ROCHESTER, Minn., March 28 /PRNewswire/ -- What’s causing your foot pain? Why does your child’s throat hurt? And what should you do about it? Use the MayoClinic.com Symptom Checker to discover the most common causes of the most common symptoms.
A visit to the new Symptom Checker on MayoClinic.com at http://mayoclinic.com/health/symptom-checker/DS00671 helps you be better informed and helps you decide when to see a doctor.
The Symptom Checker details 45 symptoms -- 28 for adults and 17 for children. They include common complaints that affect nearly everyone at some time -- cough, constipation, fever, headache, nausea, neck pain, knee pain, vomiting, dizziness, and joint or muscle pain.
Under each symptom, you can click on supporting details: what seems to trigger the symptom, what relieves it and any other symptoms that accompany it. When you click “submit,” the Symptom Checker lists possible causes ranked in order of the most numerous matching factors.
The Symptom Checker was created in response to how people seek out health information on the Internet.
“We knew that many people who visit MayoClinic.com search for health information starting with very common symptoms,” says Brooks Edwards, M.D., medical editor-in-chief of MayoClinic.com.
However, searching on the Web with key words such as abdominal pain, dizziness or headache -- symptoms common to many disorders -- provides an overwhelming number of matches.
“We think you will find the Symptom Checker a powerful tool to help you sort through a wide variety of symptoms and narrow down the possibilities,” says Dr. Edwards. “The Symptom Checker doesn’t replace seeing a doctor for a diagnosis, but when you see a doctor, you’ll be better informed.”
The Symptom Checker offers many choices to describe a symptom. The more details you provide, the better the match to possible health conditions you’ll receive. For example, if you indicate abdominal pain is dull, triggered by certain foods and stress and relieved by antacids, the Symptom Checker returns irritable bowel syndrome, nonulcer stomach pain and peptic ulcers as the conditions matching the greatest number of factors that you selected.
These possible causes are linked to in-depth features on health conditions that cover causes, symptoms, treatment options and when to seek medical care. There are links to approximately 200 articles.
“The Symptom Checker is just one more way we can bring Mayo Clinic expertise directly to your computer,” says Dr. Edwards. More than a dozen Mayo Clinic physicians helped develop the Symptom Checker and reviewed the medical information.
MayoClinic.com, an award-winning health information site that attracts about 5 million visitors a month, features the Symptom Checker on its home page. Users do not have to register or provide any personal information to use the Symptom Checker.
To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to http://www.mayoclinic.org/news . MayoClinic.com ( http://www.mayoclinic.com ) is available as a resource for your health stories.
Mayo Clinic
CONTACT: Carol Lammers of Mayo Clinic, +1-507-284-5005 (days), or+1-507-284-2511 (evenings), newsbureau@mayo.edu
