1. Decide what User Name and password you will use at Marrowforums. Your User Name is how other forum members will know you. It can be your first name and initial (e.g., John S), a nickname (e.g., Bike Rider), or even your full name (e.g., John Smith). Most users prefer the name-and-initial form as a balance of convenience and privacy.
   
   Your password should be a strong one, to prevent anyone else from using your account. It should not be easy to guess (e.g., "abc" or "123456"), it should not match your User Name, and it should not be a password that you use for other online accounts.
2. If your incoming email gets filtered for spam, add to your Address Book or "safe senders" list so you'll get email sent by the forum system. This is needed for Step 4 below, since some email services or email programs mistakenly think that messages from forum systems are "junk mail."
3. Go to the Forum Registration page and follow the directions to fill out the forms:


• Enter your date of birth. (to verify that you are age 13 or older for legal reasons — see Privacy Policy). However, we recommend a minimum age of 18 and that a parent be the registrant if the patient is a minor, because Marrowforums deals with serious health issues and allows anyone who registers to post messages.
• Review the Registration Agreement, check the checkbox, and click Register.
• Fill out the registration page (User Name, password, email address, time zone, and other information) and click Complete Registration.


4. You will receive a confirmation message by email. Click the link in the message to activate your membership and complete your registration.

Once you are registered, you can log in from the main forum page, any other forum page, or from here on the Registration page. The login area is always in the top-right corner.

To log in, enter your User Name and forum password. If you see the word Logout there instead of Log in, you are already logged in!

We suggest that you check the Remember Me? checkbox when you log into Marrowforums. That way, you won't be required to log in each time you visit. This feature works only when cookies are enabled in your web browser and should be used only on a computer used exclusively by you, not on a public or shared computer.

If you have forgotten your password, see I forgot my forum password. What should I do? in the FAQ.

As you begin using the forums, the best place to start is the New Member Welcome page.

If you have questions about how to post or how to use forum features, refer to the Frequently-Asked Questions pages.

To understand forum etiquette, see the Forum Rules.

Privacy tips:

• Review the Privacy Policy to understand your role in protecting your privacy.
• You control whether or not your age and date of birth are shown in your User Profile. By default, they are not. For the most privacy, leave this setting.
• You control whether or not other members can contact you by Private Message or by email. These settings are made in your User Options. For the most privacy, we suggest that you leave the Receive Email from Other Members option disabled. It is safe to enable the Enable Private Messaging option because Private Messages can be used while preserving privacy.

It is not necessary to log out when you are done using the forums if you are using a personal computer that nobody else uses. If you are using a public or shared computer, you should log out between visits so nobody else uses your Marrowforums account.

To log out, click Log Out at the top of any forum page.