Med Help - what gives?

[friole]

I see that you now have the "Hepatitis Form" set up like this one. The other format was SO MUCH BETTER -- I cannot even tell you.  I realize you have advertisers and need space on the left of that, but there wer advertisers on the old format too.  So what you have on both forums is advertising to the left at the top, and blank space at the left down the page after the advertising.

Meanshile we have to scroll over to see who posted. Why?  Can't you reduce the space for the topic and move the posters' names over.

Then when we click on a topic, we have to scroll over again to read it.  It is inconvenient and seeminly, unnecessary.

Now - I can't log in in the Hepatitis Forum -- I can read, but not post.  I have been a member since May 05 and know my password.  Others have had to get a new forum name to post in here.  I did not, but now can't get in the old one with the forum name and ID I have had for almost 2 years.

Also, there is a link from this forum to the other, but I don't see any link from that forum to this.  If you want us to use this forum, you must let us link back and forth easily.

You could see more than 100 topics on the old forum set up and that was very helpful.  To only see 10-20 posts is very limiting and I think a lot of folks won't get many answers to the questions -- and they need answers.

Phil and Cindy, this forum for hepatitis C has been the best one available on the net and the convenience of use is one of the main draws.  Please help us keep it that way.

friole

[sfbaygirl]

Congrats!!!!! YOu were NOT CLEAR at 24 weeks? Could you please post your stats and tx regimen for those of us who can't remember and those that are new? What a great story!!! Give us inspiration to us all.....No pressure here, of course! LOL I am soooooooo happy for your good news!!

Linda

[friole]

Way to go.  I think it is especially important for those to see that you have cleared and were NOT clear at 24 weeks.

Congrats to a happily ever after
frijole

[beamishboy]

Yesss! we are indeed..hope you resolve extending issues..i believe rule of thumb is 36 weeks after UD...but extending and or tx length is not really an exact science in that multiples of 4,8 are necessarily absolutes...do what you&yr doc agree is appropriate & GOODLUCK..i really do think you are a very "Special Patient"....ina good way-still cooling off with the remote? dang my memory is actually returning!!!!!!!

[aquarius64]

i do not like this! and yes, i am one also that does not like change. this just seems so impersonal and cold. i don't even feel like i'm in the same forums. i agree with whoever said something about blowing up their monitor. it just feels plain wrong. HELP!!!!

[ladybug52]

That's wonderful news about your 6 month PCR. I hope others will see it because it gives encouragement that the odds can be beat! I get so used to believing in the stats and other data that I don't know if I could have/would have kept txing past 24 if it were me. Thank goodness I only treat 24 weeks total (I hope) because I've really bought into the whole predicting the outcome before it's over. Good for you!

[avidreader]

Change is hard, but probably good for all of us. I'm supportive of the split to two forums--which one I visit depends on my mood. We should consider ourselves very special--we are the only forum to have been split. I think it says a lot about the high activity and level of involvment on this forum as opposed to some others. I would like to see MedHelp make it easier for us to click back and forth between forums. It's going to take us a while to figure out where to post what, and new posters will always be coming along who will need to learn where to post. It's really a pain in the a$$ to go back and forth right now. But all in all, thanks to Cindy and Phil and all the folks at MedHelp for working so hard at keeping these forums viable and doing the technological updates that we all love to hate but can't live without. If we don't change we atrophy and at the ripe young age of 55 I'm not quite ready for that yet. Especially now that my doctor told me at my 6 month post treatment appointment that that I'm 'cured' and that whatever I die of, it won't be liver disease! (not bad for a 1-b who was NOT clear at 24 weeks--just remember folks who are still treating--there is a reason they call them odds!)

[Tater-ToT]

Well here's one I haven't noticed too much complaining about.... Soooo, maybe it's just me... but does anyone else have Dificulty READING the forums now???

It's almost like the font needs to be 1 size larger, & darker.... BOLD or something... I mean I know I should be wearing my glasses, but I didn't use to have to put them on to read the forums.... It's seriously a strain!

Whaaaaaa, Whaaaaa.... Okay, so now I've done my share of whinning too...LoL
;)

[sfbaygirl]

Yes, you are speaking of the Durazo study-36 beyond UND. There are more recent ones that suggest this isn't as good as if not clear at 12, then 72 weeks more...I know I was clear at 20 weeks, so using Durazo, that would be 56 weeks, perhaps why Dr. #2 says 60 week extention. God, I wish I could go back and find out if I was clear at 10 weeks or not! But I can't. There is a possibility, but do I take that chance?

You are such a sweetie, I think you are a very special patient too!!!

[sfbaygirl]

I think we are all "special patients" here! Don't you agree? Sounds like we all have different stuff going on reading the boards. Sometimes I get this huge blank space and sometimes not. It's like an alien world, or maybe we are on tx and don't know what's going on? If I wasn't on tx, I would REALLY think things were much stanger. LOL

[ladybug52]

OK it's fixed. I'm in. Nothing to say.

[ladybug52]

I can only read Friole's question, can't see any of the other comments. Fraid I'm missing something.

[sunspot]

Thanks for the link to this forum. I saw your post from the other side.
Jim, I don't have Firefox at work, just old IE but I bookmarked this forum.

[sfbaygirl]

On my new MacBook I see contrasting colors between threads. I believe on my 17' powerbook, I do as well and don't have the huge white space.

[jmjm530]

In the meantime, why don't you just create two "tabs" using Firefox -- one for each forum. They will appear just under the address window of your browser and all you will have to do to switch between forums is click on one or the other. Won't even have to scroll up to get to the tabs. Just go to "bookmarks", then 'bookmark this page', then create in 'bookmarks toolbar'. That should do it.

Question -- on the page where you see all the different threads, do you have contrasting colors separating each thread or is the background all white? I have contrasting colors on one computer and all white on the other. The contrasting colors make it easy to read.

Be well,

-- Jim

[sfbaygirl]

I took a bunch of screen shots for you and can't find them on my computer! They used to appear in the main hard drive, but I want to show you that big white blank space to appear intermittenly on my new MacBook with Tiger and using firefox. Can you PLEASE put a link so we can go between forums, this is the biggest problem I am having besides scrolling down. I don't have a problem with the right, although I am a lefty..LOL. Thanks!

Linda

[jmjm530]

Figured out the logout issue. You have to go to the main medhelp page to log out, can't log out within the Hepatitis Forums.  Maybe it was that way all along don't remember.

[jmjm530]

I should add that before the upgrade, I had the contrasting shades of pink on both computers, regardless of which browser I was using.

-- Jim

[jmjm530]

On one of my computers, the threads are separated by two contrasting shades of pink. This makes it very easy to differentiate on the main page where the posts of one thread end and the other begin. However, on my main computer, there are no contrasting pink backgrounds, the background is just white and as Beamish says, it's very difficult to distinguish where one thread starts and ends. I'm running Firefox version 2.0.0.1 on both computers so at first glance it doesn't appear to be a browser issue. However, if I use Explorer on the computer with the all-white background, it then turns to contrasting shades of pink. Lastly, I tried to log out and then log back in to see if this would fix the problem. For some reason I was unable to log out. Hopefully some new software bugs that can be fixed.

-- Jim

[compulsive]

I am dizzy.  Maybe if the Ads were on the RIGHT HAND side it would help - then at least I would not have to scroll to see the threads and posts.

[beamishboy]

the delineation of comments posted from one subject to the next is confusing..maybe a line separating threads?..i find this format less precise regarding who posted what,where&when...spacing? this upgrade doesn't .............also,when i am returned to top,i have to scroll down to see 1st thread-why return above comments?

[beamishboy]

i prefer the old 'school' colors.....much easier on the eyes and warmer,more welcoming.....but i do not welcome change ,generally. thank you for considering our imput..

[revenire____]

Thank God I am not on treatment right now because I'd probably have shot my monitor like Elvis did with TVs.  

I don't like this and I am not someone who doesn't like change.

Oh, well ... I suppose we will all have to deal with it and my whining will stop soon.

[SnoWav]

if you are running windows at the top under view change your view text size to medium.later

[jmjm530]

Thanks for the feedback. As others have noted, during the transition, I'm sure there will some natural confusion of what belongs where, especially in regard to the support issues that overlap the more technical issues.  For example, does the question "I'm having skin problems on treatment, what do I do?" belong in the main forum or the Community Forum? Or how about "Hemoglobin falling, I feel terrible"? Both are support issues but also relate to medical conditions that have technical aspects such as Procrit being a remedy for low hemoglobin. I *think* I know the answers, but frankly not 100 per cent sure.

Also, maybe in the interim period, you could gently move threads that don't belong in one forum to the other but leave "markers" in place to note that they have been moved and why. This would help a lot of us to understand more fully what goes where and at the same time threads would not get lost. Just a temporary thing if not much of a problem. Thanks for being open to suggestions as you previously stated.

-- Jim