ASK DOCTOR VALDIVIA

On this page, Doctor Valdivia answers your questions about glaucoma, eye health, and about your health in general.

I was confused. I had conflicting information and did not know how to sort it out. Fortunately, I was able to obtain reliable advice and I wound up replacing the small part. My air conditioner is working fine!

DOCTOR VALDIVIA CAN HELP

This experience and others like it have helped me to better understand my patients and their needs. They often struggle with similar confusions and frustrations when making health decisions. Below are just a few examples.

• You want an expert opinion on health questions that you have, but don't know who to ask.
• You are shy about asking certain health questions.
• You are not sure if you need to see a doctor.
• You need help making sense of your symptoms.
• You need help formulating health questions to ask your doctor.
• You want to better understand your diagnosis.
• You have health questions that did not occur to you when you were in the doctor's office.
• You want to better understand your doctor's advice.
• You need someone to listen to things that you are worried about.

In short, you have concerns and questions, but you are not sure who to ask or who you can trust.

I started glaucoma-eye-info.com to fill these gaps and to serve as a central location for reliable information about glaucoma and eye health. But I cannot cover everything on a website. This is where Ask Doctor Valdivia comes in. Here, you can ask health questions and receive confidential responses from me.

WAYS THAT DOCTOR VALDIVIA CAN HELP

It is important that you understand that asking me a health question through the Ask Doctor Valdivia forum is not the same as seeking medical advice. I can provide you with insight and information about glaucoma and other health problems that potentially might help you in your own decision-making process. However, you need to visit your local physician for medical advice. Only she or he can place your observations about your health within the context of clinical examinations and tests to arrive at a responsible and ethical diagnosis.

Asking me a health question also is not the same as seeking a medical second opinion to confirm a diagnosis. For a medical second opinion you need to visit another physician. She or he will obtain a new patient history from you and perform their own clinical exams and tests, some of which overlap with those that your regular physician performed and some which may be new. I cannot do that here. However I can help you with information and insight that will help you to formulate questions to ask your doctor and to decide if a medical second opinion is warranted.

I do not charge for the Ask Doctor Valdivia service. However, I do hope that you will decide to pay it forward by checking the box on the form that authorizes me to use your question for educational purposes on this website. This does not mean that I will post all questions sent to me on this website. In fact, I can guarantee that I will not. I will only use those questions that I believe will be of interest to other visitors of glaucoma-eye-info.com or that help me to illustrate a specific point that I am making.

You can write to me with the confidence that your email address will remain confidential. I do not provide or sell e-mail addresses to bulk mailers (spam). I never will. Protecting your privacy is important to me. For this reason, I also will not include your name or other identifying information if I choose to use your question to help explain an issue on glaucoma-eye-info.com.

HOW TO ASK DOCTOR VALDIVIA A QUESTION

I try to answer most questions that are sent to me. However, this does not mean that I will answer them immediately. Be patient. I have my regular medical practice and I receive many questions here. I do not answer repetitive questions - in other words, questions that another reader already has asked and I have posted my response on glaucoma-eye-info.com.

There are 3 categories of posted questions on glaucoma-eye-info.com

• Answer My Health Question
• Other Eye Problems
• Medical Conditions Explained

Please check to see if your question already has been answered before writing to me. Sometimes reading a question and my response to it still does not address all of your specific concerns. It is then appropriate to write to me for further advice.

Simply fill in the short form below and my response will be sent to the e-mail address that you provide. Make sure that you check to ensure that you have written it correctly before sending your question.

If you have difficulty writing in English, I suggest that you write your question in your native language, then use Google Translate to convert your text into English, and paste it into the box below.

If you are going to tell me about medications that you are taking, please give me its generic or chemical compound name. Commercial names for medications change depending on the part of the world and, in some cases, the country where you live. I might not recognize them under the brand name that you are using. However, a medicine's chemical compound name always is the same. For example, the pain medicine Tylenol is a commercial name, whereas acetaminophen is its chemical compound name. Both will appear on the bottle.

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