I'm really starting to Dislike and Distrust Doc's

In the last month or so both my Wife and Daughter have had some Medical issues. The wife with a skin condition and the Daughter with reoccurring headaches and dizziness. Both of them started with a general Dr. who wrote a prescription for some meds’s to try. A week later neither of them were any better. It was back to a General Dr. The wife was given some different med’s to try. Daughter had to have a TON of bloodwork done. The wife was still not getting any better so she was referred to a specialist who gave her a 3rd med to try. A week later still not better the specialist said come back in and we will run some blood work. Still not better they now have her on a new Oral med. With this new med she only gets 2 pills a week and has to go in for new blood work at the end of each week before she can get 2 more pills. Now back to the Daughter – They said if the Blood work came back good she will need to see a ENT specialist next. If they cant figure it out then onto a Neurologist. It just seems to me like they want all other Dr’s to get a piece of the Pie. I think both of them have seen more Dr’s, tried more Med’s, and had more blood work done in the last month than I have in my whole life. OK end of Rant !!!

Have you tried taking your daughter to a chiropractor. A few months ago I was having reoccurring headaches ( hardly ever had headaches before), Went to the doctor said it was migraines, gave me some prescription meds and send me out the door. I went to a chiropractor after and found out my neck was pretty out of whack. The chiropractor adjusted my neck and haven’t had a headache since.

Check their diet. Alot of folks with food allergies go through the same deal. My wife and a daughter had some of the same conditions as yours both are now gluten free and symptom free, with zero help from doctors. Celiac disease (gluten) is a big one, and has various levels of affect. Read up on it and others. All the meds in the world might make things worse. I’m not a DR, or telling you not to listen to them, but how many people suffer from misdiagnosed illnesses, like Lyme’s disease? I hope they get better soon, I’ve been through it too.

I would 2nd the opinion on the Chiropractor for the headaches.

This is how our medical system works and it’s very frustrating. A pill for this and a pill for that. Yes, we are good at medical emergencies and saving lives, but not very good at preventative stuff or trouble shooting sometimes.

Seriously, have your daughter go to a Chiropractor and your wife to a Dermatologist.

im sorry to hear that your family is going through medical troubles! that is no fun and can be scary. I am hoping for the best. Reading through your frustrations I found a correlation to my job. I manage an IT service desk for a huge company. Basically we are the first point of contact for any IT related issue company wide. So if you have a problem with any of your equipment you are going to call us first. If we cant fix it we would escalate a ticket to a different IT team that may specialize in the application for example. Many times people become frustrated and just want to be transferred to that IT team right away and not deal with us. But the reality in our world is two-fold:

1. Often times the solution can be something simple that is overlooked, like restarted the machine for example. If we routed everyone passed us and to the specialist just to restart computers you are paying a guy well over 100k a year to do something that my team of guys making 30-45k a year can do easily and more quickly.

2. If users were allowed to skip past us and go straight to the more specialized teams they would be overrun almost immediately as no one would call us anymore and the whole system of support would break down.

I can see how the medical field would operate much the same way. The general doctor will often weed out the people who just need an anti-biotic or an oral crème to fix the issue. If that doesn’t fix the issue then escalate to the specialist. Now talking about someones potentially serious health issue in terms of broken computers are definitely not comparable issues and im not suggesting the medical field should operate this way. I just noticed the correlation when reading through your post! I too get frustrated with doctors and the waste of time they seem to be sometimes. I truly hope your wife and daughter feel better soon!

lindyrig79 wrote:

I would 2nd the opinion on the Chiropractor for the headaches.

This is how our medical system works and it’s very frustrating. A pill for this and a pill for that. Yes, we are good at medical emergencies and saving lives, but not very good at preventative stuff or trouble shooting sometimes.

Seriously, have your daughter go to a Chiropractor and your wife to a Dermatologist.

The wife is now seeing a Dermatologist. She just had to jump thru lots of Hoops prior to being referred to one. Now its 2 pills and them Blood work and repeat for several weeks to see if the new oral med is working. I just think she should have been allowed to start right with the dermatologist. The prior Dr’s were not even treating her for the correct condition – Well at least per her new Dermatologist – Who know if she is correct with what she’s treating her for either.

benswan11 wrote:

Have you tried taking your daughter to a chiropractor. A few months ago I was having reoccurring headaches ( hardly ever had headaches before), Went to the doctor said it was migraines, gave me some prescription meds and send me out the door. I went to a chiropractor after and found out my neck was pretty out of whack. The chiropractor adjusted my neck and haven’t had a headache since.

I have always been a little afraid of the whole Chiropractor route. I had a friend who was really injured bad by one. After a long legal battle he won a rather large settlement but his back will probably never be the same.

I’m just not sure how to go about finding a good one. I’m sure they are like everything else – Some are much better than others

You are finding out earlier than I did that doctors are truly (practicing) medicine. While I was going through the throws of my medical issues I got a lot of deer in the headlight looks and a lot of, “I don’t know” answers to questions.

fishthumper wrote:

OK end of Rant !!!

I hope not. It doesn’t sound like your family has solved any problems.

In my opinion general practitioners and so called “specialists” have a fairly limited scope of expertise. Go read through my acid reflux thread. Like others have said. A pill for this a pill for that. Seems counterproductive to treat a mechanical or chemical illness with an unnatural chemical.

If you go to a doctor, they’ll prescribe chemicals. If you go to a surgeon, they’ll want to perform surgery. If you go to a dermatologist, they’ll prescribe some cream. Point is, your body has the capability of healing itself so you need to get to the bottom of what is causing an imbalance. It’s almost always diet or environmental that causes us problems.

I recently found out about naturopathic doctors. I am seeing one for my reflux and hiatal hernia. It’s been one month and so far I have had the most success with treating my condition after my first visit with her. My follow up visit is on Thursday. I am really curious on where it goes from here.

If the guy dislikes actual medical doctors, maybe a chiropractor isn’t for him.

Physical therapy and exercise can help with headaches. The muscles in your back extend up the neck and anchor on the base of the skull. A lot of headaches and neck pain originates in the back when the trapezius (upper, middle, lower) are underused and tighten up or spasm.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lindyrig79 wrote:</div>
I would 2nd the opinion on the Chiropractor for the headaches.

This is how our medical system works and it’s very frustrating. A pill for this and a pill for that. Yes, we are good at medical emergencies and saving lives, but not very good at preventative stuff or trouble shooting sometimes.

Seriously, have your daughter go to a Chiropractor and your wife to a Dermatologist.

The wife is now seeing a Dermatologist. She just had to jump thru lots of Hoops prior to being referred to one. Now its 2 pills and them Blood work and repeat for several weeks to see if the new oral med is working. I just think she should have been allowed to start right with the dermatologist. The prior Dr’s were not even treating her for the correct condition – Well at least per her new Dermatologist – Who know if she is correct with what she’s treating her for either.

I work in healthcare and unfortunately the way insurance works these days is usually you have to be seen by your general first and then they have to refer you to a specialist. In most cases if you just go to the specialist, your insurance won’t cover the cost. Everybody is in bed with everyone else in medicine. It’s why everything is so damned expensive. Trust the doctors. Most are good at what they do and they have to do these tests and try new meds to rule things out. That’s how they operate. It’s a step by step process. I hope things start to trend positively for your family.

It’s very sad how they all want a piece of the pie. And how a actual regular doctor can’t give you more then 5 minutes of there time. They walk in and prescribe you something and ship you out. 15 minutes tops in the office. Pumps them in big money.
Hope your wife and daughter the best.

fishthumper wrote:

It just seems to me like they want all other Dr’s to get a piece of the Pie.

Or maybe they want her to get the best treatment possible. Just a thought.

I have looked and looked but can’t seem to find the OBD port on my body.

To me it sounds like your gripe should be with your insurance plan or your HMO for requiring you to jump through so many hoops, not with the doctors who are doing best to work within the confines of the system to get you the care you need.

Hope your wife and daughter start feeling a lot better soon!

I have learned to really push the GP into sending me to a specialist if I feel my condition is beyond there scope and not getting the answers or treatment I need.

That is why they call it “practicing” medicine. They’re just trying something to see if it might work. If not, then try the next thing. Rather than try to diagnose and treat, they treat with a “possibility” of helping a symptom without considering the cause and then working for a cure.

First and foremost, make sure you are actually seeing a doc and not a NP or alike (sorry if someone one here is in the role).

Next, you need to share everything with your Doc. I’m sorry, but there are probably a million diagnosis’s for headache and dizziness…they need to start somewhere. They could refer u to neuro, ENT, allergist, etc. it can be a process. It’s easier for them to start with something simple that probably works 50% of the time instead of try to isolate the 50 other possibilities.

For the skin condition, it’s very similar scinerao. Start with a type diagnosis for the signs and symptoms. If that doesn’t work, dig deeper and send you of to a dermatologist.

As for chiropractics, their only place is for lower back pain. They have about the same success rate as doctors. Otherwise Traditional medicine is leaps and bounds above chiropractors.

And if you don’t trust or like you doc, luckily we live in America and we have the option of going to other practices…and that’s one of the best reasons for keeping our healthcare!

fishinfreaks wrote:

That is why they call it “practicing” medicine. They’re just trying something to see if it might work. If not, then try the next thing. Rather than try to diagnose and treat, they treat with a “possibility” of helping a symptom without considering the cause and then working for a cure.

Yeah…no. Their always shooting to diagnose and treat.

ClownColor wrote:

Yeah…no. Their always shooting to diagnose and treat.

My doctor sometimes practices his jokes on me. Beyond that, what bob said. And what mahtofire said. The level of paranoia around things people don’t understand can be staggering.

And I’m not playing mr superior here, diagnosing medical problems is far beyond my level of intelligence and education. I’m not nearly that smart. Just smart enough to trust my doctor.

Speaking from first hand experience be very , very careful going to a chiropractor many years of neck adjustments,ended in a neck fusion c-5/6/7. I will go to physical therapy before i ever go to another chiropractor.

Not a doctor, but your daughter’s symptoms sound an awful lot like my sister. It took a specialist from the Mayo to determine food allergies. Turns out she’s allergic to anything that tastes good. No joke. She was diagnosed at the age of 40.

It seems like when it comes to chiropractors that people are either in the love them or hate them side. I know some people who go to them every week and would go to a them 3x a day if they could afford it or their insurance would pay for it. Then I know others who would rather die a long painful death before they would ever let one touch them. I have never been to one so I’m not really on either side.

With my daughters headaches and dizziness I can better understand all the various steps needed to try to determine the cause. With the wife’s skin issue I’m a little less understanding. The primary Dr. treated it for 2 different and incorrect things. The dermatologist was fairly certain she knew what it was right away. So 3 weeks and 3 medicines later she hopefully is being treated correctly. The treatment seems to be helping so far

Sounds like a Fairview experience. If you can go to the mayo. People dont fly i from the other side of the world for nothing.

I’m going to weigh in on this one more time. I too have lost most of my trust in mainstream western medicine. Here’s why.

Many theorists say that it’s all a conspiracy among drug companies pushing their products to make billions. I disagree on the basis that yes they are trying to make a profit, but they are doing so USUALLY with the best intent. I’ll get back to the usually part later. Unfortunately drug companies are very one dimensional because they are a chemical manufacturer and are selling their products at very high margins. They’ve funded millions if not billions in research to develop drugs to help people. They also donate millions if not billions to universities to conduct various types of research on illnesses and diseases that affect us. This research is mostlty geared toward finding new ways to treat these diseases with chemicals. Unfortunately this is all that makes it into textbooks and curriculums in our medical schools. This is all our medical students have been taught for nearly a century. It really makes you wonder what our society has been missing out on for the past century.

Now on to the crooked side of our mainstream western medicine. How is it possible that drug companies are allowed to advertise on television when you can’t even purchase the product they are selling? Oh ok, yes, the point of the advertisement it is to “ask your do to about XYZ”. Why the hell should I ask my doctor? Why doesn’t he tell me what I need? Why am I listening to a commercial for medical advice? Why are nearly half our commercials pushing prescription drugs?

Another problem I have is virtually all of the top 10 most perscribed painkillers in this country contain the most addictive substances know to man. Are you telling me the only effective pain killers contain a substance that have a high probability of becoming addicted to?

At some point, we all need to start educating ourselves more about common and simple medical conditions and treatments. We shouldn’t be running to the doc time little Johnny or Susie gets a fever. The medical field is finally realizing that antibiotics aren’t always the best solution to infections. We are now faced with antibiotic resistant bacteria which has been predicted for decades.

I can go on and on. Skin conditions are a sure sign of allergy. Most likely food but possibly environmental. You need to find the root cause and not just treat the symptoms. That’s all a dermatologist will want to do.

Biggill I disagree with alot of things you’ve said in this threa but there are two important things you brought up about the painkillers and the fact that we are becoming a society that depends on the hopsitals for every little tiny thing.

In regards to the painkillers. There are two parties at fault with these. The drug companies and doctors over prescribing them and the patients for not taking them correctly and BEING ABLE TO TOLERATE A SMALL AMOUNT OF PAIN. They are incredibly helpful for people who use them correctly. You aren’t going to get addicted to them if you take them correctly and for the correct amount of time.

Now your second point about running to the doc for every little complaint. I work in the hospital and prehospital on an ambulance. I get called out for a sprained ankle when their signicant other is home and could drive them in themselves no problem. Headaches, fevers, when all people need to do is take a freaking tylenol. This takes me away from people that are actually having an emergency. This is the same for your doctor. He/she has so many people to see and can only spend so much time with them. Our society these days are so focused on lightning quick responses and fixes that the second they have any kind of twinge or pain they call the hospital or the ambulance. That bring us full circle when talking about docs onnly having 15 minutes to see us and then throwing us pills to fix it. They have so many people to see these days they have to fit them all in some how.

Others have brought up diet and fitness in this thread. My wife is an RN and a fitness/health coach and I have seen her customers get off all of their meds, eliminate their diabetes, kill their reflux and other ailments they’ve had for years, all because they started eating right and maintaining some level of fitness.

It’s amazing what taking care of yourself will do.

Good points Biggill.

Medicine is always going to be a subject of controversy. The good news is that western medicine has stopped or contained most all deadly diseases and plagues. Sometimes in order to stop something big, you need to start something small…

mahtofire14 wrote:

Now your second point about running to the doc for every little complaint. I work in the hospital and prehospital on an ambulance. I get called out for a sprained ankle when their signicant other is home and could drive them in themselves no problem. Headaches, fevers, when all people need to do is take a freaking tylenol. This takes me away from people that are actually having an emergency. This is the same for your doctor. He/she has so many people to see and can only spend so much time with them

Omg yes. I took my 11yo into urgent care this weekend with extreme stomach pain. After a 5 minute eval they told us to get to the ER ASAP. So we hightail it down there and end up waiting for over an hour in the waiting room. The kid is writhing in pain and moaning loudly. The ER is packed full of people that do not appear to be in any kind of pain or suffering a medical emergency at all. I felt pretty useless and I couldn’t help my kid at all. Meanwhile his little sister is crying because she thinks big bro is dying and I’m just trying to calm them both as well as I can.

He ended up with an appendectomy. Could’ve ruptured while we were sitting there waiting for some kid to get his emergency rash treated.

tangler wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
Now your second point about running to the doc for every little complaint. I work in the hospital and prehospital on an ambulance. I get called out for a sprained ankle when their signicant other is home and could drive them in themselves no problem. Headaches, fevers, when all people need to do is take a freaking tylenol. This takes me away from people that are actually having an emergency. This is the same for your doctor. He/she has so many people to see and can only spend so much time with them

Omg yes. I took my 11yo into urgent care this weekend with extreme stomach pain. After a 5 minute eval they told us to get to the ER ASAP. So we hightail it down there and end up waiting for over an hour in the waiting room. The kid is writhing in pain and moaning loudly. The ER is packed full of people that do not appear to be in any kind of pain or suffering a medical emergency at all. I felt pretty useless and I couldn’t help my kid at all. Meanwhile his little sister is crying because she thinks big bro is dying and I’m just trying to calm them both as well as I can.

He ended up with an appendectomy. Could’ve ruptured while we were sitting there waiting for some kid to get his emergency rash treated.

Glad your kid is ok Tangler. A burst appendix and prior to it is some real pain. It sucks but that’s how things are and there’s nothing the hospital can do about it. They triage the best they can and try to give the severe cases priority.

Another thing people don’t think about when they are sitting in an ER waiting room is that the ER might already be full. Or worse yet the whole hospital doesn’t have a bed available so that in turn keeps the ER full. You’d be surprised at how often an entire hospital (every room, every bed) is full.

mahtofire14 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tangler wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
Now your second point about running to the doc for every little complaint. I work in the hospital and prehospital on an ambulance. I get called out for a sprained ankle when their signicant other is home and could drive them in themselves no problem. Headaches, fevers, when all people need to do is take a freaking tylenol. This takes me away from people that are actually having an emergency. This is the same for your doctor. He/she has so many people to see and can only spend so much time with them

Omg yes. I took my 11yo into urgent care this weekend with extreme stomach pain. After a 5 minute eval they told us to get to the ER ASAP. So we hightail it down there and end up waiting for over an hour in the waiting room. The kid is writhing in pain and moaning loudly. The ER is packed full of people that do not appear to be in any kind of pain or suffering a medical emergency at all. I felt pretty useless and I couldn’t help my kid at all. Meanwhile his little sister is crying because she thinks big bro is dying and I’m just trying to calm them both as well as I can.

He ended up with an appendectomy. Could’ve ruptured while we were sitting there waiting for some kid to get his emergency rash treated.

Glad your kid is ok Tangler. A burst appendix and prior to it is some real pain. It sucks but that’s how things are and there’s nothing the hospital can do about it. They triage the best they can and try to give the severe cases priority.

Another thing people don’t think about when they are sitting in an ER waiting room is that the ER might already be full. Or worse yet the whole hospital doesn’t have a bed available so that in turn keeps the ER full. You’d be surprised at how often an entire hospital (every room, every bed) is full.

Totally. I didn’t blame the doctors or the hospital, I just felt like a lot of those folks could use a refresher on the definition of an emergency.