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I am 70, and I feel exactly the same way as the original poster. When I was young I trusted doctors, but that trust was eroded over the years as I saw how useless they can be. For one thing, your MD does not have the time to research your health problems. We have the motivation, and we make the time, if we are suffering.
There is both mainstream and alternative health information online. We can see all different perspectives and compare. And unusual diseases will probably not be known to your MD. You can probably find it online though.
No doubt people feel that way and they stay away from "allopathy" but people are trying to be manipulative in trying to convert "allopathy" to have the same standards as non-allopathy.
This is a big world and plenty of people can have different views and see different practitioners. They are more than welcome in seeing shaman. That doesn't bother me. What happens though is that they, alternative practitioners, always try to evangelize and want to correct people who see doctors and attack so called allopathy. There is no need to do so.
So that's why we should not bother with yearly checkups, as long as we feel ok.
Not exactly. Labs are only one part. If a person gained 50 pounds even though they feel fine then things have changed. There is also chronic conditions that need monitoring whether they are asymptomatic or not.
I think it's important to address chronic vs acute issues. For acute issues, it's pretty obvious that the doctor is the place to be, if you have kidney stones, cancerous lumps, a broken leg etc, they aren't going to go away with tinctures and qi gong.
It's the prevention of chronic illness where the system seems broken - that's what I'm getting at. And prevention of chronic illness is the most important thing for most people to keep good health in older age. In this case, wheatgrass shots and qi gong may be better than a doctor visit. I think at a certain age, say 50, you're at a high enough risk factor that a more involved state may be better.
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Originally Posted by Parnassia
Well, OK OP. All seems well until it isn't. Say what you like. There's no law against that, but what can start off as confidence can lead to arrogance IMHO. There are those bolts out of the blue. Bodies aren't perfect. Things go wrong. I was supposedly the picture of health at age 34; profession I loved, generally happy contented life, recreational athlete with a reputation of "nature girl". No body-abusive habits, didn't even drink coffee. No need to see any sort of doctor other than a dentist for occasional cleanings for years. One day I found a lump that shouldn't be there. Ignoring it didn't make it go away. I didn't happen to be born with microscope vision so I needed an MD to find out what was going on. It turned out to be a rather aggressive cancer and it had already spread to the surrounding lymph nodes by the time it became noticeable. I had no "risk factors" for the disease either other than gender. If I hadn't gone to a doctor to diagnose that lump, most likely I'd be dead. That was over 28 years ago. I'm very glad to have had those extra 28 years.
I 100% agree here, if you see something that's a standard warning flag - go in, the system is set up to address that. I guess my question is would it have benefited you to have more healthcare visits ages 26-32? Would those have helped earlier identify the issue or prevent it?
I agree almost 100% with this post (the disagreement at the end).
This is why I recommended the OP get Lab Values. It's a book written by Docs for med students. And it always puts your lab values squarely inside the clinical picture, as well as what other follow up tests you should request given lab values + clinical issues + concerns.
Now as to the disagreement. I disagree that it's not worthwhile to get your blood work while asymptomatic. If the OP had a PCP, and went just once a year, I'm sure the PCP would order a routine blood panel. It's helpful to establish what your 'normal' is and observe trends, which will aid you if problems arise (and they eventually will arise unless the OP dies suddenly in some freak accident, god forbid).
The way you cite was the way it was years ago in the 70's. Obviously that was the way medicine was practiced for many years. When I first started working labs were ordered for everything and the money was coming in. The staffing was incredible with five times the staffing we had now.
What changed? We were running out of money and healthcare costs went up and became a target. As a result many things were done to cut cost. The first was to do many outcome studies to see if how we did things have an impact on outcome. The bottom-line is clinical outcomes.
Just to give you one example is urinalysis. Do we need to do a urinalysis on everybody? No, because they found very little positive findings that were clinically significant when urinalysis was not connected to symptoms. We took it one step further with the introduction of flex testing. A doctor would order a urinalysis screen rather than a complete urinalysis. It was determined based on outcome studies that if the dipstick chemical results are negative then one does not need to do a microscopic exam. That was based on correlation studies between urinalysis and culture. We took it one step further where the doctor orders a urinalysis screen and culture screen. If the urinalysis is negative then the microscopic is not performed and a culture would not be performed. Before doctors would order urinalysis complete with microscopic and cultures on everybody. We took it one step forward when one connects ordering a urinalysis with symptoms. clinically if one simply has positive urinalysis findings then that is not enough to diagnose a UTI. A UTI does not require a urinalysis and culture and simply positive findings does not prove a UTI exists. They might have asymptomatic bacteriuria. That won't respond to antibiotics.
Current recommendations do not require a yearly annual or yearly blood work, especially for the young and asymptomatic and that again based on outcome studies which is why they changed the recommendations. I worked in labs for over forty years and the number of laboratory professionals who did their own free work regularly was all normal as expected. When they got sick most of the time it was normal. When people get sick is when most of the time people do labs.
As far as baseline then yes when you get a new doctor they usually will do labs for baseline. My previous doctor rarely did lab work on me and when I got a new doctor the new on wants labs every 4 months which drives me crazy. I have been on the medication for 30 years and he's worried I am going to get a high potassium. The last time I saw him he didn't palpate my abdomen and I was surprised because he has always done it every visit. He saw the surprised look on my face and said it's because COVID changed the way we do things and that it was useless to do it anyways as you know he told me.
Last edited by Medical Lab Guy; 08-02-2023 at 04:47 PM..
Here's the thing, the entire system is set up to fix something that's broke, not tweak to make something better, hence allopathic. If I go to a physical, the conversation isn't how can we optimize from where you are, it's ok you didn't fit any high risk boxes, see you next year.
At least with homeopathic medicine, the price is displayed up front, I can see what I'm walking into. And I likely won't have to deal with godawful insurance. With the standard healthcare system, it's a land mine field, you don't know where you're gonna get slapped with some bill. I had a dermatologist appointment for a cosmetic removal of a dot (angioma). Set up the appointment, waited 45 minutes past the "start time" and the doctor had a 3 minute conversation with me that said, "we don't have the tool, go talk to Santa Fe and schedule with them". I got a $160 bill ($325 pre insurance) for a literal 3 minute conversation to clarify what their website didn't say.
Yes, there is a balancing act. It seems like the main element of history is bloodwork, and even there, it's on the individual really to keep track of their own records cause the system will lose them. That's the thing is good groceries and a health club / gym payment and a lower stress job seem to be a magnitude better investment than a healthcare facility.
The system is set to fix something that is broken which can be proven or not proven to then be fixed. It is based on empirical evidence.
Optimize health? Where are the studies to prove that drinking Kombucha tea optimizes health just because they present a simple bill?
Again you care comparing apples to oranges. You are comparing an evidence-based system with a faith-based system. You elevate the faith-based system to equal status by using the term allopathic medicine in comparison to homeopathic medicine.
No need to compare. Again if you love going that route then fine but don't confuse the two. I don't want my talker selling me supplements and telling me he can cure my cancer by fasting and avoiding sugar.
As a healthy 29 year old, I'm increasingly coming to the resolution that there's no reason to interact with doctors or the health system (with the exception of the dentist) unless something goes drastically wrong like an injury. For preventative care, minor issues, checkups, improvements to everyday health, the allopathic system seems to be fairly useless.
I can see the benefit of having a track record of blood work for health history, and for that I can schedule a virtual physical via MD Live and get the blood work from the local lab. The virtual physical was the best I ever had because the doctor actually explained what the line items on the bloodwork meant. Why would someone have a primary doctor, especially if you haven't stayed put in a location for 20 years?
I had elevated heart rate and tingling in 2021 and got 0 answers from doctors visits. It's since went away, I'm pretty sure it was long Covid symptoms, but I would have never got that answer from the health system in 2021 anyways, they didn't know. Even for cosmetic things like the dermatologist, half the time they don't offer the treatment and it's a hefty bill just to have them tell you what you found online. If at all possible, telehealth seems to be the better experience for things like a potential prescription or whatever.
It seems like expect the worst and multiple visits of hundreds of dollars and potential insurance headaches is the safe assumption to make. And for that, I'll just focus my my time and energy on living a healthy lifestyle and being knowledgeable about herbal remedies for minor issues (like say upset stomach or acne), which have been fairly successful in my experience.
In general, it seems like the US healthcare system is a trainwreck with hoards of uninsured horribly unhealthy people, where healthy people are treated like cash cows to fund the system for those that don't pay when they go in.
my experience with the medical model was a disaster for inflammatory arthritis. looking back, the docs should've had an easy fix for me. but they failed. i fixed myself.
the medical model is good for heroic medicine - bones, surgery, etc. managing chronic disease, or preventing them, is gaping hole of ignorance in modern 'medicine'. like you said, best to do it yourself
the basic folly of modern medicine is that it doesnt see the body as having intelligence. they couldnt be more wrong -- the insane complexity of bodily processes SCREAMS intelligence. give the body what it needs (and dont put bad crap in it) - and the body will do what it does every day 24/7 - it heals, it builds
the basic folly of modern medicine is that it doesnt see the body as having intelligence. they couldnt be more wrong -- the insane complexity of bodily processes SCREAMS intelligence. give the body what it needs (and dont put bad crap in it) - and the body will do what it does every day 24/7 - it heals, it builds
Yeah - no need to have a primary care physician, someone who can be the "collector" of data for easy reference and to connect the dots when something is wrong and you're not sure what.
There is a medical aphorism that says, "the physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient".
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