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From Men's Journal:
Every time you walk into a physician's office, you run the risk of overtreatment: Tests you don't need, medications that are ineffective (or dangerous), procedures that cause more problems than they solve. In many cases the best thing for your health is to do nothing.
Make no mistake: A good doctor is, or should be, your most trusted resource if you're sick. If you're not sick and he wants to treat you anyway, that doesn't necessarily make him a bad doctor. But it does make him a player in a system that operates according to the unspoken and often unexamined assumption that more treatment is better for the patient. It's unquestionably better for the financial health of the stakeholders in the system: the doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, the health-insurance companies, and the hospitals. If you don't know how the game is played, the odds go up that you'll wind up the loser.
What do you people think, will people change if they know this?
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Wednesday September 24 2014, @08:54PM
It reminds me of my son being diagnosed with wheat (gluten) allergy ... there's no money to be made off that, you see.
You nearly described my kids path to finding his peanut allergy, but instead of digestion issues it was overnight stays in ICU.
A lot of his symptoms where difficulty breathing, wheezing and all that. So after the second stint in the hospital a asthma specialist came by and diagnosed him with severe asthma. But that did not make sense (I was able to predict one of the hospital visits the night before... does that sound like asthma?). We got in an argument right there in the ICU room, with her final argument being that what she said was correct because she was an asthma specialist doctor. Regardless of all that, she was a bitch.
After an hour wait in her waiting room on the first visit, we just left... "Yeah, you'll get that $25 no show fee... bill me."
Fast forward a few months and I, the idiot father, give the kid some peanut butter and BAM... and soon as it hit his mouth he reacted like it was cayenne pepper. He seriously looked like a still image from when Neo blows up the agent at the end of the Matrix (the bumps/hives on his head). The next week he was at an allergist getting tested and sure enough... several allergies, the main one was peanuts.
More than likely a less knowledgeable, less confident, and less "well off" person would have submitted to the numerous in-office breathing treatments, medications, and probably spent thousands before realizing one day it was a peanut allergy. Not only that, the kid could have actually gotten the peanut down his throat and that's when they die from anaphylaxis.
Watch out for your own health (and you kids). Nobody gives a damn as much as you do.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 24 2014, @09:25PM
"her final argument being that"
With all due respect sir she might have said exactly what you reported, but I'm fairly certain she was thinking the whole time "I can make a sh!t load of money off a lifetime of asthma diagnosis, but this gravy train is over when someone tells him not to eat peanuts anymore"
Did the allergist schedule followup appointments?
My son's gastroenterologist scheduled us for $450/hr follow up appointments after the diagnosis and some elaborate A/B testing (Oh look, he eats pure cooked hamburger meat for a day and like a miracle no problem, but every time we do a trial with whole wheat bread 3 hours after he explodes out both ends till he's dehydrated... golly wonder if he might be allergic to wheat? So for $450/hr, every six months for the next 80 years, its all "so hows that not eating gluten containing wheat and barley and stuff going?" "Oh its going great? In that case I'd suggest continuing to do that, that'll be $450 see ya in 6 months, sucka" We cancelled the future appointments with the nurse freaking out that child protective services is going to take him away if we don't pay the gasto-ent the proper protection money. Called their bluff and all is well and happy for the last decade, although the doc hasn't been getting his protection money. He has an iron stomach, in fact a bottomless teen boy iron stomach, my god can he eat, just don't feed him wheat / dairy / soy or his iron stomach turns into a volcano for about a day.
(he's also allergic to soy and casein, its a rather elaborate procedure with antibody blood tests followed by all manner of crazy (yet rather obvious) A/B testing, which you probably got to experience although with nuts, although I donno if they'd be crazy enough to A/B test him with peanut butter if its ICU time)
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Wednesday September 24 2014, @09:46PM
"Protection money" - yeah they didn't threaten CPS but it was more a "think of the child - he could die from an attack" type of stuff. The whole thing changed me from a typical person that trusts doctors as "experts" to someone who realized that I was probably smarter than the doctors and had much more information than they did. I am not going to try my own surgery, but I will be active in diagnosis from now on.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 24 2014, @10:00PM
"renew his prescriptions for his epi pen"
ah that makes sense especially if its dosage depends on body weight. That at least makes sense, even if they probably bill $450/hr like our specialist.