Chatrooms provide invaluable support for people with a wide range of illnesses

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_http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2894007.ece_

(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2894007.ece)

From The Times

November 19, 2007

Online, you needn’t suffer alone

Chatrooms provide invaluable support for people with a wide range of

illnesses

Barbara Lantin

But as well as offering practical and emotional support, these forums have

developed into an empowering tool for patients. In some cases they can also

affect the prescribing habits of doctors, inform research and bring top-level

medical expertise together. They have become more than online confessionals:

exchanges and tips on symptoms, treatments and side-effects fill their pages.

.....For those with a rare condition, sharing information can make a real

difference. Certain unusual types of asthma caused by the aspergillus fungus

used to be routinely treated with steroids until word got out through exchanges

on the message board that the normal steroid dose could be reduced if

antifungals were administered.

“Now everybody uses antifungals,†says Dr Graham Atherton, who administers

the Aspergillus Trust website. “Information is filtering through much more

rapidly than it used to, which probably influences the way that doctors

prescribe.†....

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