Scott Adams, cartoonist of Dilbert, had a baffling speech malady he thought might be related the problem he has with one hand called focal dystonia. He googled “vocal dystonia” and found it is called spasmodic dysphonia. So, he did a Google Alert on it.
After a while, Google sent a link to a possible surgical procedure.
Long story short, the operation I read about wasn’t as promising as the article suggested, but the final surgeon in my travels had his own version of surgery that had a good track record. I tried it, and now my voice is normal. I never would have found that path without Google Alerts.
…
I don’t have the details worked out, but I think Google will be your new doctor in some fashion.
And I found out about this from Friend’s Shared Feeds on Google Reader… Collaborative shared knowledge is powerful indeed.