This story from Ross Noble on why you shouldn’t use Twitter for medical advice is both correct and amusing

I was out bike riding, my mate wanted to ride my bike so I rode his bike, and basically, it didn’t have hand guards on it. So I hit this tree and broke my hand. But I thought I’d just bruised it. But instead of seeing a doctor, I took a picture and tweeted it, and said “do you think this is broken?” Almost 99 per cent of people who tweeted me back said, “nah, if you can move your fingers it’s just bruised”.

So I left it, and went out again. I’d rode my bike about three times after this point with a broken hand, then a week later, I was off riding again, and this time it was really starting to hurt. So I went to the doctor and he X-rayed it and said, “when did you break this the first time?” I said, “what do you mean the first time?”

I’d actually been wondering around for about ten days using it and then riding with it, and then snapped it a second time. I said, “oh, everyone said it was just a bruise.” He said, “who’s everyone?” and I said, “oh I took a photo of it and put it on Twitter” and this is a medically trained doctor, he said to me, “you’re a f**king idiot.”

Out of curiosity we dug through Ross’s old tweets to see if this story checked out and yes, it does:

Via shortlist.com.