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You probably know that Googling your symptoms can keep you awake for hours as you click through horror stories of rare cases that vaguely mirror your symptoms. In most cases, it’s best to go see your doctor if you suspect that you’re sick or have a health condition. But when you want a second opinion, you can first turn to these authoritative websites that give you the straight facts, without scaring you.

Symptoms and Conditions

If you’re not feeling your best, head to these informative websites to learn about your symptoms and begin your own research.

1. WebMD Symptom Checker: WebMD is a popular, trusted resource that separates symptoms by sex and age group (adult vs child) for more specialized results. The tool also helps you figure out what questions you should ask your doctor.
2. NHS Health Conditions and treatments: The official NHS website features an interactive tool to help you pinpoint your symptoms and treatment options.
3. Healthline Symptom Search: Healthline is a medical search engine and database that lets you browse the top 50 symptoms or type in your own symptoms.
4. Medline Plus Health Topics: Look up health topics, symptoms and conditions by the first letter, body location, or diagnosis and therapy on this government site.
5. FamilyDoctor.org: View symptoms and conditions grouped alphabetically, or search health topics by category like women, men, seniors, and more.
6. NOAH: The New York Online Access to Health features an English and Spanish-language database of health topics and conditions.
7. KidsHealth.org: This website provides parents a place to look up emotional disorders, infections, and other medical problems. There are pages for teens and kids, too.
8. Mayo Clinic: The distinguished Mayo Clinic has a great website for checking symptoms and learning about all sorts of health conditions, diseases, drugs and more.
9. WrongDiagnosis.com: This independent health information website features several different symptom checkers, including a virtual doctor’s visit scenario, a search engine, message board, popular symptoms chart, interactive body model, and others.
10. Medicine.net: Here you can find causes, a search engine, a body model, alphabetical search function and more.

Q&A

Talk with doctors and medical professionals online, as well as others who suffer from the same symptoms as you, to give you a head start on looking for medical care.

1. MEDgle: The site lets you chat with e-nurse kim or search symptoms and conditions in a virtual, visual chart.
2. Doctors Lounge: Select a message board by category or by moderating team, like Primary Care Team, Cardiology Team or Pediatrics Team.
3. Healthcare Magic: On this site, you can chat live with a doctor, including super-specialists in areas like oncology, hematology, cosmetic surgery and more.
4. MedHelp “Ask a Doctor” Forums: This site’s motto is “finding cures together,” and visitors can jump into chats with other patients or with doctors.
5. Wellsphere Wellpages: Type in or browse a keyword like pregnancy to get discussions, expert opinions, answers and resources.
6. OBGYN.net Forums: On these forums, patients and medical professionals discuss topics like pregnancy, breast health and more.
7. Quality Health: Quality Health has lots of helpful tools, including the “Ask Your Doctor” option, which helps patients prepare for doctor’s appointments ahead of time.
8. HealthCentral.com: Listen to radio shows and get advice directly from doctors on this site.

Finding a Second Opinion

If you want a second opinion, you can use these tools to find quality health care providers in your area.

1. AMA DoctorFinder: The American Medical Association offers this tool for finding doctors.
2. RateMDs.com: When looking for a second opinion, it’s important to find doctors who are well-reviewed by other patients.

Drugs and Treatments

Learn about drug side effects, alternative treatment options and more from these tools and websites.

1. Cancer.gov: The National Cancer Institute is a quality resource that lists cancer terms, a list of cancers, and an extensive drug dictionary.
2. HIVInSite: The Treatment page from the University of San Francisco’s HIVInSite connects visitors to hundreds of articles and guidelines for researching and choosing drugs for HIV patients.
3. Revolution Health: The drugs and treatments page on Revolution Health explains prescription drugs, over-the-counter meds, alternative treatments, and more.
4. Drugs.com: On Drugs.com, you’ll find all sorts of tools and databases to look up drug information, identify pills, and predict drug interactions.
5. RxList: Look up drug information, search conditions, and use the dictionary to learn more about your medications.
6. eMedicine: This medical information tool includes resources for learning about different specialties, different types of surgery, and more.
7. RxMed: Here you can look up prescription drug information for over 3,000 drugs plus resources for herbal and dietary supplements.
8. RightHealth: Discover treatment options and drug information for conditions like carpal tunnel, Alzheimer’s and more.
9. PDRhealth: The Physicians’ Desktop Reference has a great database of prescription, over-the-counter and herbal drugs.
10. FDA: Get official information and reports about drugs and treatments from the FDA’s website.

Evaluations and Screenings

Evaluate your risk of developing certain conditions and learn what kinds of check-ups and screenings you should be getting.

1. RealAge: The RealAge test is free and can help you learn how to take better care of yourself.
2. Health screening guidelines: This tool will tell you what you should be getting screened for.
3. Ergonomic Self-Evaluation Tool: Identify symptoms that may point to carpal tunnel, and learn how to work according to the right ergonomic standards.
4. WomensHealth.gov Health Screening Tool: Learn when and if you need screenings for diabetes, reproductive health, mental health and more.
5. Heart Attack – Coronary Heart Disease – Metabolic Syndrome Risk Assessment: AmericanHeart.org provides this tool for assessing your risk of heart problems.
6. 10 Symptoms not to ignore: If you have one of these symptoms but your doctor says there’s nothing to worry about, you might want to get a second opinion.

Everyday Tools

These everyday tools help you lose weight, track blood sugar levels, learn how to live longer, and more.

1. Everyday Health: This site has tools for counting calories, finding doctors, looking up symptoms, planning meals, tracking glucose levels, and more.
2. HHS Prevention: Learn about health screenings, exercise and vaccinations from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
3. Yahoo! Health Longevity: This site is full of resources and expert’s secrets for living well into old age.
4. Prevention Health Trackers: Prevention.com’s collection of health trackers are for recording your foods, mood, weight, exercise goals and more.
5. Health.com: Find diet tools and healthy living guides to help you beat hidden aggravators, pinpoint your symptoms, read up on medication, and more.
6. Men’s Health: The tools on the Men’s Health website include tip sheets, Q&As and more resources regarding sexual health, skin cancer, healthy eating, and more.

Health News and Research

Stay on top of the latest health studies and medical news from these sites and tools.

1. CDC: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has information, FAQs, news, symptom checkers and more resources to explain public health and safety concerns.
2. ClinicalTrials.gov: The National Institutes of Health supports this site for visitors to search for clinical trials and learn about new studies.
3. HHS.gov Newsroom: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Newsroom features press releases about the health care industry and news coming out of other government offices like the FDA.
4. MDLinx: This medical research resource is for medical professionals and patients. Browse subjects like neurology, cardiology, dentistry or urology.
5. National Institutes of Health: The main page for the NIH is a great resource for finding medical news, health issues, symptoms, research studies and more.
6. Online Nurse Practitioner Schools: Read regularly added feature articles that highlight the latest news and resources in the health care industry, medical research and global health issues.
7. Healthfinder.gov: This terrific website features health tools, a health care finder guide, and lots of news about the latest medical developments and treatments.
8. MerckSource: Look up news, treatment options and reports for specific conditions, or just browse the day’s top news relating to drug recalls, cancer news, and more.