5 ms·
Auto immune diseases are all untreatable and severely reduce quality of life in some cases. One thing proven to slow their progress is stress reduction. As you
by tathougies 9y ago
Auto immune diseases are all untreatable and severely reduce quality of life in some cases. One thing proven to slow their progress is stress reduction.
As you can imagine, being less stressed is really hard when you have a chronic illness. This is exacerbated by doctors ignoring you. Having anyone spend an hour to help you in any way is such a relief. I wouldn't be surprised if this played a large role.
As another example, my wife and I have had six miscarriages. We're 25 and both healthy and the many doctors we've seen agree. Well if the doctors don't have a diagnosis, they don't wanna see you.
When it comes to recurrent miscarriage, there is no treatment. They suspect there are likely auto immune diseases we don't know about. Indeed, this seems likely. Most studies on potential treatments cannot be reliably replicated. The only thing that has been shown to reduce miscarriage risk in future pregnancies is tender loving care-- having a doctor who will talk with you for hours whenever you want, and being taken care of.
So now we see a new matronly obstetrician. She's a bit quirky but we feel like she won't abandon us like the other doctors did. Her appointments are multiple hours long, and she's happy being paged in the middle of the night when we've found out we're pregnant again. At 5 am when you find out you're pregnant after five miscarriages, nothing is more calming than a soothing voice on the telephone
This doctor has also encouraged us to seek out alternate practitioners, like acupuncturists and massage. She doesn't believe in their treatments working per se (she's an md and is happy providing real treatments), but I think she understands they these practitioners will at least make you feel calm and taken care of. Whereas I used to laugh at people who would see them before, I get it now.
When you have a medical condition that is chronic and there's no end in sight and no cure available, you need a friend more than a doctor, and unfortunately, there's not much overlap between the two
- arkades 9y ago> Auto immune diseases are all untreatable I think you mean "incurable." Not untreatable. Otherwise, I sure wasted a lot of time memorizing immune modulators and autoimmune disease treatment protocols for my board exams. And yes, doctors' job is diagnosis and treatment. If for whatever reason you're not a candidate for those two things, they have nothing to do for you. This is like complaining your IT guy isn't there to support you when your PC gets stolen by a house invasion. That's not what that relationship is.
- MegaButts 9y agoYou've really captured the essence of the pretentious doctor with this comment. Bravo.
- whatshisface 9y agoHonestly, I'd prefer a doctor that could look at me and say "Sorry, but you shouldn't buy any more of my time." Being able to say when you can't do any more is probably the antithesis of arrogant doctors - what you really have to watch out for is a pseudo-quack that will send you off on increasingly strong medications with zero-approaching success rates without telling you!
- arkades 9y agoHe has half a point: my first comment was more glib than it needed to be. But, yes, docs who take your money to pat you on the head rather than admit they can't help you aren't doing you any favors. Most docs are more ethical than that (and then get lambasted for "not wanting anything to do with you if they can't treat or diagnose you.")
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tathougies 9y agoA doctor's job is to restore health, using whatever mechanisms they can. In the case of miscarriage, tender loving care is literally the best treatment available, as confirmed by numerous studies. Unfortunately, most doctors are basically giant hash tables mapping conditions to prescription drugs, sorted on the kickbacks you get from pharma companies. My dad was in pharmaceutical sales for two plus decades -- I know all the tricks.
- sharkweek 9y agoI'm sorry you and your wife are going through this. I can't even imagine the toll it takes. Know that some random guy in Seattle is wishing for the best for both of you.
- tathougies 9y agoThank you! We appreciate it