In my case, no. After first being offered diabetes care by my local hospital - I was discovered as a diabetic after a stroke.
I elected to be cared for for the diabetes by my GP/practice nurses and they're great, to the extent that as long as I
go for diabetic appointments when they ask for me, no problems. If for some reason I can't, their very accommodating.

As for understanding patient awareness? Hmm, that's interesting. No problems here. But I'm net-aware. And we have
a local library. (hey! there is a life outside google/msn/ask/yahoo) Way I see it is that if you have to take an active part
in your healthcare, you have to quote a reference.

Have I "Have there been any situations where you wished you better understood the reasons why particular healthcare decisions were being made?"

No. But I do understand that the health care professionals have a limited - ten mins. or less - to explain anything.

I suspect that online people are much more forward in asking questions about things they don't understand. I'd go as far as to say that when you have to make a query online, you are dealing with people who are care-aware anyway. If you want a more representative view, I suspect you will have to
to a more 'gum-shoe approach' and visit surgeries with a clipboard :)

Can anyone give examples of when they have questioned a decision made by their GP? or felt they should have at least asked why?

Our doctor has recently changed his surgery times. We only found out when we went down for repeat prescriptions. Out side appointments for necessary regular checks and a review of our medication we try not to go down unless we are ill. Everyone we know who has the same doctor has named him Secret Squirrell, information of any kind is not very forthcomming...

It's a worthy cause - tho' I don't use that one.

I kinda hoped Snowy (I love snow myself) would follow up with a more detailed explanation about how this works, I don't know Snowy but......

Imagine, if you will, that you had absolutely massive amounts of data that needed working through.

Guess it's not immediately obvious that developing modern drugs, to combat probs - whether it's diabetes, malaria ect, ect.
not just developing the medicines, but analysing the how they interact with the human body down to a molecular level.

It means massive amounts of computing power - money which would be better spent examining the data and acting on the results.
Cheaper research means cheaper medicines. Unfortunately, the computers needed to analyse the data cost millions, and their usage
has to be shared between research projects, which causes delays, and is, again, expensive.

The humble home PC (and playstation 3 and some graphics cards) is now common around the world. As are internet connections.

Millions, in fact.

Many are left unused and on for long periods, and even when in use, use little of their potential computing power while in use.

So a few years ago Seti@home (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) had the brilliant idea that if they sent a little data to
millions of people who were willing to give up the unused power of their computers (this was even before PC' :) )
for as often as they want, lots of little bits of data analysed by thousands, or even millions of computer owners, add up, in effect,
to thousands of computer hours, or a planet wide super computer.

After a few years, as PC's became more common, this grew to include Rosetta - a search for specific disease cures, Folding@home,
which looks for the ways proteins work in the search for cures/medication, and even things like searching for the ultimate
Prime Number or even PI :) It's called 'crunching'

As the years went by, they encouraged people to form into Teams. These are basically forums with people who all do their bit, share
their interests - be it 'crunching', cars, humour, computer advice, hobbies - whatever. And there's friendly competition on who can
do the most work ! God fun

I do Folding@home on my PC's and on a PS3, and Seti@home. Team Phoenix Rising. I don't do Rosetta, but it's a worthwhile cause.....

That's interesting. I was on an anti-inflammatory, - a diuretic - for a while, and it worked well for me. My GP was quite strict about my usage,
and insisted I couldn't take it for more than about three weeks, and it was low dosage - very low dosage. I kinda missed it when I stopped.

I suspect it depends what you call an anti-inflammatory, and why it's being prescribed. If I understand correctly, a diuretic is prescribed
for a collection of fluids in joints, or other limb swellings. So it's what my granny used to call a 'water tablet'. That matches in with stern warning to
"watch that sodium and fluid intake ! " I had

Which is sorta opposite to your explanation - the clue being, that you had to get some kidney saving fluids into you. Logically.

Is it possible that your anti-inflammatory's were antibiotics, or something like, ibuprofen based pain killers? Reason I mention Ibro's
is because my asthmatic friends are warned off them because they need to avoid fluid collection in the lungs, which can be a side
affect of their usage, I'm told. See where I'm going with that? I presume you prob needed painkillers with those hips, so....

I suspect its something like that. Which might explain why you were put on 'water tablets' AND hit the fluids.

I'm not a medic - but from personal experience - have a dig around for foods that keep fluids down and reduce inflammation.

Regards, Dray.