Thursday, September 02, 2021

The Worrying State of Medicine

I spent about four hours today at a local Urgent Care facility. Without going into too much detail, the reason I had to do this was because the doctor's appointment I had scheduled for yesterday got canceled because my doctor got sent to cover ER shifts because of labor shortages in the medical industry. The immediate problem I was seeing her for is that my oxygen saturation levels, especially early in the morning, were getting worryingly low, and after starting a new medication I had gained six pounds in a single week, which could be seen as visible swelling in my legs. Since I was measuring my O2 levels with my own pulse/ox, I used the patient portal to say, “This is what I'm measuring. What should I do for the next two weeks before our rescheduled appointment?” Thus, today, I received a call where my doctor informed me I should go to the Urgent Care facility to get examined to make sure there wasn't anything major going on.

Now the fact that my primary doctor wasn't available for a scheduled appointment due to workplace shortages of medical professionals isn't the main focus here. It is certainly worrisome, but I think what might even be more so is the exchange I had with the doctor at the Urgent Care clinic. Since I wasn't getting enough oxygen and had obvious fluid retention from swelling, he ran a litany of tests on me including EKG and a chest X-Ray, even the universal COVID test, all of which came back as “good news” (thank God). But after he got the results back and he was explaining them to me, the doctor mentioned at one point that they'd had a little difficulty with one of the tests because my chest is so large. He then immediately said, “Not that I'm saying there's anything bad about being so large.”

And this is the point I want to bring up. I actually immediately said, “No, I know it's bad. In fact, the increased weight is precisely one of the very things I pointed out to you that had me so concerned.” I immediately saw his demeanor change, as if he was relieved to be able to speak honestly instead of being terrified of offending me, and he said, “Yes, if we could get rid of that weight, it would almost certainly help across the board with everything else here.”

So why did I find this exchange so problematic that I decided to write a blog post about it, especially given that it means I had to divulge (albeit obscurely) some health details I'd rather not talk about? Because I just experienced a doctor telling me something we both knew was a lie because he was afraid that I might be offended had he told me the truth.

There's real danger in this, though. I could have easily come away from that conversation telling everyone, “I went to Urgent Care and the doctor said my weight is fine” when the reality is the exact opposite. If he was so unwilling to state the objective fact that being overweight is detrimental to one's health, then what else are doctors afraid to tell patients? It's extremely worrisome if doctors will lie for the sake of one's ego instead of telling the truth for the sake of one's life.

In the meantime, I still have a case of “We Don't Know”, but at least I know my heart and lungs are sound right now, and I don't have Wuhan Bat Lung either. Prayers would be appreciated that someone in the medical field discovers what the proximate cause is. Or, God could just zap me. I'm fine with that too.

5 comments:

  1. A few years ago I went to a doctor and found out I had high blood pressure. She wanted me to get on medicine to lower my blood pressure. I then move states and find another doctor so I can get a new prescription. He gives me a new prescription. With this doctor, I then ask about weight loss drugs, which he then discusses with me, and then points out it would also help with the high blood pressure. Which reminds me, I need to find another doctor, because after three months of a drug not working, my newest doctor basically said, "ok, that didn't work, let's spend an entire half a year doing that and see what happens".

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    1. True, finding the right medications can also be an issue, and many doctors have their preferred go-tos. Regarding that in particular, I'm becoming more concerned that medications are just to cover symptoms while not addressing what's actually going on. For example, with my own hypertension, I want to know what's actually causing it, because clearly there's a reason it happens. Something is broken, and patching the symptom doesn't fix whatever the actual cause is.

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    2. Granted, this was advice from several decades ago, but a professor talked my mom out of specializing in internal medicine, because she wanted to actually cure people/fix problems, which internal medicine (at least a few decades ago) didn't really do. But that does seem consistent with how the doctors I saw acted. They didn't want to fix the problem (patient is fat), just the symptom (patient has high blood pressure).

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  2. Yeah, you're right, he should have been able to speak more frankly to you.

    If you don't mind my asking (you can e-mail me if you prefer), have you by any chance had the C19 vaccine (any brand) in the last 2-3 weeks? I ask, because...I have direct, personal evidence that severe side effects are more widespread than most people perceive. I'll just put it that way. At the moment I don't recall if low oxygen sats are one of the side effects that I have heard about through "back channels," but just about everything and the kitchen sink *is*, falling broadly into two categories--blood pressure and heart, and other neurological. So, something to know.

    Tho' frankly based on my experience, if it is a side effect of the vaccine, that won't help you much. It'll just be a case of "treat the symptoms."

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    1. Hello Lydia,
      I have not had the jab yet. Since I've been recovering from surgery on my feet, I'm actually already on home restriction anyway, and my doctor recommended that I shouldn't take it since we don't need something else stressing my immune system during recovery. So given that, there's no potential benefit at all to taking it, so I haven't yet.

      I have heard a lot of anecdotal claims similar to what you mentioned as well, and I definitely agree with people who have concerns given the experimental nature of this particular vaccine. As I heard someone online say, "When there are no clinical studies for something you're taking, then you are the clinical study." That said, I also have anecdotal stories that show there are no problems with the poke either. For example, I have family members working overseas and they had to take the jab to enter that other country, and have had no ill effects at all. In the end, I think we'll find that it's a percentages game and we'll have to wait and see the final result.

      Either way, I think that we're just reliving 1975-1976 again. From the fall of Saigon/Kabul to the economic crunch and gas price inflation to the Swine Flu/Corona virus, it seems things are just repeating. So if history is going to continue repeating itself then just as more people died from the Swine Flu vaccine in 1976 than from Swine Flu itself, more people will die from the 'Rona vaccine than 'Rona itself.

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