Wait, so you're telling me my doctors won't actually break into my residence illegally and discover that my wife is cheating with me with an opossum, making me contract a rare amoeba that can only be cured by injecting my spinal cord with pastrami?
Yeah it was a bit unbelievable how they would get involved with the patients personal life. I worked with a guy a while ago who I was very confident was cheating on his wife. I didn't call his wife to tell her or tell him to knock it off.B
In the US medical system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups: the HMO’s, who perpetrate crime, and the pharmaceutical companies that profit from it. These are their stories.
The craziest thing that demonstrates how shitty our healthcare system is, is that they made a goddamn movie 25 years ago about a guy holding people hostage in a children's hospital at gunpoint to get his child a surgery when payment was denied and nobody found that premise outlandish.
Did you sit down and watch the whole movie and not just the dramatic moments as YouTube clips? Outside of a few good Denzel moments, the movie was just awful in terms of dialogue, pacing, and blunt 'foreshadowing'
An adult friend made me watch that as a kid. I do not like thrillers, and I have cardiophobia (I can't look at, listen to, or be too aware of biological hearts), which is very relevant to that movie. Also I was too young and wide-eyed to appreciate those kinds of systemic issues. So that was not a fun time, and I won't forget it.
You have sudden onset chest pains and lethargy? Well I see your boobs are nicely sized but the rest of you could lose weight, I prescribe you with diet and exercise and diagnose you with anxiety because you thought you needed to come in. I can prescribe you both control if you continue to be anxious.
I believe the hospital in House was also a college and the cases were for study purposes. Patients getting treated was just a side effect of the experimentation...
I had a couple seizures several years ago. Full on grand mal with an ER trip and all that fun.
The response from doctors has consistently been “yeah, sometimes people just have seizures.” They did CT scans, didn’t see anything abnormal and aren’t really interested in investigating more. Solution was that I’m just going to take anticonvulsants for the rest of my life.
Yeah - as long as I’m on Keppra I don’t have them.
It was just terrifying to wake up out of nowhere being carried by EMTs, spend a day in the hospital, be told “yeah idk go see a neurologist” and then just have to figure it out? Follow up with a neurologist was “yeah sometimes it happens, just don’t drive for the next six months.”
I mean, this but unironically. There's a lot of muscular-skeletal issues that you get from... sitting in an office chair for 20 years. Or not getting tons of physical activity for most of your adult life. Or various deterioration of this or that bodily function from over/under-utilization or simple wear-and-tear.
Ask a Sports Medicine doctor what to do about compounded injuries and most of what you'll get is "We can replace the part that's broken" or "Stop doing the thing that's causing you injury". After that, there's no miracle cure that's going to make decades of strains and bruises and stress injuries just vanish.
Met a guy last week who found himself next to two different IEDs while in Afghanistan and then Iraq. He had far more scars to show for it than I ever did as a desk jockey.
Obviously war time duty in a warzone is far more dangerous. I'm not trying to imply that sitting at a desk is more dangerous than fighting in a war. I'm saying that physical labor is better for your body than sitting on your ass.
Haha oh yeah and I was in character responding to your fake useless doctor.
The things lazy doctors always wanna blame:
Weight
Pregnancy
Period
Smoking
Lack of sleep
Stress
The last one is fun, because how do you argue you're not stressed? I can prove I'm not the other ones. But I'm here for the 4th time this year, I spent all last weekend vomiting after following the laid out diet perfectly, yes, yes I'm stressed!
Not sure if you're in community with many women or POC that feel comfortable speaking to you about these things, but VERY basic issues aren't even being looked into. PCOS and cancer are two common ones. Things can vary place to place, but it seems like a pretty universal experience in my circles.
I mean I'm not a woman or PoC and I still get that same advice from doctors.
And as someone that's worked in healthcare before, a lot, if not most, of what people go to doctors for is trivial or psychosomatic, so if they did a full range of tests for everyone that says they get headaches, then people with genuine conditions would be in an even worse place as they need to wait for resources to free up.
I did not say that only women or PoC get this suggestion, just that it's common for their issues to be dismissed. I don't know your personal medical history, but sometimes it is just that people need better diet and exercise. That does apply to women and PoC too. It's possible that advice is or is not salient to your health, but I can speak from personal experience that it is used to dismiss life threatening conditions.
I don’t know where you live, but 1/3 of Americans don't have a primary care physician and almost half of Americans didn't get medical treatment due to costs in 2022 from a cursory search. This is not a population that can afford frivolous medical visits. I don't know where in the medical field you worked, but your assertion does not seem evidence based. That may well be your personal experience, but that is subject to so many biases and if you were not giving people a full range of tests, how could you even know you weren't turning away legitimately sick people. Maybe the medical field was not right for you if you truly believe it's possible that most issues people seek treatment for are trivial or psychosomatic.
Then they should potentially be even more likely to be correctly diagnosed in people that are overweight. Having issues exacerbated by your weight does not mean that your weight is the issue. Additionally, PCOS and cancer can both cause weight issues, so it's even less helpful to suggest that the weight is the issue if the weight could be caused by an underlying disease.
My previous misdiagnosis put me on meds that hid my symptoms and covid had my doctor's office telling us that if we had no concerns, to not come in. By the time my symptoms began to show even with the meds, my heart was the size of a football (gridiron football, not association football) and required a transplant. Any increased effort made me nearly pass out.
I get where you're coming from, MOST OF THE TIME diet and exercise are better than not. My circumstances were pretty atypical too, but lets not act like telling anyone that walks into a hospital just needs to jog their ailments away is the way to go. A lot of doctors would do well to try just a little harder, it likely would have saved me from needing to wait for another person to die to be able to continue to live.
I'm very sorry that happened to you. My problem was with your phrasing. As I'm sure you know: eating better, working out, and sleeping more did not make your condition worse. I interpreted that as what you claimed.
You were a victim of malpractice and negligence, not living a more healthy life.
Yeah, I know that. I just bristle at the thought of being told to lose weight instead of actually getting the help I needed. I don't ACTUALLY think that stuff made me worse off. It was mostly the look on the doctor's face when I told him I WAS working out and eating better, and he laughed in my face because I was gaining weight. Too bad I was retaining fluids... There's a lot more to the story, but I don't care to get into it.
Can you tell I'm a bit salty? Sorry for the trauma dump.
No worries, I believe you. I don't have any reason not to. I'm also dealing with major health issues, so I hope you have found solutions that work for you.
I don't know what their situation is like, but with ME/CFS, for example, anything more than light exercises will actively make things worse: https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Exercise
My, at the time unknown degenerative collagen coding defect was also treated as "lose weight fatty", I lost weight, without even trying, because it turns out collagen is an important tissue structure in a functional digestive system. I lost weight too fast, I lost a lot of lean muscle as well as fat.
Turns out muscle is important for holding your joints together if you don't have quality collagen to do that job.
Suddenly the real cause of my symptoms was evident, but I never got an apology for years of misdiagnosis and being blamed for my own illness.
Fun fact, one of the many things I was told to do as part of proper treatment was gain weight! (albeit, muscle weight)
Now I'm starting to get cardiopulmonary symptoms, which makes sense, your heart and lungs also have collagen. I don't have a specialist at the moment, and recently had to find a new GP because my old GP said I need to "exercise more" to prevent my new symptoms... Even though my physical therapist says my level of activity is more than enough and if my lungs aren't physically structured properly, no amount of cardio workouts will help me breathe properly.
I actually know people who died because they had cancer, but the doctor kept refusing to do actual examinations and just said "Oh uhh... just get more potassium or something..."
Not bothering to look further until it was too late.. It's very sad
Binging Chubbyemu vids last night sure makes it seem like that's not exactly true... There are far too many that begin with "presenting to the ER visibly fucked, the doctor just tells them it's anxiety and to stop being a little bitch about it. But it wasn't anxiety and they were not, in fact, a little bitch."
Sleeping more isn’t always possible, but if you haven’t tried diet and exercise, that should be your first move.
People think that question is not taking their disease seriously, but it’s the other way around. People don’t take diet and exercise seriously enough. They’re ultra powerful determiners of health, including mental health.
I am not doing well at all healthwise due to a now possibly diagnosed illness. A few weeks ago, I was at the Mayo Clinic, one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country for rare illnesses, the sort of place you would expect House to work.
I was there ten days and saw three doctors for about an hour each. As I said, it's now possibly diagnosed and, therefore, there's a possible route to go down, but that and a bill were all I got.
Bit of an ignorant take honestly. US medical system is horrible but we absolutely have some of the finest and most advanced teaching hospitals and medical research centers in the world if you're fortunate enough to end up in their care. Mayo clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General, UCLA Health, UC Davis Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Medical Center, Mount Sinai Hospital, the list goes on.
House MD takes place in a fictitious teaching hospital in Princeton, NJ, of Princeton University fame. It is an extremely wealthy area and the reputation and prestige of the hospital is going to be far more important than what the patient can pay.
Also though, no hospital can legally refuse care if you aren't stable, they might just not do much for you other than stabilize you enough to discharge you so you can die somewhere else.
It was never presented as representing a typical patient experience.
There are a bunch of House, MD scenes where he's doing boring consults and we get the "Stop eating shellfish if you're allergic to shellfish" bits and gags.
I had, probably still have, a weird medical 'condition' that US military doctors and British doctors couldn't figure out. Would have been neat to have a team of smarty pants working on the case.
At least in the US they exist. They're called functional medicine doctors. They'll charge a ton and they don't accept insurance, but they'll typically keep at your issue until they figure out what it is and have some sort of treatment recommendations.
It's far from only in the US. In my experience, hospitals in Germany are far worse in this regard. It depends greatly on who is getting paid how much for what. The US is far better for this, but unfortunately it is not affordable for most.
Imo, you're dead wrong. Doctors in the US have no incentive to actually cure anything. They spend minimal time with patients and try to cram as many appointments into a day as possible. I'm the type of person that only goes to the Dr if there's something seriously wrong. I had an ear issue. Took 3 months to see an ENT after multiple failed urgent care visits and an ER visit. The audiologist (not even the Dr) is the one who pointed out I had something clogging my ear canal after multiple Drs and PAs said it was fine. She thankfully got the Dr to pull out a big ole wad of dead skin and wax. Dr says it was likely infected at some point, and my ear made all that dead skin, and that caused that. Have a follow up appointment scheduled which he said I could cancel if the pain went away. The pain went away temporarily, but came back. Follow up is with a completely different dude, and he tells me my ear is fine, and I need to see someone about "pain management". It's very clearly not fine because I'm still seeing you doc. I don't need 600 mg ibuprofen tablets, I need my ear to not hurt.
My theory is that either the ear is still infected, and the drops I had weren't penetrating the ear canal due to the big ole wad that was blocking my ear, or there's still a bit more wad blocking the ear that they need to pull out. I'm ready to self prescribe my old eardrops which I still have leftover to see if it works.
Doctors in the US love to kick the can down the road. "Oh, I couldn't possibly diagnose that, you need to see a specialist. Let me give you a referral." Then you see the next dickhead who says oh actually u need this other specialist, let me give you a referral.
I'm not in some podunk town either. This is a world renowned hospital I'm talking about. Our healthcare system in the US is absolute ass.
Sorry about your ear problems. That sounds bad and a terrible thing to live with.
The US heathcare systems have many problems as you pointed out. I also am well aware of them as I lived there for 30 years both with and without insurance. The only thing that I can give is my lived experience in both systems. The problems that you pointed out among many others exist in most health care systems globally. Despite and including these problems in my experience the US still gives better care. That may be hard to hear (no pun intended) but the grass is not always greener.
Now don't get me wrong. I prefer the system here in Germany but not because it's better, but because it is available to everyone. People here don't go bankrupt with medical debt like in the US.
YMMV. American doctors are an absolute crap shoot in terms of expertise and bedside manner. For any kind of surgery, you really need to shop around and interview and get referrals, because there's a real chance you end up with a guy who has half a dozen lawsuits pending for malpractice if you're not careful.
I assume that you are german? I have experienced similar here with dermatologists but for allergies. I went to 4 different allergists over a 8 month period to simply get tested to be able to get an epipen which could potentially save my life. This in the US took one next day visit with a doctor. Later (in the US) I saw specialists that put a lot of research into my allergies and time and attention into it. I got nothing here in Germany.
As mentioned before, despite this, I would rather support the german system though. It has its problems like everywhere, but it is at least available to everyone at more affordable prices.
I was in all three healthcare systems, the Army's freie Heilsfürsorge, private insured as a child over my dad and now with statutory health insurance and let me tell you, the differences are jarring.
10% of my wage before taxes go away for my health insurance and all I get are doctors and specialist who don't care and do the absolute bare minimum for me. Of course I'm complaining on a higher level but it's fucked nonetheless.
I have often wondered about the private insurance (not that I can afford it). I've only been on AOK I can only assume that the care is much much better with private insurance?
I only know private insurance is more expensive, has shorter waiting times and better care but can only be done if you're a public servant or have an income above a certain treshold. Also private insurance can say no and it's very difficult to go back to statutory health insurance from private insurance.
I mean its like being in tech support. Losing weight and not eating shit is the equivalent of "Have you tried turning it off and on again" it should be obvious but its not.
Tell that to the doctor that said I had a blocked salivary gland and to "just suck on some sour candy". I had a tooth abscess (I even told the doctor that) and ended up in the ER for nearly a week. Costed insurance 28 thousand dollars for a procedure that normally costs a couple hundred at most (tooth pull).
Costed insurance 28 thousand dollars for a procedure that normally costs a couple hundred at most (tooth pull).
Would a doctor do a tooth pull, or a dentist? I don't think it's a reasonable expectation to expect a doctor to pull a tooth, but instead a dentist would do so.
Also, one thing you have to realize is that they don't look at the cost just at the atomic per incident level, but they look at it through the whole life of the customer/patient.
They play the odds, and they do literal risk management, when deciding how to spend money and when to spend money, specially for big money spending like operations.
So in your case it might have been a matter of a risk management decision, of the odds of you getting better without having to have the tooth pulled and spending the money to do so would be good, but you just got unlucky.
I was even thinking of deleting my previous comment because I figured someone would try to explain how my awful experience was normal and justified from the perspective of doctors/insurance, but I left it, and here we are. Go figure. I gave you the summary. There's some important context left out, but I didn't wanna write a book, so maybe just understand that people aren't putting their whole life story into each and every comment.
There was no risk management involved, just shitty doctors, and shitty insurance companies. I went to urgent care, then a dentist, then urgent care again. Every time explaining that I had a bad tooth, was eating, cracked it, and was in immense pain since that point, with swelling to follow. None of them gave a shit, no referrals, no antibiotics, nothing. I got in with an oral surgeon without a referral, only because my mom knows that guy, and he told me to immediately go to the ER where he personally would come pull my tooth.
Is that enough context for you? Or do I need to continue justifying my experience like I had to with my doctors in this exact story?
so maybe just understand that people aren’t putting their whole life story into each and every comment.
I'm aware, but you can only have a conversation based on what's actually said, or in this case, written.
There was no risk management involved, just shitty doctors, and shitty insurance companies.
The shitty insurance company does risk management.
I got in with an oral surgeon without a referral, only because my mom knows that guy, and he told me to immediately go to the ER where he personally would come pull my tooth.
I'm truly glad to hear that you got treated.
My point was never to excuse bad doctoring, or to challenge your story, but just to say that medical insurance companies don't just look holistically at the patients well being, when deciding what to spend on. There's factors, including business factors, that they look as well. Their top priority is not to heal, but to manage. Healing is a bonus for them.
And yes, there's idiot doctors out there. Trust me, I know. I have one of them in my network.
The reality is this varies highly not just by individual doctor but by doctor group.
And whether or not they’re willing to consult a specialist while you’re in a hospital.
Spoiler: they lose money if they do this because only so much is available to be paid out for each patient. Second spoiler: sometimes seeing a specialist while hospitalized means getting transferred 100+ miles away to another hospital because that hospital doesn’t have any of that specialist available. Third spoiler: Level 1 hospitals are few and far between (they have everything).
I think my visit seeking prophylactics when I was exposed to HIV (and the doctor just said, "nah, don't worry about it, I'm not prescribing you") was $1500 for the doctor, $1500 to the hospital... God damn that was a shock.
Wait, so you're telling me my doctors won't actually break into my residence illegally and discover that my wife is cheating with me with an opossum, making me contract a rare amoeba that can only be cured by injecting my spinal cord with pastrami?
Best we can do is have your doctor cripplingly addicted to vicodin
sigh
. . . Fine.
shrugs
HMO, what can ya do?
Have you tried getting more vitamin d?
What did you just call them??
Yeah it was a bit unbelievable how they would get involved with the patients personal life. I worked with a guy a while ago who I was very confident was cheating on his wife. I didn't call his wife to tell her or tell him to knock it off.B
Pretty sure it's lupus
It's never lupus.
In the US medical system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups: the HMO’s, who perpetrate crime, and the pharmaceutical companies that profit from it. These are their stories.
DUN DUNN
I'd watch that show.
The craziest thing that demonstrates how shitty our healthcare system is, is that they made a goddamn movie 25 years ago about a guy holding people hostage in a children's hospital at gunpoint to get his child a surgery when payment was denied and nobody found that premise outlandish.
The movie was generally underrated, sadly.
Did you sit down and watch the whole movie and not just the dramatic moments as YouTube clips? Outside of a few good Denzel moments, the movie was just awful in terms of dialogue, pacing, and blunt 'foreshadowing'
Yea message was important movie was meh
John Q was not a good film.
An adult friend made me watch that as a kid. I do not like thrillers, and I have cardiophobia (I can't look at, listen to, or be too aware of biological hearts), which is very relevant to that movie. Also I was too young and wide-eyed to appreciate those kinds of systemic issues. So that was not a fun time, and I won't forget it.
Or if you're a woman, they won't bother trying and tell you you're imagining things. Because a medical degree can't cure being a jackass.
You have sudden onset chest pains and lethargy? Well I see your boobs are nicely sized but the rest of you could lose weight, I prescribe you with diet and exercise and diagnose you with anxiety because you thought you needed to come in. I can prescribe you both control if you continue to be anxious.
I believe the hospital in House was also a college and the cases were for study purposes. Patients getting treated was just a side effect of the experimentation...
And there was an oft-maligned "clinic" where stupid people would go to be harassed by House when he was being punished with working a shift there.
Yes. Basically, doctor House had enough of a reputation to justify having a whole team.
I had a couple seizures several years ago. Full on grand mal with an ER trip and all that fun.
The response from doctors has consistently been “yeah, sometimes people just have seizures.” They did CT scans, didn’t see anything abnormal and aren’t really interested in investigating more. Solution was that I’m just going to take anticonvulsants for the rest of my life.
Sorry to hear that. Are you better now?
Yeah - as long as I’m on Keppra I don’t have them.
It was just terrifying to wake up out of nowhere being carried by EMTs, spend a day in the hospital, be told “yeah idk go see a neurologist” and then just have to figure it out? Follow up with a neurologist was “yeah sometimes it happens, just don’t drive for the next six months.”
Don't forget "you're over 30, your body just does that now"
There is a lot of truth in that though haha.
But yeah, it sucks seeing stories of people getting told that it is just growing old, while they have a chronic illness.
I mean, this but unironically. There's a lot of muscular-skeletal issues that you get from... sitting in an office chair for 20 years. Or not getting tons of physical activity for most of your adult life. Or various deterioration of this or that bodily function from over/under-utilization or simple wear-and-tear.
Ask a Sports Medicine doctor what to do about compounded injuries and most of what you'll get is "We can replace the part that's broken" or "Stop doing the thing that's causing you injury". After that, there's no miracle cure that's going to make decades of strains and bruises and stress injuries just vanish.
I've sustained far more injuries sitting at a desk than I ever did as a soldier, or manual laborer.
Then you were very lucky.
Met a guy last week who found himself next to two different IEDs while in Afghanistan and then Iraq. He had far more scars to show for it than I ever did as a desk jockey.
Obviously war time duty in a warzone is far more dangerous. I'm not trying to imply that sitting at a desk is more dangerous than fighting in a war. I'm saying that physical labor is better for your body than sitting on your ass.
I got "don't worry, it should go away by the time you're 30"
I was 19 at the time, and it did not
Nichojou?
I haven't seen it (don't watch almost any anime), but I tracked it down. Here's the link timed to the start of the conversation: Azumanga Daioh Episode 4 Subbed - Pool Pool Pool (HQ)
Oh thanks!
I lost 80 pounds and my stomach still hurts a ton when ever I eat, what's the next step doctor?
Doc: *surprised Pikachu face *
"Uhh cigarettes are bad for you?"
I was told by a doctor at 12 that I should never drink soda, caffeine, alcohol, or smoke to try to reduce stomach pain.
Also I'm a male so it can't be period pains or pregnancy.
Haha oh yeah and I was in character responding to your fake useless doctor.
The things lazy doctors always wanna blame: Weight Pregnancy Period Smoking Lack of sleep Stress
The last one is fun, because how do you argue you're not stressed? I can prove I'm not the other ones. But I'm here for the 4th time this year, I spent all last weekend vomiting after following the laid out diet perfectly, yes, yes I'm stressed!
I'm just playing off the fact that no matter what your problem is doctors will always tell you to stop smoking.
Broke your arm? Stop smoking.
Etc etc
It's really fucking shit honestly, I've left doctors over that.
Yes, I know I need to quit smoking, but that's an entirely separate issue from whatever the fuck is causing my foot to swell up like a balloon
I know what you say is true in your case.
But it is unfortunatly not that uncommon that people have to amputate a leg or 2 due to complications from smoking.
Fuck off.
Sounds like you need a poop transplant
...... I mean, have you tried diet, exercise, and sleeping more? For more than a week or two?
Outside of a drama TV show where a 1 in a billion case shows up once a week, that's usually a good start.
Not sure if you're in community with many women or POC that feel comfortable speaking to you about these things, but VERY basic issues aren't even being looked into. PCOS and cancer are two common ones. Things can vary place to place, but it seems like a pretty universal experience in my circles.
I mean I'm not a woman or PoC and I still get that same advice from doctors.
And as someone that's worked in healthcare before, a lot, if not most, of what people go to doctors for is trivial or psychosomatic, so if they did a full range of tests for everyone that says they get headaches, then people with genuine conditions would be in an even worse place as they need to wait for resources to free up.
I did not say that only women or PoC get this suggestion, just that it's common for their issues to be dismissed. I don't know your personal medical history, but sometimes it is just that people need better diet and exercise. That does apply to women and PoC too. It's possible that advice is or is not salient to your health, but I can speak from personal experience that it is used to dismiss life threatening conditions.
I don’t know where you live, but 1/3 of Americans don't have a primary care physician and almost half of Americans didn't get medical treatment due to costs in 2022 from a cursory search. This is not a population that can afford frivolous medical visits. I don't know where in the medical field you worked, but your assertion does not seem evidence based. That may well be your personal experience, but that is subject to so many biases and if you were not giving people a full range of tests, how could you even know you weren't turning away legitimately sick people. Maybe the medical field was not right for you if you truly believe it's possible that most issues people seek treatment for are trivial or psychosomatic.
That is a very good point.
Appreciate your willingness to see things from another perspective and update your thoughts based on that.
Fun fact, both pcos and cancer have strong links to obesity as a major aggravating factor.
Then they should potentially be even more likely to be correctly diagnosed in people that are overweight. Having issues exacerbated by your weight does not mean that your weight is the issue. Additionally, PCOS and cancer can both cause weight issues, so it's even less helpful to suggest that the weight is the issue if the weight could be caused by an underlying disease.
I did, it made my condition worse, thanks.
I sincerely doubt that, but if you'd like to elaborate I'll listen.
They made a top level comment about a previously-unknown heart defect. Diet and exercise doesn't fix a hole in the heart
Did they post anything to support that claim?
Diet and exercise can fix most "holes in the heart". Even if they are the 0.01%, that doesn't change my message for every single other person.
My previous misdiagnosis put me on meds that hid my symptoms and covid had my doctor's office telling us that if we had no concerns, to not come in. By the time my symptoms began to show even with the meds, my heart was the size of a football (gridiron football, not association football) and required a transplant. Any increased effort made me nearly pass out.
I get where you're coming from, MOST OF THE TIME diet and exercise are better than not. My circumstances were pretty atypical too, but lets not act like telling anyone that walks into a hospital just needs to jog their ailments away is the way to go. A lot of doctors would do well to try just a little harder, it likely would have saved me from needing to wait for another person to die to be able to continue to live.
I'm very sorry that happened to you. My problem was with your phrasing. As I'm sure you know: eating better, working out, and sleeping more did not make your condition worse. I interpreted that as what you claimed.
You were a victim of malpractice and negligence, not living a more healthy life.
Yeah, I know that. I just bristle at the thought of being told to lose weight instead of actually getting the help I needed. I don't ACTUALLY think that stuff made me worse off. It was mostly the look on the doctor's face when I told him I WAS working out and eating better, and he laughed in my face because I was gaining weight. Too bad I was retaining fluids... There's a lot more to the story, but I don't care to get into it.
Can you tell I'm a bit salty? Sorry for the trauma dump.
What do you want, their medical records? Their doctor's phone number?
I have a PDF of all of the paperwork. I won't be sharing, of course, but I have it.
No worries, I believe you. I don't have any reason not to. I'm also dealing with major health issues, so I hope you have found solutions that work for you.
Yes, if someone claimed that diet, exercise, and such had actively harmed them, I would want medical records to back that up.
That wasn't what happened, and I understand that now.
Why should anyone show you their private medical records? Who do you think you are?
I was going to warn you not to engage with this guy, but I can see it's already too late.
I don't know what their situation is like, but with ME/CFS, for example, anything more than light exercises will actively make things worse: https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Exercise
My, at the time unknown, genetic heart defect was treated with "lose weight, fatty."
My, at the time unknown degenerative collagen coding defect was also treated as "lose weight fatty", I lost weight, without even trying, because it turns out collagen is an important tissue structure in a functional digestive system. I lost weight too fast, I lost a lot of lean muscle as well as fat.
Turns out muscle is important for holding your joints together if you don't have quality collagen to do that job.
Suddenly the real cause of my symptoms was evident, but I never got an apology for years of misdiagnosis and being blamed for my own illness.
Fun fact, one of the many things I was told to do as part of proper treatment was gain weight! (albeit, muscle weight)
Now I'm starting to get cardiopulmonary symptoms, which makes sense, your heart and lungs also have collagen. I don't have a specialist at the moment, and recently had to find a new GP because my old GP said I need to "exercise more" to prevent my new symptoms... Even though my physical therapist says my level of activity is more than enough and if my lungs aren't physically structured properly, no amount of cardio workouts will help me breathe properly.
I actually know people who died because they had cancer, but the doctor kept refusing to do actual examinations and just said "Oh uhh... just get more potassium or something..."
Not bothering to look further until it was too late.. It's very sad
Binging Chubbyemu vids last night sure makes it seem like that's not exactly true... There are far too many that begin with "presenting to the ER visibly fucked, the doctor just tells them it's anxiety and to stop being a little bitch about it. But it wasn't anxiety and they were not, in fact, a little bitch."
You forgot the inflection. "Pre👆🏻SENting to the emergency room...."
Sleeping more isn’t always possible, but if you haven’t tried diet and exercise, that should be your first move.
People think that question is not taking their disease seriously, but it’s the other way around. People don’t take diet and exercise seriously enough. They’re ultra powerful determiners of health, including mental health.
I am not doing well at all healthwise due to a now possibly diagnosed illness. A few weeks ago, I was at the Mayo Clinic, one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country for rare illnesses, the sort of place you would expect House to work.
I was there ten days and saw three doctors for about an hour each. As I said, it's now possibly diagnosed and, therefore, there's a possible route to go down, but that and a bill were all I got.
I bet those lazy doctors didn't even break into your house and go through your things.
We have a big dog. Probably scared off the Australian guy.
Nah probably had a great time hanging with the dog and forgot about the mission.
My dog really, really hates any man that isn't me, so that's doubtful, and I didn't find bits of Australian all over the floor.
That's generally all House's patients get
It's probably lupus anyway.
Just the one time, I think.
Yep
It's never lupus!
"Let's do some imaging on you that will cost you hundreds of dollars and pay me thousands"
Alternatively
"Have you considered that you're faking it?"
Most of his patients are transferred to him because the original doctor did all they knew how, it's either Goto House or try some ginseng in your tea.
Good luck finding doctors bold enough to admit they have no idea and need help...
That is the job of general practitioner. Solve the issues with easy solutions and diagnosis. Send everything else to a specialist.
He took patients based on personal interest. The only way to get to his team was to have symptoms intersting enough to get his attention.
Bit of an ignorant take honestly. US medical system is horrible but we absolutely have some of the finest and most advanced teaching hospitals and medical research centers in the world if you're fortunate enough to end up in their care. Mayo clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General, UCLA Health, UC Davis Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Medical Center, Mount Sinai Hospital, the list goes on.
House MD takes place in a fictitious teaching hospital in Princeton, NJ, of Princeton University fame. It is an extremely wealthy area and the reputation and prestige of the hospital is going to be far more important than what the patient can pay.
Also though, no hospital can legally refuse care if you aren't stable, they might just not do much for you other than stabilize you enough to discharge you so you can die somewhere else.
It was never presented as representing a typical patient experience.
He did have quite a few patients who very, very clearly couldn't afford what a hospital would charge to put up with his bullshit.
It was in many ways an idealized teaching hospital. A lot of episodes had "C" plots about House's shenanigans in the free clinic.
See my post above about the Mayo Clinic. I recently got back from there. House it was not.
I was treated at Stanford. Same here. Our system sucks donkey nuts
There are a bunch of House, MD scenes where he's doing boring consults and we get the "Stop eating shellfish if you're allergic to shellfish" bits and gags.
I had, probably still have, a weird medical 'condition' that US military doctors and British doctors couldn't figure out. Would have been neat to have a team of smarty pants working on the case.
At least in the US they exist. They're called functional medicine doctors. They'll charge a ton and they don't accept insurance, but they'll typically keep at your issue until they figure out what it is and have some sort of treatment recommendations.
It's far from only in the US. In my experience, hospitals in Germany are far worse in this regard. It depends greatly on who is getting paid how much for what. The US is far better for this, but unfortunately it is not affordable for most.
Imo, you're dead wrong. Doctors in the US have no incentive to actually cure anything. They spend minimal time with patients and try to cram as many appointments into a day as possible. I'm the type of person that only goes to the Dr if there's something seriously wrong. I had an ear issue. Took 3 months to see an ENT after multiple failed urgent care visits and an ER visit. The audiologist (not even the Dr) is the one who pointed out I had something clogging my ear canal after multiple Drs and PAs said it was fine. She thankfully got the Dr to pull out a big ole wad of dead skin and wax. Dr says it was likely infected at some point, and my ear made all that dead skin, and that caused that. Have a follow up appointment scheduled which he said I could cancel if the pain went away. The pain went away temporarily, but came back. Follow up is with a completely different dude, and he tells me my ear is fine, and I need to see someone about "pain management". It's very clearly not fine because I'm still seeing you doc. I don't need 600 mg ibuprofen tablets, I need my ear to not hurt.
My theory is that either the ear is still infected, and the drops I had weren't penetrating the ear canal due to the big ole wad that was blocking my ear, or there's still a bit more wad blocking the ear that they need to pull out. I'm ready to self prescribe my old eardrops which I still have leftover to see if it works.
Doctors in the US love to kick the can down the road. "Oh, I couldn't possibly diagnose that, you need to see a specialist. Let me give you a referral." Then you see the next dickhead who says oh actually u need this other specialist, let me give you a referral.
I'm not in some podunk town either. This is a world renowned hospital I'm talking about. Our healthcare system in the US is absolute ass.
Sorry about your ear problems. That sounds bad and a terrible thing to live with.
The US heathcare systems have many problems as you pointed out. I also am well aware of them as I lived there for 30 years both with and without insurance. The only thing that I can give is my lived experience in both systems. The problems that you pointed out among many others exist in most health care systems globally. Despite and including these problems in my experience the US still gives better care. That may be hard to hear (no pun intended) but the grass is not always greener.
Now don't get me wrong. I prefer the system here in Germany but not because it's better, but because it is available to everyone. People here don't go bankrupt with medical debt like in the US.
YMMV. American doctors are an absolute crap shoot in terms of expertise and bedside manner. For any kind of surgery, you really need to shop around and interview and get referrals, because there's a real chance you end up with a guy who has half a dozen lawsuits pending for malpractice if you're not careful.
True - but this is also true everywhere I have been too.
I have alopecia and every dermatologist I visited was either unwilling or unable to help me. It sucks to be a Kassenpatient
I assume that you are german? I have experienced similar here with dermatologists but for allergies. I went to 4 different allergists over a 8 month period to simply get tested to be able to get an epipen which could potentially save my life. This in the US took one next day visit with a doctor. Later (in the US) I saw specialists that put a lot of research into my allergies and time and attention into it. I got nothing here in Germany.
As mentioned before, despite this, I would rather support the german system though. It has its problems like everywhere, but it is at least available to everyone at more affordable prices.
Yes, I am.
I was in all three healthcare systems, the Army's freie Heilsfürsorge, private insured as a child over my dad and now with statutory health insurance and let me tell you, the differences are jarring.
10% of my wage before taxes go away for my health insurance and all I get are doctors and specialist who don't care and do the absolute bare minimum for me. Of course I'm complaining on a higher level but it's fucked nonetheless.
I have often wondered about the private insurance (not that I can afford it). I've only been on AOK I can only assume that the care is much much better with private insurance?
I only know private insurance is more expensive, has shorter waiting times and better care but can only be done if you're a public servant or have an income above a certain treshold. Also private insurance can say no and it's very difficult to go back to statutory health insurance from private insurance.
I mean its like being in tech support. Losing weight and not eating shit is the equivalent of "Have you tried turning it off and on again" it should be obvious but its not.
And sadly, it doesn't solve all problems. But it's a good place to start.
Which is a lazy response when actually trying to troubleshoot.
No, it is important to check the easy outs. If you act like the issue is solved or communicate the expectation you can be a harmful dick though.
Cost money/time to cure people. Cheaper to just manage conditions.
Tell that to the doctor that said I had a blocked salivary gland and to "just suck on some sour candy". I had a tooth abscess (I even told the doctor that) and ended up in the ER for nearly a week. Costed insurance 28 thousand dollars for a procedure that normally costs a couple hundred at most (tooth pull).
Would a doctor do a tooth pull, or a dentist? I don't think it's a reasonable expectation to expect a doctor to pull a tooth, but instead a dentist would do so.
Also, one thing you have to realize is that they don't look at the cost just at the atomic per incident level, but they look at it through the whole life of the customer/patient.
They play the odds, and they do literal risk management, when deciding how to spend money and when to spend money, specially for big money spending like operations.
So in your case it might have been a matter of a risk management decision, of the odds of you getting better without having to have the tooth pulled and spending the money to do so would be good, but you just got unlucky.
I was even thinking of deleting my previous comment because I figured someone would try to explain how my awful experience was normal and justified from the perspective of doctors/insurance, but I left it, and here we are. Go figure. I gave you the summary. There's some important context left out, but I didn't wanna write a book, so maybe just understand that people aren't putting their whole life story into each and every comment.
There was no risk management involved, just shitty doctors, and shitty insurance companies. I went to urgent care, then a dentist, then urgent care again. Every time explaining that I had a bad tooth, was eating, cracked it, and was in immense pain since that point, with swelling to follow. None of them gave a shit, no referrals, no antibiotics, nothing. I got in with an oral surgeon without a referral, only because my mom knows that guy, and he told me to immediately go to the ER where he personally would come pull my tooth.
Is that enough context for you? Or do I need to continue justifying my experience like I had to with my doctors in this exact story?
I'm aware, but you can only have a conversation based on what's actually said, or in this case, written.
The shitty insurance company does risk management.
I'm truly glad to hear that you got treated.
My point was never to excuse bad doctoring, or to challenge your story, but just to say that medical insurance companies don't just look holistically at the patients well being, when deciding what to spend on. There's factors, including business factors, that they look as well. Their top priority is not to heal, but to manage. Healing is a bonus for them.
And yes, there's idiot doctors out there. Trust me, I know. I have one of them in my network.
In fairness, they're the last reaort, so would happen after the "have you tried meditation?" Doesn't work.
The reality is this varies highly not just by individual doctor but by doctor group.
And whether or not they’re willing to consult a specialist while you’re in a hospital.
Spoiler: they lose money if they do this because only so much is available to be paid out for each patient. Second spoiler: sometimes seeing a specialist while hospitalized means getting transferred 100+ miles away to another hospital because that hospital doesn’t have any of that specialist available. Third spoiler: Level 1 hospitals are few and far between (they have everything).
Spoiler: having to see said specialist is likely out of network and therefore not covered by your insurance, leaving you with a massive bill.
"That'll be $200, please."
Here’s the zero you’re missing: 0
I found the other missing zero: 0
Those are 1990s numbers (yes, really). Now, add a zero and some change.
I think my visit seeking prophylactics when I was exposed to HIV (and the doctor just said, "nah, don't worry about it, I'm not prescribing you") was $1500 for the doctor, $1500 to the hospital... God damn that was a shock.
That’s the other fun part. Hospital bill is separate from doctor bill. And often, lab/histology bill.
Eight years of school plus residency for this?
Yeah but that doesn't cure Lupus
Good thing it is never Lupus
hospitals in italy are like this too
this vexes me
In Canada they just skip that entirely and go straight to "kys lol"