amp;quot; section, the link to which is typically at the top or bottom of the site&amp;#039;s homepage. You should also be wary of any sites that ask for your credit card number.   3. Avoid jumping to conclusions before talking to your doctor. &amp;quot;You may have symptoms that are common to multiple illnesses, so you have to be careful not to immediately come up with a Web-based answer,&amp;quot; says Dr. Shamoon. Just because you have a headache doesn&amp;#039;t mean you have a brain tumor. Always take the info you&amp;#039;ve dug up to your doctor so he can confirm a certain condition.   4. Be smart about how you approach your doc.Don&amp;#039;t walk into your appointment and declare that you&amp;#039;ve diagnosed yourself; that could put the doctor on the defensive and compromise your care. Instead, recap your symptoms and say something like, &amp;quot;I read about this condition online\u2014do you think that&amp;#039;s what it could be?&amp;quot; Then show him the information you found. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/womens-health/a5327/the-right-way-to-search-for-health-info-online-112248/>