Hi all,
I’m running into an issue with Watched Words (Replace) on our health forum and wondering if anyone has found a solution.
The problem: We use Watched Words to automatically expand medical abbreviations for accessibility (e.g., MGUS → Monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance (MGUS)). This works perfectly on the initial post, but when anyone edits that post later, the replacement runs again and creates nested recursion like this:
Monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance (Monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance (MGUS))
Each subsequent edit adds another layer 
What I’ve tried:
-
Adding single quotes around the abbreviation:
(term)→('term')- still recurses -
Using HTML entities with “Outputs HTML in replacement” enabled - text disappears entirely on edit
-
HTML span tags - displays as literal code and still recurses
I know I could just remove the abbreviation from the replacement text, but it’s important for both internal forum search and external SEO that the abbreviation remains visible in posts. The abbreviations are how most people actually talk about these conditions, and if we only show the expanded term, those searches won’t surface the relevant discussions..
So, I guess my question is whether there’s a way to expand abbreviations that survives post edits without recursion, while keeping the abbreviation visible for searchability?