The internet gives us access to a lot of information, and the instinct is to go and look for details on your medication, on your symptoms, on anything you can get. Its all right there waiting for you. Does that mean that you should go search it out, however? Or that it is all correct? What is important is finding legitimate sources for information, and knowing what to do with it. The first site for you to look at is http://www.crazymeds.org. It is a great site for examining medication. The person who maintains the site has experience with various psychiatric drugs, and he, along with other users, post their own experiences with almost any medication available. That said, most of the information on the site is anecdotal. You will read about side effects that people experienced, and how it helped or hindered them. You may not have the same results. Yahoo!Health and WebMD should be another place for you to look. Both web sites have spent time developing information to educate on health. However, because neither site focuses solely on mental health, you may have to comb through other areas to find everything that you are looking for. Beyond those three sites, there are many other websites out there that will give you information. However, knowing which sites are reliable and can be trusted might be difficult to tell. How do you tell which sites should you rely on? Generally, sites that are hosted by professors or departments at universities are sites that you should rely on. These are sites that are verifiable as legitimate. A site that simply has its own domain name does not make it an authority. But no matter what, make sure you bring anything from these sites to your doctor or therapist before acting on the advice. |
