if MN deletes all health threads where inappropriate advice given

[inappropriateportioncontrol]

it's going to be pretty sparse around here and on the health board .
It might save time and interest if threads asking for advice on health matters were not allowed.
Just saying .

Health advice has helped me on here I have to say. I'm actually cured of a long standing and very unpleasant problem now. I don't know what the answer is really. At the end of the day it's up to the individual to make the judgement call.

"Let the buyer beware " sort of thing .

Personally I think a lot of misinformation arises because people don't read the OP's posts.never mind the whole thread.

I think you have to credit other adults with the sense to realise that it's their call whether to seek actual medical help or not and everyone else is just offering their own personal opinions.

I agree!

It wouldn't be so bad if people actually bothered to read the OP and any updates.

I'm guessing this has been triggered by the long-running thread about a poster's issue with serious constipation. There were some shocking posts on that thread before it was finally deleted. (Not because of trolling, but because of the bad advice being given)

It's so arrogant of people to assume that they don't need to bother to read the whole thread, apart from anything else.

I'm not sure about this. I would say that if the NHS deleted all doctors who gave inappropriate health advice, they would be pretty sparse too.

What you have to remember is we are a diverse bunch on Mumsnet, different ages, different backgrounds, different experiences etc etc. Who is to say what is inappropriate? Its just advice for the person to weigh up and decide what to do.

TAAT?

Op I've been on here for over a decade.

I'm educated and know that the Internet is people chatting and not medical trained and I also realise that people who say they are, may not be.

That said in the decade plus I've been on here I've benifited from invaluable advice from the hive mind on urgent and non urgent conditions.

For myself and my dh and mum dc.

We are in a county with patchy NHS care and i consider mn to be invaluable on medical feedback and I know many people have actually sought help when they were there going to have their lives saved.

We are educated people and we do not need mumsnet to police us in this way... Thank you.

They just need to start pinning important updates to the top of the thread to stop people commenting about prunes when someone is in a&e with a twisted bowel or whatever.

I have found the health topic really useful - when the GP dismissed my breast cancer symptoms I saw a thread on here with someone who had the same and same issues and eventually got through and cancer that required surgery, chemo and radio. It made me go back and I also had cancer that required surgery, chemo and radio. It had spread to the lymph node.

Also the cancer support threads are great for people going through cancer. Some of the advice on here is just giving random ideas but everyone here is an adult who can take or leave advice. And some is subjective, like HRT is given as the answer to everything for women 40 plus on here with no regard to the cancer risk, luckily I ignored that.

Is that what they’re planning to do. How will MN know if it’s inappropriate advice…..I guess some stuff might be obvious but other stuff might not be obvious and I don’t think mnhq employ medics?

@Penguinsa

I've seen so many threads like yours where someone has some nugget of invaluable advise like this..

And I also through the general health thread had very kind people message me all throughout my years cancer treatment to check how I was.

@CormorantStrikesBack if someone' wants medical shut down they would also have to close down any advice... People commenting on the legality of fence owners and painting.
All legal stuff ( again which I've benefited from enormously), all gardening advice!
Advise on money and investment, after all chatting on line are not necessarily professionals in it!

Oh yes the childbirth board, people comments on whether an elc is better than a vb are just people...

Yes Imthink so, I started a thread earlier and have asked mnhq why the constipation thread was suddenly deleted

I am assuming this is the poo post and yes, I agree I don’t think it should have been deleted. If the OP asked for it to be deleted then fair enough but asking for advice is what MN is about. That’s from naming your kid to cancer. If you start deleting one, you need to delete them all, particularly bullying ones of which there are multiple.

That said, it infuriates me when posters don’t read the OPs posts before they comment. In that particular post, the OP had been to hospital and back but people were still telling her to take dulcolax.

I was really disappointed with the closure of the latest health thread. I didn't see any particularly inappropriate advice, but in any respect the OP had sought GP, hospital treatment and had another GP appt tomorrow. In this particular case, even if she had received inappropriate advice, then I have a feeling that she would have rightly ignored it. I'm presuming that no one advocated her doing anything daft such as sticking a knitting needle up her backside, although I did come close to suggesting a long handled shoehorn.

She was given some very bad advice

I'm still curious as to why MNHQ deleted the thread, rather than adding a warning to the title / first post* like they have in the past.

*To advise posters to read all the OPs posts as the thread has moved on since the first post.

Yes! They can edit. Like they did with this post.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/childrens_health/4983385-gp-wont-see-4yo-for-2-weeks?page=23&reply=132484775

@dailyduel Yep just like that. Going straight for the delete option seemed a bit dramatic when they could have just added a warning to read all posts.

There was terrible advice yes, but it was surely obvious which posts to ignore.

I don’t know if the OP asked for it to be deleted, but if not surely it was a valuable source of support for her?

Baby and bathwater comes to mind.

I like to post about health issues. I know it’s no substitute for seeing a doctor, I’m not stupid. But sometimes the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong and someone on here has a suggestion that I can follow up. It’s also helpful if you’re someone who gets anxious, you can say I’m worried about this and someone will talk you down. Just a couple of days ago a lady posted about feeling sick and I pointed out that nausea can be a side effect of the medication she was on, which she wasn’t aware of. So I think it’s a useful forum and should remain. It already has a disclaimer on it.

Not obvious to everyone though, desperate people often try anything.