4 ms·

I don't know how old you are, but at a certain point, the input of a general practice doctor becomes very valuable. Remember, the doctor doesn't even do the lit

by beat 7y ago

I don't know how old you are, but at a certain point, the input of a general practice doctor becomes very valuable. Remember, the doctor doesn't even do the little tests you mentioned, like taking measurements and blood tests - they just order them, and nurses or technicians do the work. The doctor's job is to make decisions and give advice. About a dozen years ago, my doctor caught my blood pressure shooting up in my annual exam and started treating me for high blood pressure. High blood pressure is a "silent killer" that leads to premature deaths for millions. You don't feel sick, while your heart struggles and your brain risks explosions. And treating it, once diagnosed, isn't straightforward. It took six months of experimenting with various medications to find the combination that worked for me. That's a doctor's judgment and expertise, not something for some technician with a community college associate's degree. And this summer, when a critical potassium depletion drove me to a scary ER visit, she noted that one of my BP meds could affect potassium and adjusted my dosages. And it's not just an expert-system thing that could be replaced by a robot, either. She's not just dealing with my measurements - she's dealing with my fears, and helping me decide on best approaches. That requires a human touch.

logfromblammo 7y ago
So your doc abrogated her responsibility to warn you about the side-effects of the prescribed drug. You went to the ER, because you were not aware that cramps, constipation, spiking BP, and muscle weakness are symptoms of hypokalemia, which could be resolved quickly by dissolving KCl from the grocery store in water and drinking it. That's patient education that needs to happen before you go to the ER. Just like with the GlacialMD thing, it's no skin off your doc's nose if you have to drop $500-$2000 on an ER copay because you had an electrolyte crisis from the medication she prescribed, and didn't know ahead of time that could be a possibility. And the rest of you out there, learn to measure your own BP. You can't leave it to an annual exam to find out it's getting high, and the BP taken in the doc's office may include the "white coat effect" (or as I call it, the "what will this cost me effect").
- beat 7y ago
  To be fair, I took that particular medication for over ten years before the crisis. So it's unlikely that the medication itself was the sole cause. And when the symptoms started, I wasn't going to go to the chemist to start concocting home remedies for what I feared could be a mild heart attack. I went to the ER. Again, I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to have had friends my own age start dropping dead of heart attacks and strokes. Hence I decided to take the safest route.

by beat 7y ago

logfromblammo 7y ago

So your doc abrogated her responsibility to warn you about the side-effects of the prescribed drug. You went to the ER, because you were not aware that cramps, constipation, spiking BP, and muscle weakness are symptoms of hypokalemia, which could be resolved quickly by dissolving KCl from the grocery store in water and drinking it. That's patient education that needs to happen before you go to the ER. Just like with the GlacialMD thing, it's no skin off your doc's nose if you have to drop $500-$2000 on an ER copay because you had an electrolyte crisis from the medication she prescribed, and didn't know ahead of time that could be a possibility. And the rest of you out there, learn to measure your own BP. You can't leave it to an annual exam to find out it's getting high, and the BP taken in the doc's office may include the "white coat effect" (or as I call it, the "what will this cost me effect").

beat 7y ago
To be fair, I took that particular medication for over ten years before the crisis. So it's unlikely that the medication itself was the sole cause. And when the symptoms started, I wasn't going to go to the chemist to start concocting home remedies for what I feared could be a mild heart attack. I went to the ER. Again, I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to have had friends my own age start dropping dead of heart attacks and strokes. Hence I decided to take the safest route.