Meet Web Hypochondriacs 587
prostoalex writes "When Jerome K. Jerome in 1889 described going to the British Museum to read medical encyclopedia and subsequently finding symptoms of almost all diseases in his body, he didn't realize the problem would exacerbate more than a century later. Web hypochondriacs are calling up doctors with requests for prescriptions for all sorts of diseases, since they discovered some similar symptoms on the Web. Wall Street Journal quotes a doctor: 'My impression is that people believe more of what they read than what I tell them. It seems that traditional Western medicine based on scientific evidence is less and less trusted by the general public. Meanwhile, some dubious theory from the Internet will be swallowed hook, line and sinker nine times out of 10.' "
OMG! (Score:5, Funny)
I hope there's a cure...
Because Big Business is Bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Luke
----
Don't let your family be ignorant any more, send them to ChristianNerds.com [christiannerds.com] (The Free Online Computer Encyclopedia)
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally? I don't trust any of them. From the summary:
It seems that traditional Western medicine based on scientific evidence is less and less trusted by the general public.
Is this the same scientific evidence that said "Margarine is good", "Eggs are bad", and
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a valid point to some extent, but much of what you're talking about doesn't come from the scientific medical establishment - it comes from agenda-driven groups, corporate shills, and govenrment administrations who buy their propoganda. For example, actual medical science indicates that obesity isn't particularly unhealthy. Inactivity, which often accomponies obesity, IS quite unhealthy. But if you get a reasonable amount of exercise, your health isn't likely to suffer from carrying extra pounds until you reach extreme limits, well past what is specified as being obese. In fact, you're likely to suffer fewer problems from being overweight than you are from being underweight. So why is there so much talk about the "obesity epedemic" in America? Because there's a multi-billion dollar diet and diet food industry out there that wants to sustain itself, and it pours lots and lots of money into advertising and propoganda. There have been lots of studies which do not control for inactivity. Those studies show a corelation between being overweight and health problems, and assume a cause and effect, when the real cause is the underlying inactivity. But the flawed studies are still being used to support the "obesity will kill you" claim. There are lots of honest, well-meaning, but misinformed people who really believe that obesity will kill you (hell, everybody knows it, right?) and they're interested in helping save your life.
What does the science tell you about your health and your weight? If you're interested in your health, throw out the scale. DON'T go on a diet but do pay a bit of attention to what you eat. Try to get a few vegetables in your system in between the Big Macs and the beer brats. But most importantly, get your ass up off the couch and get a bit of exercise. If it trims you down a bit, great. If not, don't worry about it. It ain't that big a deal. But that's not what the nutritionist and the diet industry tell you, and their voice is much louder than the actual science.
So please don't confuse medical science with the medical establishment or with the various government guides. They aren't the same thing at all.
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Your point on exercise is important, though. The people that I've seen that are generally in shape are those that are willing to put in even a little bit of effort, even if they eat too much. There's no need to do an hour on a treadmill and a dozen laps in the Olympic pool; sometimes it's just as simple as taking the 20 minute walk instead of the ten-minute drive (people in the city know this one) or playing in the pool for a little while a few times a week. If you can learn to fidget, this may also help, as the extreme end of this can actually handle a few hundred calories a day, but if you have touchy coworkers, this may not be the best option.
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy to blame the "corporate shills", but the examples I mentioned (with margarine, perhaps, being the only exception) are really what medical science preached. There didn't use to be any differentiation between "good cholesterol" and "bad cholesterol". Nor was the Food Pyramid built by corporations. (If it was, you can be certain that it would tell you to get your daily
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they never said anything of the sort. YOU, as the general population, took what they DID say and made 3-word sentences out of it because that's all you're capable of understanding.
Medical science is usually very fair about what they know and don't know, it's what happens when the information gets out into the uneducated masses that it changes into some degenerate version of itself.
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:3, Interesting)
You've got to be kidding. You think DOCTORS have fads of the week??? Jesus H., just take a look at all the people who AREN'T doctors and then you'll see real fads in action.
There's a saying (taken from an old SF writer) that 90% of what you read on the internet is crap. When it comes to health care, 99% of what you read on the internet is crap primarily because the people spewing it around in one big technicolor yawn don't have the first fucking cl
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Are we talking about the same medical science that eradicated [utoronto.ca] smallpox (a sickness that killed up to 40% of the afflicted and caused the death of about 2 million [wikipedia.org] people in only in the year 1967)? The same medicine that reduced the cases of polio in the world from 350000 in 1988 [wikipedia.org] to 759 in 2005 [polioeradication.org] (till now)?
I'm sorry, but your complaints about margarine and/or eggs don't
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Because Big Business is Bad (Score:5, Informative)
If you have alot of lower back pain but aren't fat, try drinking water ONLY for a few weeks.
Two meanings for this:
1. Go on a fasting diet where you don't eat food but do drink liquids;
2. Drink more water (several more glasses per day) to your normal diet;
The first concept, fasting, is of dubious value. BUT: According to the CRON diet [google.com] people, and peer-reviewed research into longevity, the ONLY known way to extend the lifespan of a mouse is to reduce their available caloric intake while maintaining a proper nutritional diet. This forces the metabolism into a maintenance-mode (instead of growth-mode) so all energies are put into repairing cellular damage and decay. This method is proven to work in many animals, but is
Sure, you'll be healthy and feel great, but you'll also feel really hungry. Not sure I like the option.
The second is a reasonable response to your kidneys complaining; flush them out and keep them flushed for a bit, but don't go overboard, too much water can really put a strain on your kindeys, too, and in extreme cases (several gallons per day for many days straight) can be toxic, since your body loses electrolytes, and (b) cannot eliminate that much water.
If you constantly crave a certain type of food, whatever is in it may be lacking in your body.
Very true, but misleading. Doughnuts do not apply. If you crave carrots or broccoli or salt, this might mean you need these things or the nutrients they contain. If you crave Ho-Ho's, your body is just being gluttenous.
Re:OMG! (Score:4, Funny)
No, I swear. (Score:2, Funny)
The Web (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Web (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Web (Score:2)
Re:The Web (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry, but without proper citation, how can I know that your claim is true?
Re:The Web (Score:3, Funny)
I agree. I doubt very much there really are web hypochondriacs. Only the truly gullible will believe this article.
Re:The Web (Score:2, Funny)
Or maybe it's your post that only the gullible believe? Hmm... who to believe...?
Re:The Web (Score:2)
Re:The Web (Score:2)
It's not the web. It's people that create a lot of false information. Poeple have been believing them for centuries. The Internet just gives people a place to publish whatever idea they want, regardless of if it's true, to the world.
The multitudes (Score:2)
Re:The multitudes (Score:4, Insightful)
Technology has advanced, our ability to create cures has advanced, our desire for a quick fix to our ailments (be that illness, or lack of money, or lack of knowledge, or boredom, or whatever else ails us) is the same as it ever was..
Re:The multitudes (Score:4, Insightful)
This view of mental health that is invasive in our country, especially invasive in the conservative ditto head culture in our country, is perplexing to me.
My wife had gall stones and had to have her gall bladder removed. Do you doubt the validity of her medical condition?
My mother has hyperthyroidism, and has had to take a pill every day of her life since she was a teenager (and was diagnosed). Do you doubt the validity of her medical condition?
I often get the shingles, a recurrence of the Chicken Pox virus along one nerve bundle that results in a large crusty oozing rash along a thin band around one half of my body. Do you doubt the validity of my medical condition?
My friend had appendicitis and had to be rushed to the hospital to have his appendix removed. Do you doubt the validity of his medical condition?
If all of these conditions are medically valid, why is it so hard to believe that the brain, simply another organ in our body, like our thyroid, our gall bladder, our nerves, our appendix, our heart, or any other organ, is capable of being stricken ill? I doubt you would tell your friend with intense abdominal pain, or your father with shortness of breath and chest pains, that they were just imagining a condition to avoid accountability and that they are just making excuses.
Why do we look down on people with illnesses of the brain and not people with broken arms or heart disease or any other illness? The human organism is not perfect, sometimes the pieces of the puzzle that make us tick don't work the correct way. For some reason we've decided to single out a certain group, those with mental illness, and decide they are weak, while the ones with other ailments are perfectly fine.
Re:The multitudes (Score:4, Insightful)
The other side of the coin is that society is putting people in a position where any deviation from the personality norm will result in a reduction in quality of life, from causing someone to not be considered a "team player" at the office, to being harassed by people in their leisure time because they are different.
A brief history of Medicine (Score:5, Funny)
1000 AD: That root is for a heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 AD: That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1940 AD: That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1985 AD: That pill is ineffective. Here take this antibiotic.
2000 AD: That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root.
2005 AD: That root works! Read about it on my blog!
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:2)
It does work! I tried rooting my wife, but I just couldn't get it up. So I went down to the corner and hired a seamstress, that root worked! You can read about it on my blog for more details at http://www.omfgwtfbbq.com.au/ [omfgwtfbbq.com.au]
It's from bash.org (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
And in my opinion, there are two things that lead to better health:
1. Eat good food. I'm definitely as guilty as the rest (probably more so since I TRULY know better) that having the fresh vegetables, cutting back on starches and excess red meat is just better for you and your body will tell you so every morning you wake up from a single day of eating well. Don't believe me? Just for ONE DAY eat some soup and salad staying away from stuff with dairy and such. Just one day and see how you feel in the morning. If you still feel like crap I'll admit that I'm wrong.
2. Don't be "TOO CLEAN." If you don't exercise, you will become weak and slow. If your immune system isn't kept busy, it will also become weak and slow. I see people go to great lengths to avoid this and that only to be stricken down by the most simple of viruses or bacteria. Quit taking freakin' anti-biotics and let your own immune system handle stuff (when possible). (I'll never forget how a sister-in-law proclaimed my sons needed anti-biotics because the had sniffles. It's insanity.) I still can't remember the last time I've actually been "sick." Had a minor reaction from some KFC recently but that's about it. You don't have to be disgusting about it, but resist doing too much and leave the "anti-bacterial soap" on the store shelves -- you don't need it!
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:3, Funny)
Also, I think it is highly irresponsible on your part to suggest to
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a little appendum, always wash your hands after using the bathroom including between your fingers, and up to your elbows after no. 2. Also, do use the anti-bacterial soap when you ARE sick, it will work better if you didn't use it before you were sick.
It's not because not doing it is gross, nor is it for keeping you healthy, it is for the health of the people you interact with. Hand and bandage washing is what extended lifespan in the 19th and early 20th century. It has had an impact comparable to the discovery of anti-biotics in the mid-20th century.
Oh, a bit offtopic, wash your fruit and veggies with a mild solution of soap, the soap removes waxy anti-fungals and anti-insect poisons. The poisons won't kill you (well they shouldn't), but the fruits will taste better. The poisons have a bitter taste, most noticable on sweets such as apples and strawberries.
Re:A brief history of Medicine (Score:3, Funny)
Funny but sadly insightful (Score:3, Insightful)
Just have a look at all those totally supersticious claim and alternative medicine : homeopathy, colorotherapy, herbotherapy, crytsllotherapy, fengshui... Indeed we are in a demon haunted world [amazon.com].
I think education is the only answer, but how can you educate people when
Re:Funny but sadly insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
I do have problems with the way drug companies have been allowed to operate, and to essentially bypass the family doctor by directly marketing to the public. But, at the end of the day, science has given us medicines and therapies that actually work, as opposed to superstitious mumbojumbo mixed with some really scientific sounding words. I'm not saying that all "alternative" therapies are bunk, but if they're not put through double-blind studies, then how the hell can anybody actually say?
Re:Funny but sadly insightful (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll stop there. Ok, so I won't.
The ailment is called "hypochondria". A person who has it is called a "hypochondriac".
"Hypochondriacism" would be worship of hypochondriacs.
I'll assume that the other misspellings and such are the product of typographical errors. As for what I can infer is the point of your post, that bad medicine causes hypochondria, you're just wrong.
You can't cure hypochondria through education. A hypochondriac has a specific ne
Too true (Score:3, Funny)
E-mail? (Score:4, Funny)
I've got some e-mails about getting their pills if the doctor won't prescribe it.
It is usually because of the price. (Score:2)
No, it is usually paranoia (Score:2)
Her problem is she has a couple of very real health problems that require her to take some serious drugs with some nasty side effects. However, she has a nasty
Re:It is usually because of the price. (Score:2)
I know people like this (Score:2)
AIEEEEEEEEE
Online database (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Online database (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Online database (Score:3, Informative)
But Duct Tape cures warts! (Score:2)
Duct Tape, the savoir of mankind, can do anything it puts its mind to. First and foremost, it can cure plantar warts! Hooray.
Darn (Score:2, Funny)
On the flip side (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:On the flip side (Score:2)
A doctor can only do so much with the information given, and out of embarassment, a lot of people don't provide all the details they really should (like that extra little pain in your abdomen that is probabl
Re:On the flip side (Score:3, Insightful)
That's my experience as well. After 4 years of regular college and 4 years of memorization, doctors are given almost godlike esteem with little to no evidence of them deserving their godlike aura (asid
I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Who listens to doctors? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course! Because you're telling them things like "Stop smoking, don't drink so much, cut down the fat, get some excersize, brush your teeth and watch your diet". Who the hell wants to hear that? Websites aren't so much interested in your health as they are in getting ad impresions, so they probably aren't going to preach.
On the internet no one knows you're a fat lazy bastard with bad habits. [but if I were a betting man, that's where I'd put my money]
Re:Who listens to doctors? (Score:4, Insightful)
And part of the reason for that is that a doctor will talk to you for 2 minutes (or maybe just have his secretary talk to you on the phone, take notes, and call you back) and diagnose you. You, on the other hand, have spend hours looking into what might be wrong with you.
I've had exactly that happen. I was on anti-biotics for 20 days (two treatments) when the real problem was allergies. Going in and seeing someone led to a proper diagnosis. A lot of people are fed up with doctors, and not always for bad reasons.
Re:Who listens to doctors? (Score:4, Informative)
The strange thing is that doctor was at a walk in insta med clinic!
HMO's -You get what you pay for (Score:4, Informative)
Will hiring more MDs fix the problem- NO! because DOctors are typically working all the time -getting calls from hypochondriacs, and from people who are actually sick. Familly practice and Pediatricians are about the lowest paid MDs around and they start around $80k in Kalifornia - and that's for working around 70 hours a week.
Lesson is if you want a better service - you need to pay for it.
Re:Yeah, but doctors don't listen either... (Score:3, Funny)
The good ol' USA. Now don't question me again or I'll invade your country or steal your reality TV shows. ;)
My wife is like this... (Score:5, Funny)
The funniest thing is that my wife is a doctor.
Re:My wife is like this... (Score:2)
Re:My wife is like this... (Score:5, Funny)
3rd Leading Cause of Death... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.healingdaily.com/Doctors-Are-The-Third
This article is a little extreme. Almost half are due to unforseeable drug effects. But still, a good reason to doubt your doctor.
Re:3rd Leading Cause of Death... (Score:5, Interesting)
This article also fails to mention that the reason some causes of death dropped in the list is BECAUSE of medical care's improvements.
Now, does this mean we don't try to improve medicine further to reduce the mistakes? Of course not. But articles like these seem to suggest that we don't visit our doctor. That is dangerous and irresponsible.
Re:3rd Leading Cause of Death... (Score:2)
People that are in careers just for the money has got to be the biggest cause of the lack of quality we see in almost everything today.
Re:3rd Leading Cause of Death... (Score:3, Insightful)
Aspergers? (Score:2)
The flip side (Score:2, Informative)
do i have this? (Score:2, Funny)
paranoid + non-technical = headache.
Remedy (Score:2, Interesting)
While the statement looks to be true on surface, a friend of mine had a life changing experience after reading a theory.
He played basketball in college and had some knee problems that eventually prohibited him from continuing to play. He was getting physiotherapy done but it was only a temporary relief. The doctors that he went to basically said that he might have to live with that. So, out of
hook, line and sinker (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. I have many relatives who are online but not really technology savvy. Not a month goes by that I do not get CC'ed on some ridiculous email. I always go look it up on Snopes [snopes.com] and do a reply to all with a link the Snopes article discrediting it. The thing that really gets me though, is a couple of times a year I will get one of these from someone who knows better. When I call them on it, I usually get the same response, "Well I figured better safe than sorry." Some how they just do not understand that by forwarding unsubstantiated false information they are perpetuating the problem.
I've been banned from the Internet... (Score:2)
I went to him thinking I had angina. At 28. The symptoms: chest pain and dizziness. He told me I had pulled a chest muscle and had a wicked inner ear infection. And he told me I wasn't allowed to go look up my symptoms on-line anymore. And I agreed with him...any time I'd look at a medical site I'd get more and more nervous. Now that I don't I feel much better.
Feeling in Control (Score:5, Insightful)
The desire to feel in control is such a powerful drive that people will trade concrete benefits like money or expert advice for the mere illusion of control.
That.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I know what this is like... (Score:2)
But reading web sites and articles about hypochondria, especially with the advent of tons of medical information at your fingertips, has helped me.
The best quote I saw online about it was from a general practitioner, who had experience with patients com
People are Stupid? (Score:2)
After all, isn't this really about education? I mean, do you really fight something like smoking by ma
Doctors (Score:4, Insightful)
I end up going to web md or some other website to do research and deduce what my symptoms point to. It seems like doctors no longer take the time to assess symptoms and determine what is actually wrong, they just dispense a few prescriptions, sign some paperwork, and send the patient on their way. It's not wonder that people want to get more info than what the MD profession is offering.
Doctors arent always right you know... (Score:4, Interesting)
The solutions (Score:3, Funny)
Phew (Score:2)
this is it (Score:2)
With the carefull review of our dear editors and the amazing quality of stories submited I might simply stop seeing a doctor altogether.
And for the hypochondriacs out there, all the dupes will make sure we don't miss one single disease we might have.
Interesting, but not news (Score:2)
In psychology it's so bad, due to the nature of people and the subject, that every Abnormal Psychology book I've seen, and the class I took, starts with a warning abouth the syndrome [prenhall.com]; most psychological disorders are defined in rather normal terms, and at any moment, most of us have at least one symptom that shows up in the DSM. It's the confluence of multiple symptoms (usually) that persist and cause problems for the person that defines a true probl
Anxiety (Score:5, Funny)
I responded, "Quite frankly it makes me a little nervous."
This sums it up pretty well. (Score:2)
Why is this?
Why do people fall for 419 Scams? Why do people *let* spyware onto their machines? Why do people let the government walk over their rights
Sometimes it's a good idea (Score:2)
Depo Provera (Score:2)
I have the opposite problem (Score:2)
Trust is the reason. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the simple reason is that people don't trust their physicians anymore. Back in the Elder Days(tm) of Marcus Welby and so on, doctors took an interest in the health of their patients. A relationship was built over time. Finally, when the doc said, "You know, you need to go in and have surgery for this", a patient would do so without thinking twice because of the relationship and the longstanding trust between them.
Now, due to the way that doctors have to practice medicine (if they don't want to lose their shirts), they don't have a choice. 15 minutes in and out. No time to get to know their patients, no time to listen to the little old lady that just needs someone to talk to, no time to do anything but write a prescription and go on to the next patient. Now, when a doctor says, "That article on the internet is full of crap, you need surgery," people ask, "Why should I trust you? I don't know you."
If that doctor REALLY wants to know why people would believe an apocryphal story on the internet rather than him, he needs to look at the type of medicine he's practicing.
Note: This is not to blame him. Generally, with the reimbursement rates he's getting from the insurance plans with which he is signed, he is very limited in the amount of time he can spend with a patient. But the point remains: Speaking for myself, if someone wants to practice medicine on me, I have to trust them first. They've got lots of patients, but I only have one body. And the piece of paper on the wall saying M.D. only goes so far in building that trust.
Sign in a Doctor's Waiting Room (Score:3, Funny)
"Patients are asked to not discuss or compare symptoms in the waiting room. It confuses the doctors."
Why is it that doctors aren't trusted? (Score:2)
Am I supposed to be impressed when they spend less than 30 seconds on a diagnosis, and then run off to see their next patient? I suppose this allows them to see some HMO dictated requisite number of patients in a given day.
The problem with the doctors of today is the same as the problem with programmers in the mid 90's, the field is loaded with hacks looking for money. When you find someone who's in it for the love of it, you've
Wonder why.... (Score:3, Interesting)
My Mother, 50 and a government employee, pays in excess of $500 per month for medical insurance.
While my Mother has had extensive medical problems, my Father hasn't even had a cold in almost 20 years. Let alone been to the doctor for anything other then checkups and physicals.
Please, tell me why I should trust a medical system that costs more then the lease on my fucking BMW?
Insurance companies charge insane premiums because doctors and hospitals charge insane rates. Doctors and hospitals claim they charge insane rates because of malpractice suits, etc etc..
But it all boils down to one simple fact: In the United States medical care is overpriced.
My son was sick, in Rogers, Arkansas, and we waited FOUR HOURS in the emergency room for a TWO YEAR OLD CHILD to be cared for. Why? Because the doctors were all busy. With what? NO ONE ELSE WAS THERE FOR FOUR HOURS! How much did that cost? $800. $800 to sit there waiting for four hours to get 20 minutes with a doctor.
More simply put: People don't trust you because you don't DESERVE to be trusted.
Here's a fancy example of Doctors being the wonderful men that they are: When I was sixteen I was in a car accident. My back was broke in three places. It took me NINE MONTHS to find a doctor who would treat me. Multiple times I was told by doctors that they do not see patients whos injuries are the subject of current litigation. (IE because I was suing the woman who hit me going in excess of 100mph I was going to be refused medical treatment)
I have no respect for Doctors. I think almost all of them are cowards, liars, and theives. It's no wonder why people have a hard time accepting a Doctors word for truth -- as all to often the Doctor is wrong; though no doubt I have yet to meet a Doctor who doesn't have a holier than thou "I can't be wrong I'm better than everyone else" attitude.
In my opinion, Doctors do nothing but steal from the lower classes in a large orchestrated insurance scam. Doctors scam the insurance companies, insurance companies scam the middle and lower classes.
Illegal immigrants all get free medical treatment and we all pay for it with higher taxes.
It's just FUN ALL AROUND!
Flip side (Score:5, Insightful)
Another one (here in the UK) has been where someone is told that there is nothing that can be done for some problem only for them to find out using the web that something can be done about it (usually in another country).
A good example is this story [bbc.co.uk] about a baby born with a deformed head who was wrongly told that nothing was wrong and to live with the deformity. Thankfully, in the next four months the baby will be fine.
Not that I'm suggesting that all doctors get it wrong but once in a while the web has been a life-saver.
Munchausen Syndrome (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome [wikipedia.org]
"Munchausen syndrome is a form of psychological disorder known as a factitious disorder (the term "Munchausen syndrome" is sometimes used, incorrectly, to refer to any form of factitious disorder). Sufferers mimic real diseases, presenting a great problem to themselves and their healthcare professionals. The disorder is named after a literary figure, Baron Munchausen, a real person who was portrayed in fiction as a famous teller of tall tales."
My doctor (Score:3, Insightful)
I know that some doctors feel threatened by this but he actually likes it. He believes an open an cooperative approach can be beneficial for both doctors and patients.
I knew a woman like that. (Score:3, Funny)
She blew her credibility and any sympathy factor right out of the water when she called her mother in a twist and wailed about having prostate cancer.
Hypochondria is a hoot sometimes.
The Rise Of Mysticism (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, some B.S. seems to be slowly dying out - astrology and belief in space alien visitations, for example. But others seem absolutely rampant. We are awash in homeophathic medicine, claims of psychic powers, and on and on. And, yes, I include religion in this.
I guess rationality and empiricism just aren't cool these days. Perhaps people mistake skepticism with closed mindedness. Or perhaps, deep down, they just don't care whether what they believe is true or not.
Medicine is a business (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a sign of a much bigger problem, many people in the US cannot afford the cost of official medicine, they're trying to find less costly alternatives.
In other countries with more or less socialized medical care (of widely varying levels of efficiency), doctors and transnational companies are trying to force the governments to have "American style" medicine, that is a carefully controlled supply of doctors, (high) prices set by medical associations, exclusive regions, constant effort to legally marginalize alternative medicine, profit-oriented control of your medical history, legally mandated medical procedures, and the creation of new categories of sicknesses that require new costly, patented medicine.
So, maybe there is some reason in not fully trusting all doctor's advice and look for a second opinion.
Scientific diagnosis? (Score:5, Insightful)
While this may be true, I don't know what's scientific about a typical Doctor's diagnosis. It's just practice of an Art, based on experience. Typically, a Doctor will not setup an experiment and often, they won't even run any kind of instrumented test, they'll just ask you what symptoms you have, make some notes and make a diagnosis.
Doctor Supply/Demand (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in the pre-med track for 10 years, starting in junior high school, and the #1 lesson for everyone is that the system is designed to "weed out" most of the people who want to become doctors. The weeding isn't done on the basis of one's compassion, or one's committment to medical science, or even to one's skill at medical practice. In fact, those essential criteria aren't even in the game until college, or even med school. Along the way, it's just pure competition, mostly measuring how much abuse people will stand, from the program and from each other, before they quit. The system lets people study subjects that get relatively easier grades than do sciences, so they are more competitive numerically. In fact, practically everything that aspiring doctors must do to get into med school selects for people who just want to make a lot of money, are indifferent to the suffering of others (or who relish it), who discard curiosity and compassion in favor of absolute focus on the bottom line: protecting their time and money from any threat, including patients.
Sure, doctors have to deal with insurance (patient and malpractice, at each end) and other dehumanizing bureaucracies when they start to practice. But by then they're in the doctor supply, so it's only the prospect of that that inhibits "people people" from staying in the game. Not only does the med school track select for people ill suited to be "caregivers" (rather than mechanics or drug pushers), it just artificially reduces the supply of people trained to help other people's medical conditions. And of course our high-stress, high-pollution, bad-diet lives create ever more medical problems to treat. The combination supply/demand problem means not enough doctors to treat too many patients, driving up prices, and driving a wedge between the people who need some of the utmost intimacy to succeed in their relationship.
Doctors make a lot of money. Pharma and insurance companies make even more. It's practically all profit: the costs of running a doctor's practice are large only when counting their insurance, which is of course driven up by the supply/demand crisis. We should extract enough of those profits, especially from insurance and pharma companies, to double or triple the number of doctors. We should expand medical schools across the country. Require the top 20% of schools, which depend on public subsidies for their research (which they then sell for profit), to double the number of graduates they produce. We have at least that many people who want to be doctors, including foreigners who need retraining/recertification, that could change the supply picture within 5-10 years. And we should require every med student who receives government subsidies to relocate to an underserved community for at least as long as they were paid to go to school - usually at least 7 years. If they're going to cash in on socialist financing of their careers, the people should get what we pay for: more doctors for more people, not more golfers at Boston golf courses.
Re:Doctor Supply/Demand (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because... (Score:3, Interesting)
We also have a massive epidemic of medical prescriptions for supposed A.D.D. kids. Did anyone ever stop and think that the A.D.D. kids might just be... I don't know... normal bored kids? I used to day dream in class a lot because the subject matter sucked. But I wasn't sitting there totally spaced even though it looked it. I was doing circuit design in my head for various projects (robots to kill the school bullies, bombs to blow up teacher's cars that I didn't like, remote display systems so that I could gain access to computer systems remotely during dull history tests, etc...). Or when I was wandering all over the place during basketball games in gym class... that wasn't A.D.D. That was just that I hate sports and find competition to be an abrasive characteristic. Cooperative games, I was all into. (You know. The thing like taking the parachute and throwing it up as a group and huddling underneath it and then throwing it up again and siting outside of it. Now that's my idea of fun sports.)
Then we have the problem of big pharma pushing antibiotics without warning people that they should be replenishing their G.I. tract with probiotics lest other horrific diseases infest your body. I had a very personal experience with this. Horrible sinus infections every year since my teens. So... the cure? Antibiotics. Sure I was happy and I got better, but I didn't realize the damage that was being done. Every year the sinus infections got incrementally worse and I had to take longer and longer course of antibiotics. Finally when I was in my late 20s, I was prescribed a new (and very dangerous) antibiotic in the Quinolone family. It was called Levaquin. After the first few days of taking it, I had unbelievable depression. I told my doctor that I thought it might be caused by the Levaquin even though it makes no scientific sense since antibiotics are not psychoactive. He agreed and said, just keep taking them. I did, and it just got worse and worse. After the 14 days, it took me about two or three months to start feeling normal again.
The next year, I had a really bad infection but didn't want to feel that horrible depression again. I did some searches on the net and discovered that other people were reporting depression caused by Levaquin in various forums. So I realized I wasn't alone. Unfortunately, I still had the sinus infection and still wound up taking antibiotics, but I was able to tell my doctor to skip the Levaquin. (Levaquin is being pushed hard right now because it supposedly has fewer side effects than other antibiotics) This time around, I got a horrible skin rash that was extremely uncomfortable. Again 10-14 days of antibiotics. But this time two weeks after the course ended, the sinus infection came back. So I was on the meds again for another 14 day course. An entire summer ruined.
The next year, same thing... Horrible sinus infection even worse than the previous year. I wound up doing still more reseearch on the net and found some information on systemic yeast infections. The symptoms were identical to mine and the root cause in many cases appears to be antibiotics. Even more research revealed that the company that makes Levaquin finally acknowledged that Levaquin can cause depression and suicidal thoughts in "a small number" of patients. Sorry, but ANY number of people with depression or suicidal thought is too large.
I had experienced the suicidal thoughts myself, but it's not connected to depression. It's actually a lot like a safety mechanism gets switched off in the brain and you forget very basic things you should be aware of to keep safe. I almost took a drill to my head because
They do a DNA test for HPV (Score:2)
There are many strains of HPV. High Risk strains cause cervical cancer, and possibly prostate cancer too. They're STD-only, not like some other HPV strains. If the DNA test is positive, you're at risk... because if you don't have high risk
Re:Likewise for doctors ... (Score:2)
HPV is spread via genital contact.
The V stands for Virus. You want to debate whether a virus spread through genital contact is an STD or not?
Most people with HPV do not have any visible symptoms, therefore your suggestion that people just have symptoms similar to HPV but are being misdiagnosed does not make sense.