Doctors see lots of unhealthy people. Their patients are generally overweight, on long term medication, in pain and depressed. That is the nature of modern illness and that is what doctors perceive as ‘normal illness’. Unless, of course, you are a private doctor, whose clientele are likely to be in significantly better shape. If they weren’t they would not be able to afford your fees.
General Practice is the cross roads, if you have health insurance, you can go into the hallowed corridors of private health. Your healthy body can be pawed over by expensive doctors with children at private schools, checking out the minutiae of your metabolism. If you do not have insurance, preferring instead to rely on your status and social skills, taking your chances in the NHS, you are almost certainly doomed and shortly to discover that no one careas. The system has takes precedence over the patient.
Delays are built in, go for an Xray, wait for results, go for a blood test, wait for a result, go for a scan, wait for a result. Six months later you are likely to have:
1 – got better on your own,
2 – be addicted to painkillers or antidepressants
3 – be terminally ill with whatever was causing your symptoms
At every stage, the doctor says to you that everything is normal, that there is nothing wrong with you, until there is.
Doctors are surrounded by unhealthy patients with type II diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease and arthritis. You look healthy and therefore there is nothing wrong with you compared to every one else they see. Its not the doctor’s fault but their ‘norms’ are skewed.
Once upon a time, you would be given a course of antibiotics to make you go away, Overall a relatively harmless, short-term placebo. Nowadays you are likely to be given a prescription for painkillers, including heroin derivatives and non-steroidal antiinflammatorie, an antidepressant and/or omeprazole – drug that nominally acts on the stomach but actually affects most of the cells in your body. These prescriptions can be life long and hard to stop.
This is wrong
Technology is cheap. It detects conditions well before a fumbling doctor has tuned up his stethoscope. It is more reassuring to be assessed a bank of computer based tests than by a harassed wet-behind-the-ears medic with their own agenda, based on leaving work on time and making sure they are not ‘in trouble’ with their bosses.
A twenty first century health service has to put technology first. Get the scans, get the tests, then see a doctor – if you have continuing symptoms, or something abnormal is found. We are beyond the point of putting our lives in the hands of flawed individuals.
Top Tips
1 – Do your own research, check your symptoms and ask your friends, make an educated guess as to the problem
2 – Do you think it is serious? – then take it seriously and be determined to get the answer you are looking for
3 – Know what you want and make sure you get it. If you want a scan, ask for it, and keep asking until you get it. Technology detects most treatable conditions, if the results are normal, what ever you have can’t be helped by western medicine.
4 – Summarise your thoughts, and write them down before you see the doctor
5 – Be prepared to complain if you don’t get what you want or you are not satisfied with your treatment.
Normal test results do not mean nothing is wrong, rather that western medicine has no idea what is going on. The doctors aren’t holding out on you, they simply don’t know and harassing them at this stage is going to get you a bad reputation. If there is a test you want, and your doctor can’t get it done for you on the NHS, get it done at a private laboratory.
More reassuringly, if all your test results are normal, then whatever you have got cannot be treated by modern medicine and think about alternative or complementary therapies.
Modern health care is like owning a vintage car. You can leave it entirely to the experts but that is expensive. On the other hand, if you know the basics and do as much as you can yourself, shop around for the best quality assistance then just about anyone can keep the show on the road for another hundred years.
Disclaimer
There are a few good doctors out there, if you find one – you are very luck but most aren’t. It’s not their fault, they are working in a bad system with bad values. In this world you have to look after yourself.