4 ms·

Yes, I have seen something similar happen too - a temporary illnes that most likely didn't need any drugs, prescription for drugs that caused side effects, but

Yes, I have seen something similar happen too - a temporary illnes that most likely didn't need any drugs, prescription for drugs that caused side effects, but then another drug for those side effects and the situation repeated 5 times in total, passing 3 different doctors. The real solution that worked was to stop taking everything. Unfortunately listening to average doctor is a recipe for illness. Doctors belong to a medieval-style guild that managed to make it illegal to heal other people if you aren't its member, and extremely hard to buy needed drugs for yourself because of prescription (fortunately it's possible now because of internet pharmacies) - the latter of which is borderline slavery. Against all 'expert' opinion, I'm pretty on average everyone would be better off trying to cure themselves using information from the internet - or at the very least everyone on hn. My mother had hypothyroidism and got prescribed levothyroxine. She didn't like the idea of taking it forever, and after researching the internet found out selenium deficiency can cause it too. Directed blood test found a severe deficiency. After a month of taking selenium supplements thyroid hormones normalized. Internet self-diagnosis > average doctor.

tsimionescu 4y ago
> Against all 'expert' opinion, I'm pretty on average everyone would be better off trying to cure themselves using information from the internet - or at the very least everyone on hn. Yes, why would it take more than an internet search or two to diagnose and fix one of the most complex systems known to man? Having people spend half a decade or more studying this is an obvious absurdity, tantamount to slavery! Beyond the sarcasm, just like you wouldn't expect StackOverflow to help you fix your company's complex bugs, you can't realistically expect to be able to treat yourself if you don't spend a good year or two researching your specific health issues. Sure, it's a good idea to read about it and not blindly trust your doctor - sometimes they do make mistakes, assume diagnoses without testing, or even actively seek to prevent you receiving the best care for various biases. Sometimes you have a simple issue and the solution is to simply take a targeted medicine or supplement. But a lot of the time, the problems are complex, and they interact in complex ways with other issues. For a lot of diseases there are no treatments without serious side-effects, and drugs to address those side-effects can have other side-effects and so on. A lot of symptoms are common to many illnesses, so you need a wide array of information to arrive at a correct differential diagnosis (quickly). Sometimes the differences between symptoms are subtle, and you need experience telling them apart. Not to mention, while classes of life saving medications are highly addictive, so patient's access to them must be carefully managed to avoid making their lives even worse. Benzodiazepines, as in TFA, are a good example.
- nootropicat 4y ago
  >you can't realistically expect to be able to treat yourself if you don't spend a good year or two researching your specific health issues. There's a big difference between trying to learn everything and about some specific issue. Every doctor would destroy anyone self-taught on general medical knowledge, of course, but in areas that are specifically relevant to that person - anyone of above average intelligence can definitely become more competent than an average doctor, just because the person with a problem is motivated to spend hours or even days finding relevant information. Then there's of course the whole area of surgery where self-treatment is borderline impossible - which is a major part of medical studies. >For a lot of diseases there are no treatments without serious side-effects, and drugs to address those side-effects can have other side-effects and so on. A lot of symptoms are common to many illnesses, so you need a wide array of information to arrive at a correct differential diagnosis (quickly). This describes an absolute best case and presents it as the average. Chances are if you go to a doctor with a viral infection you will get a prescription for antibiotics, an obvious absurdity. Why? Because a patient expects 'something', so doing that makes the uninformed patient happier - while in reality, at best it's minimally harmful. This is so prevalent there are multiple studies about this, eg: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093394/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093394/ "More than half the GP respondents to the survey in Australia self-reported that they would prescribe antibiotics for an URTI to meet patient expectations. Our qualitative findings suggest that ‘patient expectations’ may be the main reason given for inappropriate prescribing, but it is an all-encompassing phrase that includes other reasons." More than half! That's the actual quality of care that's being delivered, it's worse than doing nothing at all. Risk of side effects is completely ignored. Millions of people have allergy to amoxicillin, one of the most commonly prescribed one. My opinion based on my experiences, experiences of others and studies like that - is that advice from an average doctor is completely worthless. Of course there are competent doctors - but there's a contradiction here: for any specific problem, the only way to determine competency is to become competent yourself, but the moment you do, you stop needing the advice. Therefore, as long as you're capable of doing research based on symptoms, and the situation isn't an emergency - going to a doctor is pointless. Yet the law system is doing everything it can to force me. >Not to mention, while classes of life saving medications are highly addictive, so patient's access to them must be carefully managed to avoid making their lives even worse. Benzodiazepines, as in TFA, are a good example. This is paternalism and it's abhorrent. In fact I have another related real life story: my grandma has extreme sleep problems and no OTC supplements helped. After some research I decided that etizolam is the safest and most likely to help drug - which turned out to be right, as it worked perfectly for over 2 years, along with a very strong increase in general mood (etizolam itself is mildly anxiolytic - but probably mostly due to more sleep) and mental capability. No side effects reported. Unfortunately it became a controlled substance here (even though in some countries it's a normal prescription drug - at least Japan and Italy) and she definitely didn't want to break any laws. As the daily dose was small (0.7mg before sleep - chosen experimentally as the minimum one that worked), there were no noticeable withdrawal symptoms. Went to a doctor, eventually got a prescription for zolpidem. Result: works for sleep, but also caused an enormous increase in depression symptoms and noticeable memory problems. Real life result from "managing access".

tsimionescu 4y ago

> Against all 'expert' opinion, I'm pretty on average everyone would be better off trying to cure themselves using information from the internet - or at the very least everyone on hn. Yes, why would it take more than an internet search or two to diagnose and fix one of the most complex systems known to man? Having people spend half a decade or more studying this is an obvious absurdity, tantamount to slavery! Beyond the sarcasm, just like you wouldn't expect StackOverflow to help you fix your company's complex bugs, you can't realistically expect to be able to treat yourself if you don't spend a good year or two researching your specific health issues. Sure, it's a good idea to read about it and not blindly trust your doctor - sometimes they do make mistakes, assume diagnoses without testing, or even actively seek to prevent you receiving the best care for various biases. Sometimes you have a simple issue and the solution is to simply take a targeted medicine or supplement. But a lot of the time, the problems are complex, and they interact in complex ways with other issues. For a lot of diseases there are no treatments without serious side-effects, and drugs to address those side-effects can have other side-effects and so on. A lot of symptoms are common to many illnesses, so you need a wide array of information to arrive at a correct differential diagnosis (quickly). Sometimes the differences between symptoms are subtle, and you need experience telling them apart. Not to mention, while classes of life saving medications are highly addictive, so patient's access to them must be carefully managed to avoid making their lives even worse. Benzodiazepines, as in TFA, are a good example.

nootropicat 4y ago
>you can't realistically expect to be able to treat yourself if you don't spend a good year or two researching your specific health issues. There's a big difference between trying to learn everything and about some specific issue. Every doctor would destroy anyone self-taught on general medical knowledge, of course, but in areas that are specifically relevant to that person - anyone of above average intelligence can definitely become more competent than an average doctor, just because the person with a problem is motivated to spend hours or even days finding relevant information. Then there's of course the whole area of surgery where self-treatment is borderline impossible - which is a major part of medical studies. >For a lot of diseases there are no treatments without serious side-effects, and drugs to address those side-effects can have other side-effects and so on. A lot of symptoms are common to many illnesses, so you need a wide array of information to arrive at a correct differential diagnosis (quickly). This describes an absolute best case and presents it as the average. Chances are if you go to a doctor with a viral infection you will get a prescription for antibiotics, an obvious absurdity. Why? Because a patient expects 'something', so doing that makes the uninformed patient happier - while in reality, at best it's minimally harmful. This is so prevalent there are multiple studies about this, eg: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093394/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093394/ "More than half the GP respondents to the survey in Australia self-reported that they would prescribe antibiotics for an URTI to meet patient expectations. Our qualitative findings suggest that ‘patient expectations’ may be the main reason given for inappropriate prescribing, but it is an all-encompassing phrase that includes other reasons." More than half! That's the actual quality of care that's being delivered, it's worse than doing nothing at all. Risk of side effects is completely ignored. Millions of people have allergy to amoxicillin, one of the most commonly prescribed one. My opinion based on my experiences, experiences of others and studies like that - is that advice from an average doctor is completely worthless. Of course there are competent doctors - but there's a contradiction here: for any specific problem, the only way to determine competency is to become competent yourself, but the moment you do, you stop needing the advice. Therefore, as long as you're capable of doing research based on symptoms, and the situation isn't an emergency - going to a doctor is pointless. Yet the law system is doing everything it can to force me. >Not to mention, while classes of life saving medications are highly addictive, so patient's access to them must be carefully managed to avoid making their lives even worse. Benzodiazepines, as in TFA, are a good example. This is paternalism and it's abhorrent. In fact I have another related real life story: my grandma has extreme sleep problems and no OTC supplements helped. After some research I decided that etizolam is the safest and most likely to help drug - which turned out to be right, as it worked perfectly for over 2 years, along with a very strong increase in general mood (etizolam itself is mildly anxiolytic - but probably mostly due to more sleep) and mental capability. No side effects reported. Unfortunately it became a controlled substance here (even though in some countries it's a normal prescription drug - at least Japan and Italy) and she definitely didn't want to break any laws. As the daily dose was small (0.7mg before sleep - chosen experimentally as the minimum one that worked), there were no noticeable withdrawal symptoms. Went to a doctor, eventually got a prescription for zolpidem. Result: works for sleep, but also caused an enormous increase in depression symptoms and noticeable memory problems. Real life result from "managing access".