Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
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.
I feel happy for you that you figured it out so young!
Take good care of your health and stay away from doctors and hospitals (one of the major causes of death).
My health insurance "requires" a yearly checkup. I'm not sure at what age they started requiring it, as i've always worked a job where i had health insurance and i can't remember at what age i started the checkups. I don't know what would happen if i didn't go. I doubt they would cancel me.
And being a woman, i always went yearly for certain tests that women should go for. I also went for Mammograms as breast cancer runs in my family.
I've had mostly good experiences with my doctors thru-out the years (i'm 64 now). I've gotten help and good advice when i needed it - on the most part. When the doctor did not listen to me as i thought they should, i changed doctors.
I watched my sister, and accompanied her sometimes, as she went thru the health system for over 30 years with several cancers. (She also worked a job that included health insurance, luckily.) Her life was saved/extended over and over by so many medications and treatments - some that were just recently being proven. She went thru hell sometimes, but was able to live after breast cancer at age 42, to age 73. She traveled the world and had an amazing life. In her late 50s the cancer had returned in her bones. Doctors and nurses and techs of all types took great care of her both physically and emotionally until her death at age 73. She was a living miracle for many years.
I feel happy for you that you figured it out so young!
Take good care of your health and stay away from doctors and hospitals (one of the major causes of death).
I agree, to a point. Stay away from hospitals and doctors for the most part. No antibiotics or other medication unless absolutely necessary. I think it screws with your body's natural defenses.
BUT I think a checkup with bloodwork once a year or every 2 years is common sense. You need to know if there's something out of wack that could lead to problems down the road, or if some of your numbers regularly run a bit high or low...so if there's a problem down the road, you know if that number is normal for you or really unusual, indicating a brewing problem.
It's the only way to catch something that could lead to a problem down the road (and everyone has a problem down the road...it's the nature of getting old), in time to do something about it with a lifestyle change or something simple. Like low Vitamin D, or knowing your glucose level is normally on the higher side of the normal range, knowing you've lost bone mass, etc. The only way to know these things is to have bloodwork done.
The body begins breaking down when it's older. Immune system weakens, joints wear out, organs may not function as well and present problems, etc. Knowledge of one's body is a good thing. But don't take the medications doctors will inevitably suggest, and particulary stay away from antibiotics. An annual mammogram is advisable for women, since it is the only way to detect an early cancer issue.
I agree, to a point. Stay away from hospitals and doctors for the most part. No antibiotics or other medication unless absolutely necessary. I think it screws with your body's natural defenses.
BUT I think a checkup with bloodwork once a year or every 2 years is common sense. You need to know if there's something out of wack that could lead to problems down the road, or if some of your numbers regularly run a bit high or low...so if there's a problem down the road, you know if that number is normal for you or really unusual, indicating a brewing problem.
It's the only way to catch something that could lead to a problem down the road (and everyone has a problem down the road...it's the nature of getting old), in time to do something about it with a lifestyle change or something simple. Like low Vitamin D, or knowing your glucose level is normally on the higher side of the normal range, knowing you've lost bone mass, etc. The only way to know these things is to have bloodwork done.
The body begins breaking down when it's older. Immune system weakens, joints wear out, organs may not function as well and present problems, etc. Knowledge of one's body is a good thing. But don't take the medications doctors will inevitably suggest, and particulary stay away from antibiotics. An annual mammogram is advisable for women, since it is the only way to detect an early cancer issue.
I completely understand your point of view and the intent of serial testing and following of lab results over time. It can indeed provide a better feel for an individuals normal range rather than simply using the established reference range. When one does serial testing one can see and follow the numbers as they go up and down for a better understanding on any given individuals blood levels.
But........It does not change the outcome or clinical triggers for treatment. Let's say one follows your labs and sees a trend of something going down then pharmacological intervention won't happen until one is in the clearly abnormal range. One would normally use OTC before that happens but there is no clinical evidence that the use of OTC's will change the clinical outcome of one eventually becoming deficient.
One can make assumptions based on other clinical factors besides labs to conclude that a person might be deficient and act on those rather than lab tests. One can make assumptions based on age the susceptibility of certain vitamin deficiencies such as vitamin D, folate and others without doing testing and simply treating based on those assumptions. If one is going to use or need high pharmacological levels then that is when one would order lab testing.
You mentioned vitamin D and a couple of decades back there was big hype in the press about vitamin D levels and everybody was getting tested based on the hype. The vitamin D council had members promoting and directly selling vitamin D. The workload and test volume skyrocketed. The science wasn't there yet unfortunately. There were no testing standards and most tests done by one reference laboratory did not correlate with what another laboratory was reporting. They didn't even agree at what levels one was deficient in. One didn't know what test was better between 25 hydroxy or the 1,25 dihydroxy. It was a mess.
Eventually things settled down and the clinical science evolved on how to better use the test. In order to educate doctors on the proper use of the test and avoiding useless testing the choosing wisely campaign of specialists put out the recommendation on how to use the test.
"The Choosing Wisely campaign had also started issuing guidelines, including the American Society for Clinical Pathology recommendation to avoid performing vitamin D assays except for patients with higher-risk conditions (eg, osteoporosis, chronic kidney disease, and malabsorption) when results could be used to initiate more aggressive therapy.2 Indeed, when adequate supplementation is ensured, testing of vitamin D levels has relatively few indications, that is, clinical conditions for which the results are likely to alter management of a current condition.3,4 To reduce unnecessary testing, we studied the effect of a change in ordering procedure for vitamin D on the number of tests ordered."
The trend that I worry about is the quality of life issue that can be impacted by over zealous testing and interpretation that I unfortunately see in forums.
People can have real symptoms and they see a slightly lower or higher from the reference range they tend to feel worse and insist that that lab has the answer to what is ailing them. It reinforces a hypochondriac state (negative placebo) by making them feel worse. It propogates the sick syndrome patient. It isn't a positive in their lives.
One needs to maintain a healthy perspective. One can look at all of the results they want but if a person can not maintain a healthy perspective then they need to step away from the results. If they can do it by looking at and ordering tests then fine. There might be confirmation bias on my part when I see one pattern and people panicking about results all of the time. They don't have the training and insight to properly evaluate results.
I agree, to a point. Stay away from hospitals and doctors for the most part. No antibiotics or other medication unless absolutely necessary. I think it screws with your body's natural defenses.
BUT I think a checkup with bloodwork once a year or every 2 years is common sense. You need to know if there's something out of wack that could lead to problems down the road, or if some of your numbers regularly run a bit high or low...so if there's a problem down the road, you know if that number is normal for you or really unusual, indicating a brewing problem.
It's the only way to catch something that could lead to a problem down the road (and everyone has a problem down the road...it's the nature of getting old), in time to do something about it with a lifestyle change or something simple. Like low Vitamin D, or knowing your glucose level is normally on the higher side of the normal range, knowing you've lost bone mass, etc. The only way to know these things is to have bloodwork done.
The body begins breaking down when it's older. Immune system weakens, joints wear out, organs may not function as well and present problems, etc. Knowledge of one's body is a good thing. But don't take the medications doctors will inevitably suggest, and particulary stay away from antibiotics. An annual mammogram is advisable for women, since it is the only way to detect an early cancer issue.
Again, I urge people to not take the advice of strangers on the internet. Their advice can mean death, if you take it. The above bolded and underlined is a good example, and I'll clarify with COMMON situations that prove it.
You get cut trying to cut something in your kitchen, or clawed by your cat, or trying to trim a rosebush, or from the edge of a piece of paper. It gets infected. You "stay away from antibiotics." Two months later, after rejecting your doctor's advice for the past six weeks and then refusing to accept antibiotics in ER while the white line of death is climbing up your arm, you die from sepsis. Thoughts and prayers, that's what you get for following the above advice.
Example two:
You develop high blood pressure. It's so high, that "diet and exercise" won't prevent you from dying even if you start today. You're already on a death spiral, you've rejected advice up to this point, for years being warned that your BP was climbing and you needed to do something about it, or you'd die.
If only you had dieted and exercised for the past five years, but alas - now you need high blood pressure medicine. You refuse, because you followed the advice above. In a year, you're dead. Thoughts and prayers, that's what you get for following the above advice.
That's not to say you should always blindly do what every doctor tells you to do. It means you should ask YOUR physician questions. Talk to YOUR pharmacist. Double check with YOUR doctors' office physician assistant. Have a two-way conversation with ALL your medical providers, and make sure they are communicating with each other. It's called coordination of care, and you are intimately involved in that process.
I agree, to a point. Stay away from hospitals and doctors for the most part. No antibiotics or other medication unless absolutely necessary. I think it screws with your body's natural defenses.
BUT I think a checkup with bloodwork once a year or every 2 years is common sense. You need to know if there's something out of wack that could lead to problems down the road, or if some of your numbers regularly run a bit high or low...so if there's a problem down the road, you know if that number is normal for you or really unusual, indicating a brewing problem.
It's the only way to catch something that could lead to a problem down the road (and everyone has a problem down the road...it's the nature of getting old), in time to do something about it with a lifestyle change or something simple. Like low Vitamin D, or knowing your glucose level is normally on the higher side of the normal range, knowing you've lost bone mass, etc. The only way to know these things is to have bloodwork done.
The body begins breaking down when it's older. Immune system weakens, joints wear out, organs may not function as well and present problems, etc. Knowledge of one's body is a good thing. But don't take the medications doctors will inevitably suggest, and particulary stay away from antibiotics. An annual mammogram is advisable for women, since it is the only way to detect an early cancer issue.
One should take antibiotics when prescribed by a doctor for an infection.
Possible complications of untreated or partially treated strep throat infection are:
Rheumatic fever
Glomerulonephritis
Otitis media (spread of infection to the middle ear)
Meningitis (spread of infection to the lining of brain and spinal canal)
Pneumonia (lung infection)
Toxic shock syndrome (a rare but severe complication of strep pharyngitis, causing severe widespread infection and organ failure); and/or
Abscess formation around the tonsils and behind the throat (peri-tonsillar abscess and retro-pharyngeal abscess)
Formation of an abscess behind the throat (retro-pharyngeal abscess) due to untreated or under-treated strep throat infection can lead to severe illness causing pain in throat and neck, difficulty swallowing, and potential respiratory compromise. These abscesses may need to be drained by an ear-nose-throat (ENT) specialist urgently, and hospitalization may be required.
If you think that is all there is to health you are mistaken. If that were true there wouldn't be a medical profession at all.
More semantical rebuttal but the medical profession is mostly here for disease management, not so much health promotion. Going to a doctor won't make you healthy or even promote your health, but if you develop a condition, the Doc can help you manage this with fewer consequences.
But the key to health promotion is what you do everyday - your diet, exercise, sleep, stress, other factors (like drug use). Focusing on these things is the key to being healthy. Use Docs for when your health fails you and there is no good way to get better on your own.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
