Autism and Diagnosis – How long did it take you or a loved one to be diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum?

How long did it take you to be diagnosed with autism?

How long did it take you to be diagnosed with autism?

As many of you may know by now we are running a series of polls looking at our readers experiences of being diagnosed with autism. Or a loved one going through an ASD diagnosis.

You might be interest in one of the previous poll on the type of autism you were diagnosed with?

In this poll we would like to find out “How long did it take you or a loved one to be diagnosed on the autism spectrum?”.

It would be great if you could take the poll below. Also is you could share why it took the time it did in the comments section below that would be great!

Many thanks in advance.

What is your main social media platform for health, fitness and medical information? Please take our poll

What is your main social media platform for health, fitness and medical information?

Healthcare and Social Media

Healthcare and Social Media

A few years back now we ran a short poll about the types of social media people use for health information.

Since then both the healthcare landscape and the social media world have change vastly.

So we thought it might be interesting to revisit the whole area of social media platforms and medicine with a new poll. Hopefully we will be able to identify some of the new ways that people are using the internet. Hopefully this will allow us to communicate better with our readers and the larger health community.

One final thing if you use a platform not mentioned in the poll below please do tell us which one in the comments section below. It would be great if you could share a link as well.

Many thanks in advance for your help!


Are you satisfied with the quality of your healthcare provision? Take part in our research.


At the doctor's office - doctor and patient

At the doctor’s office – doctor and patient

As some of our regular readers will know we are running some rolling research into global perceptions on healthcare provision. This is being done by using a series of online polls ( as opposed to surveys) of which this is the second one.

Our overall objective is to find out how users of healthcare think healthcare can be improved.

So what will we do with this research? Well apart from giving you a voice we plan to put together a report which gives the suggestions of our readers as to how best to reform global healthcare.

Which means that anything you wish to share both in the polls but also in the comments section will be very useful to us.

I have to say the results of the first poll were eye-opening. We asked our readers if they thought that that the Doctors acted as they they were lying to them. You can check out the startling and shocking results here.

Thanks very much in advance for your help with the research!


How often, if at all , do you use Facebook for health related or medical information and discussion?


Facebook for healthcare?

Facebook for healthcare?

As many of you will have picked up by now I am very interested in the whole area of social media and healthcare.

Obviously as somebody who runs a healthcare blog I axiomatically believe it to be a “game changer” as our American cousins put it.

But I’ve been wrong before , it will shock you to find, and I will be wrong again!

So to help we find out how we now use social media I am running a series of polls on the subject of which this is the first.

Today I’d like to explore the question “How often, if at all , do you use Facebook for health related or medical information and discussion?”

I’ve set up a poll below and it would be great if you could take part.




I’m also very interested in your views on privacy on Facebook. In particular on how this could/does impact upon your healthcare discussions on the site itself. It would be great if you could share your thoughts on this matter in the comments section below.

Thanks very much for your help on this matter.

Have you ever felt guilt or have been made to feel guilty because of a medical condition?

Guilt and Health

Guilt and Health

As some of you may know; my late maternal grandmother suffered from Rheumatoid Arthritis for most of her life.

As well as causing her chronic pain she also felt guilt because of her arthritis. Not just because of the problems which her living with RA caused her family and friends. But also, and to an extent I’m reading between the lines here, he seemed to feel guilt just for having the condition. It was almost is she felt that having RA was her own “fault”. That it was some kind of failing on her part.

I found myself thinking about this while reading an article about guilt in a totally different context. Now given that my grandmother lived through two wars this could explain her feelings of guilt. So I felt I wanted to put this out to my readers.

Firstly I would be very interested to hear your views in a poll I have set up below. Second it would be great if you could share your stories in more detail in the comments section below.

Many thanks in advance.