The World Wide Web is now the world’s largest library. You can look up anything on the internet. For a lay person looking for medical information, however, it can be hard to know where you can get quality and trustworthy information. Here are some of the best back pain resource sites on the internet:
- The National Institutes of Health, or NIH, is a government run research institution that is among the most prestigious in the world. The NIH is set up as several smaller institutes and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases is the one that is involved in back pain research.
http://www.niams.nih.gov/Health_Info/Back_Pain/back_pain_ff.asp - The NIH also runs clinicaltrials.gov. This is a website where you can search for research studies involving back pain that are recruiting patients like you.
- The North American Spine Society, or NASS, is a highly respected global medical society consisting of physicians, surgeons, chiropractors and therapists who treat spinal disorders. NASS recently created a website geared specifically towards patients, called knowyourback.org.
- spineuniverse.com is a commercial site that sells advertising space, mainly to medical institutions and doctors. However, there is a wide array of educational content and the content is always reviewed by other providers to prevent bias or skewed information.
- spine-health.com is another commercial site. A wide variety of useful and educational material is available on this site as well.
- If you are cutting calories to maintain weight or lose weight after a back injury, caloriescount.com is a good resource for looking up the foods you eat and cook with. www.myfitnesspal.com is a site where you can set weight loss and exercise goals, receive information on what your calorie and nutritional consumption should be and log your progress. Both these sites use the calorie reduction method of weight loss and not fad diets.
