“I was diagnosed with lupus (SLE) at age 20 and had already lost about 60% of my kidney function. I had chemotherapy for nine months along with intense steroid therapy. I thankfully went into remission and have been since four months after my diagnosis. I still struggle with fatigue and kidney problems although I was transplanted in 2004. I will need another transplant most likely within the next year or two.”

- Lupus patient, age 30

May is Lupus Awareness Month, and today, May 10, is World Lupus Day.

Since PatientsLikeMe began welcoming all patients last month, we have quickly become home to more than 100 members with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the most common form of this chronic autoimmune disorder that can affect any organ system in the body, including the heart, kidneys, lungs, joints and skin.

Here are some quick facts about SLE gleaned from our new members.

What is the gender breakdown?

• 96% of our new SLE members are female, and 4% are male, which fits with research showing a much greater prevalence of the disease in women.

What are the top treatments?

• The most widely used prescription drugs reported by our SLE patients include Prednisone, Hydroxychloroquine, Mycophenolate, Tacrolimus (Prograf) and Pregabalin (Lyrica).
• The top supplement reported by our SLE patients is folic acid, while chiropractic is the number one physical therapy cited.

What are the major symptoms?

• The five most common primary symptoms reported by our SLE patients include Anxious Mood, Butterfly (Malar) Rash, Depressed Mood, Fatigue and Insomnia.

What can you do to increase awareness about lupus?   One very visible sign of support is wearing a wristband.  At the Lupus Foundation of America, the theme for this year’s awareness month is “Band Together for Lupus,” complete with accompanying purple wristbands.  You can also send an awareness e-card and download a flyer and logo for World Lupus Day, which you can then post on Facebook or other social media sites.

Finally, you can click here to sign the World Lupus Day pledge and watch a video featuring spokesperson Julian Lennon, the son of John Lennon.  He explains how the Beatles’ famous song “Lucy in the Sky” was written about his childhood friend Lucy, who passed away from lupus.

“We’re just getting started on a long road to really impact your individual disease and your quality of life…”

Each week this month, we’ll be posting a video interview with a member of the PatientsLikeMe executive team.  You’ll hear from Ben Heywood, Jamie Heywood, David S. Williams and Paul Wicks, Ph.D. about what the recent changes to PatientsLikeMe mean for patients, research, industry and the entire medical establishment.

Today, listen in to hear what Ben has to say about why we’re on this “road,” what has been improved with the recent upgrades and how sharing your own health journey moves us forward.  You can also see last week’s video teaser here.

With more than 82,000 patients on PatientsLikeMe, there’s a lot of information being shared with one another.  Last month, we highlighted how your sharing affects the experience of many on our site (One For All series).

Today, we continue that theme by taking a look at information being shared across all of our communities that many of you may have in common. Can you guess how many of you are on similar treatments or experiencing similar symptoms even though you are in different communities? Read on to find out.

DID YOU KNOW…

• Of the members who have reported their age, more than 8,000 of our of you have indicated you’re under 30-years old and more than 12,000 are 55-years old or older.
• Approximately 31% (or 27,013) of patient members across all communities experience depression.

How are you treating your condition?

• You report using more than 4,500 treatments for your conditions, including prescription drugs, supplements, over-the-counter medications, medical devices, life-style modifications, therapies, etc.
• One of the top lifestyle modifications reported by our members is heat avoidance; and physical exercise is the #1 exercise cited.
• The most widely used prescription drugs reported across communities include Gabapentin (Neurontin), Glatiramer acetate (Copaxone) and Duloxetine (Cymbalta).
• The top 3 supplements reported by all patients are Vitamin D, Omega 3 Fish Oil and Multivitamins.

What are your major symptoms?

• The 5 most common primary symptoms reported include fatigue, anxious mood, depressed mood, pain and brain fog.

What are you talking about?

• Some of most frequently “tagged” topics in the forum include research, symptoms (e.g., pain), SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance), coping strategies and side effects.

A special thank you to all of our members for continuing to share your data and experiences to help others just like you.

Thanks everyone for a great 2010.  As we kick off the New Year, PatientsLikeMe would like to take a quick look back at the road we’ve traveled together this year.  We think of all these improvements as laying the groundwork for even more exciting changes to come in 2011.

At the start of 2010, we set out to tackle two very important goals that could help you, our members, get the best possible experience out of PatientsLikeMe:  1) unify the way we collect medical information and 2) give more information back to you so you can see how you fit in and compare your experiences with others.  Kate Brigham recently talked about some of the improvements we’ve made on the second goal in her Share and Compare post, but I’d like to share a bit more about the first goal.

Our communities have a lot in common despite their different conditions and health concerns.  As Tommy Maker said in a recent newsletter interview, “I’ve learned that we all care enormously for each other and are very eager to help those who find themselves in the same boat as we are.  But most of all I’ve learned that I am not on my own.”

“We are all in this together” is the sentiment we hear from you time and time again.  In that spirit, we made a lot of changes to unify your experiences across all our communities.  Many of these improvements started in one community where some of you tried functionality and gave us good feedback so we could improve things and share them with all patients.  With the rollout of every product development below, you can now better share and compare your experiences.

Here are some examples of ways our communities have helped each other learn and grow in 2010:

• Flash charts: We piloted these in the ALS community last January and received a lot of great feedback.  Since that successful pilot, we converted the profile charts in all our communities to these more flexible and easier to understand charts.  This change also enabled future enhancements, like re-organizing your profile and better Doctor Visit Sheets.

• Condition History: While many of the questions you answer on PatientsLikeMe are very specific to your medical condition, there are a lot of questions that apply to any and all patients.  When did your symptoms start?  Do you have a diagnosis?  Are you taking any treatments?  Now members across communities answer many of the same questions in the condition history so everyone can share and see how their answers compare with the rest of the community.

• InstantMe: This idea of asking you a quick question about how you are doing started out as InstantMood, and was available only to members of the mood community.  They gave us great feedback and helped us to improve it (especially adding a “neutral” answer choice) before we rolled it out to patients in all our communities in November.  It’s now called InstantMe.

• Quality Of Life: The quality of life survey we just made available to all members at the end of December was piloted in the HIV and Organ Transplants communities.  By having a way to measure your social, mental and physical well-being, now you can gain a better understanding of how your condition affects you – the whole you.

Thank you to all the members of our community who continue to share and learn along with us.  Watch this year in review video to see how you all have contributed to making the patient experience on PatientsLikeMe one of a kind.

To close out this week’s blog series (“One for All”), we bring you an interview with another noted “welcomer” from our Fibromyalgia community.  Meet Babsie.  A member of the 19,000-member community, she has commented on hundreds of patient profiles to date (which is highlighted in a graphic on Jeff Cole’s earlier blog here).   Read on to hear what Babsie has to say about why she joined the Fibromyalgia welcome wagon and what keeps her going.

	(Liz) Yesterday, we heard from MS community member, Diamondlil58, about her experiences welcoming members.  Why did you start welcoming people to the Fibromyalgia community?
	(Babsie) Someone welcomed me, and it made me feel good.  I never saw them on the forum, so after a few months I was curious and seeing the new patients without any subscribers or comments I would subscribe and make a comment.
	(Liz) What type of responses do you get from people you welcome?
	(Babsie) Always favorable and kind.  Some prayed for me and others became friends outside of PatientsLikeMe.
	(Liz) Do you keep in touch with people you welcome?
	(Babsie) Yes, in the forum; it is easier so I encourage people to post there. I monitor the Patients Tab and if they update I respond. I can also look at my own subscribers anytime I wish to send them a Private Message.
	(Liz) What is one thing you’ve learned from looking at new member’s profiles?
	(Babsie) Invisible disease is no respector of persons, young and old, their economic status – does not matter.
	(Liz) Do you feel more engaged with the site and its members as a result of the Welcome Wagon?
	(Babsie) Yes, if I am feeling isolated I go and invite others to participate.
	(Liz) Thanks for all the connections you’ve made just by inviting others to participate, Babsie!

We’ve been learning about how connected our patients are this week in our blog series called “One for All.”  In the first two blogs by Jeff Cole, we read (and saw through cool graphics) how some of our members are initiating an unparalleled universe of dialogue.  Today, we sit down with one of those members, Diamondlil58.   A true “diamond” in the MS community, she has left more than 16,000 comments to  welcome other members and get conversation started. Here’s our interview with one of the founders of our PatientsLikeMe “Welcome Wagon,” Diamondlil58.

	(Liz) How and why did you start welcoming people?
	(Diamondlil58) I was welcomed to PatentsLikeMe by two lovely ladies – JHCamero and Greeneyes.  Their messages made me feel welcome. I wanted to give back to the MS Community.  I didn’t feel that I knew enough about the disease and the effects it had on others to offer advise in the forum.  But, greeting people is something that I felt comfortable doing.
	(Liz) What type of responses do you get from people you welcome?
	(Diamondlil58) I have received many nice replies from new patients.  Some tell me their experiences,  others ask questions or request help setting up their profile page.  Some want to know my view on therapies and treatments.  I continue to welcome because it has been rewarding to me.  I understand first hand how scary the MS diagnosis can be; how friends and family can’t possibly understand what it’s like to feel the way we do; how we can be perceived as lazy; or the fear of parking in a handicap parking spot and hoping no one verbally attacks us.  Welcoming give others an opportunity to view a profile and helps them see what they can do with theirs.
	(Liz) Do you keep in touch with people you welcome?
	(Diamondlil58) I do keep in touch with so many people that I have welcomed through this site.  Some through Facebook, others in email.  I’ve even met several in the past year or so.  I have built some wonderful friendships here and make more everyday.
	(Liz) What is one thing you’ve learned from looking at new member’s profiles?
	(Diamondlil58) That we have all different backgrounds.  That we are not all the same but we all share one thing in common and that gives us something to build on to support each other.
	(Liz) Do you feel more engaged with the site and its members as a result of the Welcome Wagon?
	(Diamondlil58) Absolutely!  I wouldn’t do it if it was negative or wasn’t rewarding.  It’s my way of giving back to the MS Community.  I have a great appreciation for the founders of this site, the staff, and the caregivers that join us.  This site has been therapeutic for me in more ways than one, and I am so grateful that I came across it three years ago surfing the internet looking for information on my symptoms.
	(Liz) We’re glad you did too.  Thanks so much for keeping the wagon rolling, Diamondlil58.  You’re an inspiration.

In yesterday’s post, we looked at some of the ways members of the PatientsLikeMe community are connecting with other patients and the value they are getting from it.  Today, we’ll highlight how one person can make an enormous difference and inspire you with her ability to connect with others.

One method of reaching out to another member on PatientsLikeMe is by leaving a comment on their profile page.  Often, you exchange comments to inquire about specific data on someone’s profile or to thank them for sharing.  However, one of the most common uses of the comments functionality is for existing members to welcome new members to the community.  This is has been affectionately coined the “Welcome Wagon,” and it is most prominent in our MS community.  Today, more than 71% of members in that community get a comment within the first 2 days.  Receiving a comment from a veteran PatientsLikeMe member when you first join the site is a great way to “welcome” you aboard and make you feel a part of the community.

A large part of the effectiveness of the MS Welcome Wagon can be attributed to a member named Diamondlil58.  Of the 150,000 comments that have been left on PatientsLikeMe, Diamondlil58 has left a staggering 16,000 of them, addressed to over 15,000 different members.  The graph above shows just how extensively Diamondlil58 has connected with the community through commenting.  In the graph, the dots represents patients in our MS community, and the lines represent a comment between them.  Diamondlil58 is the large green dot near the center.  Notice how she has touched both the inter-connected network of patients (on the right), as well as sent out a huge number of comments to others who aren’t yet as well-connected (the moon-like diagram on the left).  A large portion of these comments were part of the Welcome Wagon.

While the Welcome Wagon was started in the MS community, it has definitely caught on in other communities.  Here is a look at how Babsie, an active member in our Fibromyalgia community, has reached out to welcome new members.  Like Diamondlil38, Babsie has helped create a network of dialogue and connection between patients like you.

It’s inspiring to see how one person can touch so many.  Members often tell us how beneficial it is to have a way to find “patients like me.”  (In fact, we cited a few examples yesterday from our research study that shows just how valuable that can be to one’s health).  However, that “find” functionality alone is not what makes this community what it is today.  It’s the people who are using it.  It’s the people who are willing to openly share with one another; the people who reach out to make those connections (sometimes initiated by beacons, like Diamondlil58); it’s people like you who make the most of being a member of PatientsLikeMe.

The next two blogs in this series will include interviews with Diamondlil58 and Babsie.  Stay tuned as we climb aboard the Welcome Wagon and hear what they have to say.

PatientsLikeMe is dedicated to building a platform for the open sharing of personal health data.  So far, our community of patients have shared over 600,000 outcome surveys, 300,000 treatment histories, and 2.3 million symptom reports.   We believe this enormous collection of health data will dramatically improve how patients manage their conditions.

But there are more benefits to joining a community of patients like those on PatientsLikeMe than just sharing data: the social support from interacting with other patients has a real effect on improving patient outcomes.  In a recent study published in the Journal for Medical Internet Research (JMIR), our research team found that nearly half of survey respondents (n = 559, 42%) agreed that the site had helped them find another patient who had helped them understand what it was like to take a specific treatment for their condition.  Furthermore, the survey shows that those patients on PatientsLikeMe who make close relationships with other members receive significantly more benefits from those who do not.

So it is worth taking a moment to look at just how extensive the social connections are on PatientsLikeMe, and how many patients have reached out to other patients and helped improve their lives.

There are many ways to connect with other patients on PatientsLikeMe, ranging from communal conversation in our forums to direct one-on-one personal messages.  While some of this dialogue is centered around sharing of health information and experiences, a part of it is purely meant as conversational discussion about everyday life.  All of these interactions are important, because they help tie a community together.  Here’s a glance at some of the ways you’ve connected:

Forum

• You’ve created 1.2 million posts composed of 94 million words about 86,048 topics
• 21,865 of you have created at least one post, and 54,839 of you have viewed at least one post
• You’ve marked posts as “helpful” 1.2 million times

Personal Messages

• 25,062 of you have sent a total of 751,668 messages
• 723 of you have individually sent over 100 messages

Patient Profile Pages

• You’ve viewed our 80,000 patient profile pages over 15 million times
• 11,874 of you have left over 156,196 comments on other members’ profile pages

(Note: numbers are across all communities.)

While these numbers show just how much sharing has been going on, the following graph illustrates what the connections are like between our members.  In this graph, the dots represent patients, and the lines between them connect any two patients who have shared at least 5 personal messages together.  Note how many patients are interconnected.   By reaching out to one another for support, conversation, data sharing and more, you’ve created a universe of dialogue that has never existed amongst patients like you.

Click for full-sized version. A graph showing personal messages made between some of the patients on PatientsLikeMe. The dots represent patients, and a line represents at least 5 personal messages between them.

Moreover, what you’re sharing with each other through these various connections represents the largest data set of its kind linking conversations to outcomes and overall health experience. This week on the blog, we’ll delve into some of these connections that have been spurred by some of our members.  However, we also want to recognize that even the silent contributors (those connecting behind the scenes or outside of the forum spotlight) are as much to thank for this open network.  All for one and one for all.

(About the title image. This graph shows all comments made between Epilepsy patients on PatientsLikeMe. The dots represent patients, and the lines between them represent at least one comment made. Note the highly connected network of patients in the center. Click for full-sized image.)