Only the Internet . . .
If you experience has been limited to the minimal waiting room interchange between patients, or even if you have attended an AWAKE meeting as well, you may be amazed at the amount of discussion going on between sleep patients over the Internet. The problem here lies not in lack of access to conversation, but how to sort through the immense amount of talk to find what you want!
Availability of Experts
Have you ever obtained a second medical opinion? If so, you know how complex a process that can be: finding someone, making an appointment, arranging for transmittal of records, awaiting your meeting with the doctor, then afterwards awaiting a report to your first doctor. But that's not the only problem. How do you know that a second doctor to whom you might get referred by your own first doctor really offers an independent viewpoint, rather than just support for his colleague? Then, of course, there is the matter of payment.
On the Internet, you will find many experts volunteering to answer questions for free, at sites like AllExperts.com at http://www.allexperts.com. Sometimes, these experts will provide more of an explanation than you would get from a doctor you pay to see! You can, without embarrassment, obtain third, fourth, fifth, etc., opinions to weigh against each other. At the least, you will have some preparation for your face-to-face encounter with a consultant, some basis for assessing whether he knows what he's talking about--and even some basis for questioning him if his opinion differs from others you have obtained! Furthermore, the feedback you get from on-line experts often takes only a matter of hours, at most a few days; you don't have to wait weeks for an appointment!
Too good to be true? Faced with such a blessing, you should always ask: What's the catch?
The drawback to this kind of consultation is two-fold: one, you can't get a face-to-face interaction with the experts, nor can you usually get more than one or two follow-up questions and answers; two, you can't expect the volunteer expert to review your records before giving an opinion. These factors definitely limit the scape of on-line consultation, and limit its weight compared to that of a consultant who sees both you and your records.
This limitation applies much less to the on-line process sometimes called "TeleMedicine" in which doctors actually do evaluate and treat patients through electronic communication. However, this kind of treatment
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