Community Guidelines & Moderation Policy

This community exists so people living with spinal cord injury — and the people who love and care for them — can compare notes honestly. To keep it useful and safe, every thread on SCI.help follows these rules. They're enforced by moderation, and they apply to everyone, including us.

Protect your privacy (posts are public, forever)

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Everything you post here is public and indexed by search engines. Don't post your full name, address, phone number, insurance ID, medical record numbers, or photos you wouldn't want public. Health details you share about yourself are your choice — but remember future employers, insurers, and strangers can read them. Never post identifying details about someone else (including the person you care for) without their permission.

No medical advice — experience only

Members share what happened to them, not what you should do. The difference matters:

✅ "My urologist switched me to weekly SP catheter changes and my UTIs dropped."
❌ "You should change your catheter weekly." / "Take 800mg, that's what works."

Nobody here can see your chart, your injury level, or your med list. Frame what you share as your experience, and take everything you read to your own care team before acting on it. Posts that give specific dosing instructions, tell someone to stop a prescribed medication, or discourage someone from seeking medical care will be removed.

If you or someone here is in crisis

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This forum is not monitored 24/7 and cannot respond to emergencies. If you're thinking about suicide or self-harm, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, US) — it's free and available around the clock. For a medical emergency, call 911. If you see a post suggesting someone may be in crisis, reply with kindness, share the 988 number, and flag the post so moderators see it quickly. Depression after SCI is common and treatable — see our mental health guide.

No miracle cures, scams, or product promotion

People with new injuries are heavily targeted by predatory marketing. The following are removed on sight and repeat offenders are banned:

Stem-cell clinic promotion, "regeneration" treatments sold outside registered clinical trials, and miracle-cure claims of any kind. (Read why: our stem cells & peptides guide.)
Supplement or device claims presented as cures or guaranteed results.
Affiliate links, referral codes, or self-promotion by sellers. If you're a vendor, you may answer direct questions about your product transparently — you may not prospect for customers here.
Fundraising and legal/financial solicitation. Recommending a lawyer you personally used is fine; lawyers and "advocates" drumming up business is not.

Sharing a product you bought and like is welcome — just say what it is, what it cost, and what it did and didn't do. Label anecdote as anecdote.

Basic conduct

Be kind first. Many readers are in the worst weeks of their lives. No insults, pile-ons, or gatekeeping ("that's not a real SCI"). Complete, incomplete, traumatic, non-traumatic, walking or not — everyone's injury is real here.
No false hope, no doom. Don't promise recovery; don't tell anyone their recovery is over. Nobody knows either.
Disagree with information, not people. Cite sources where you can.
One account per person. No impersonation.

How moderation works

Comments run on Disqus. Use the flag on any comment to report it — flagged content is reviewed and removal decisions are made against these guidelines.
Removed: medical advice as defined above, cure-selling, spam, solicitation, harassment, personal information about others, and content sexualizing or endangering minors (reported to authorities where appropriate).
Escalation: first violation gets a warning and removal; repeat or egregious violations get a ban.
Mistakes happen — to appeal a removal, use the contact options on the contribute page.

How to ask a question that gets good answers

The more context you give, the better the answers. A useful template:

Injury basics: level and completeness if you know them (e.g., "C5 incomplete, 8 months post"), and whether you're the survivor or a caregiver.
What's happening: the specific problem, how long, what changed recently.
What you've tried: and what your care team has said so far.
Your actual question: one clear ask works better than five.

Example: "C6 complete, 2 years post, caregiver asking. Skin on the right ischial area stays red for 30+ minutes after transfers — started this month with a new cushion. Wound nurse appointment is in 2 weeks. What did pressure-mapping appointments look like for you, and did insurance cover them?"

Thanks for keeping this a place worth trusting. — Jason