8 Responses to “Now I Know Why My Grandmother Avoided Doctors”

1. 

   Gavin Bollard August 7th, 2009 at 12:22 am

   Hi Rachel, I can understand exactly where you’re coming from…

   I had chest pains about a month back. I went to see a doctor, luckily I work almost next door to a clinic. They rushed me off to hospital in an ambulance…

   Anyway, eventually – after a whole day of tests – they let me go, which was great because I was stressing out with overload simply because they were fussing.

   I was told to go and do some further tests, which I did end up doing but haven’t followed up on yet to get results (it’s been a month). The reason; I just don’t think I could stand going through all that fuss again.

2. 

   Saja August 7th, 2009 at 7:02 am

   I also avoid doctors like the plague. And dentists. In fact, after my parents stopped making twice-yearly appointments for me, I stopped going to the dentist at all. Eighteen years later, I had my first dentist appointment since childhood. Nothing wrong with my teeth at all. No cavities. Nothing. (According to the dentist, I was in the lucky set of people who avoid dentists for two decades: the other set needs all teeth pulled and replaced with dentures. He said you very rarely see anything in between after so long a dental hiatus.)

   My experience with doctors–and I’ve had quite a lot, during my daughter’s illness and my most recent pregnancy, which had a rare complication–is that they often know LESS about the condition in question than I do. Like you, Rachel, I go online and look up medical studies and journal articles and learn a wealth of technical medical information on the condition. Which I then teach to the doctor. At best, they know what I know, and hey, I already know what I need to do, what the prognosis is, what measures to take.

   I will not go to the doctor until something hurts. If this means I miss the treatable stage of some kind of cancer, well, so be it.

3. 

   LizzieK8 August 7th, 2009 at 8:25 am

   Yuppers…. I avoid doctors as much as possible.

4. 

   misfit August 7th, 2009 at 8:50 am

   yah, i’m fed up with doctors too, but with various chronically painful issues going on, I unfortunately need to see one occsionally. I have self diagnosed in the past when they said it was (a) constipation and (b) all in my head (go figure…) and ended up being something I needed to be in the ER for and spent the next 10 days on a drip in the hospital…!
   hope this all gets sorted out and that all is well.

5. 

   Rachel August 7th, 2009 at 8:21 pm

   Thanks for your support, everyone. It’s very affirming to hear that others feel as I do.

   I went this morning to get some bloodwork done (as part of my physical), so we’ll see if anything shows up. In any case, Bob and I have an appointment with the doc next Friday to talk all this out.

6. 

   Jason August 8th, 2009 at 1:27 pm

   I have no luck with doctors either. I tend to get into actual arguments with them over their approaches or diagnoses. I hate that even after I tell them that I’m a biochemist and don’t need the kindergarten explanation for something, they explain things to me as if I’m 6 years old. I can’t stand their habit of making an appointment, making you wait an hour when you get there, and yet they charge you $100 if you show up late. To make it worse, when they finally do see you, they generally spend all of about 30 seconds with you, none of that time involving listening. In fact, the way most doctors are, you are best to talk very quickly through a set of bullet points:

   * Cough

   * Sneezing

   * Runny Nose

   - “Oh, and I have this soreness in my left big toe that is bothering me quite badly.”

   MD: When here is a list of over the counter cold remedies you should try and I’ve prescribed you an anti-depressant to help you deal with it all. Bye.

   Of course, they all but ignore any item that doesn’t fit a packaged diagnosis. Your toe simply isn’t related to the cold and for it, you need to make another appointment, wait another hour, and get another 30 seconds of non-listening time allotted.

   And what is up with them handing out anti-depressants like candy? Especially in the states here, it seems like nearly everyone is on some SSRI anti-depressant. That’s not good. These aren’t drugs that improve the quality of life for the vast majority of users. They simply make them numb enough to not care about their poor quality of life. Since the advent of handing SSRIs out to everyone, I’ve noticed (read Aspie fixation) a sharp decline in basic social courtesy behavior. People don’t open doors for others, they don’t say excuse me, they don’t say “please” or “thank you”, and they raise their children “feral” (to quote John). My current theory is that much of this decline in caring is do to people being on drugs that numb them out. If so many people actually need to be on those drugs, it’s a giant wake up signal to a pervading social disease, not individualized cases of depression. Oops, I went tangential there, sorry.

   Anyhow….
   For a group of professionals that are supposed to be some of our brightest, most caring, and most highly educated, they sure do fail to act with thought, concern, or knowledge.

7. 

   Crystal August 12th, 2009 at 5:03 pm

   Rachel,

   Just READING about the chatty nurse doing your EKG made me want to find her and slap her. Just for being obnoxious. LOL

8. 

   Crystal August 12th, 2009 at 5:07 pm

   @Saja

   I haven’t been to the dentist in 23 years. And I KNOW my teeth aren’t in good shape.

   Uh oh. lol