First:
Does anyone know of a general medicine practitioner over here who is worth a damn? I’ve lived here for fourteen years, and have yet to find a doctor that I am comfortable with. I find that the doctors rely too much on hocus-pocus (homeopathy and related crap) and that they don’t like to discuss things with me.
The height of this lunacy came last week when my 15 month old son started having some terrible pain and fever on Monday night. My wife and I took him to the local doctor on duty. This guy apparently is a staunch supporter of homeopathy. After examining our son, and experiencing one of his pain attacks, the doctor told us that he couldn’t find anything wrong. He gave the kid a couple of homeopathic saccharine pills, and told us to go home. My wife asked what the pills were and why he gave them to the kid, and he simply refused to answer. Apparently, we aren’t supposed to concern ourselves with the treatment or question the doctor’s actions.:rolleyes: Fortunately, Aaron threw an incredible fit just as we were leaving, which scared the doctor enough for him to take a second look. He then found that the kid had swollen lymph nodes and swelling at the back of his head. Since this could be a sign of meningitis, he wrote out a hospital transfer form and told us to take the kid to the hospital in Idar Oberstein. There, they examined the kid again, and found that he had a severe case of tonsilitis - with pus oozing from the tonsils.
Yes, we could have just gone to the hospital to start with, but it wouldn’t have done a whole lot of good. As far as I could tell, they don’t have an emergency room. We had to hunt people all around over the hospital to get the kid admitted. Hell, it took us a half an hour just to figure out how to get into the place - and my wife is German so it wasn’t a communications problem.
Anyway, I’ve recently had reason to suspect that I am developing high blood pressure. It runs in my family, and there were a couple of times when I was on vacation here a month or so back when I just got nose bleeds for no apparent reason. Since my wife is trained as a doctor’s assistant, she knows how to take blood pressure readings and has the gadgets to do it with here at home. The measurements she takes show my blood pressure to be normal most of the time, but that it is way too high sometimes when there really isn’t any reason for it (160/120 after sitting around the living room and having watched a fairly innocuous TV show for the last half hour.) I’ve been to a couple of doctors about this. One ran a twenty four hour blood pressure test, and found that my pressure is borderline high. This was a local doctor, and I went to him because I was on vacation and visiting my regular doctor would have meant an hour drive each way. Besides which, he was on vacation, too. The local doctor put me on a blood pressure medication at a dosage below what the manufacturer recommends as the minimum, and which isn’t recommended for the type of problem I have anyway. It seems that the higher value of my blood pressure stays pretty much in the normal range, but that the lower value stays too high pretty much all the time. The information sheet for the medication the doctor put me on specifically says that it isn’t good for that type of thing.
Once vacation was over, and my regular doctor was back from his vacation, I went to see him. He ran some blood and urine tests, and an EKG stress test and looked at the results for the twenty foru hour test done by the other doctor, and then decided (based on his two or three measurements of my blood pressure) that my blood pressure is fine and doesn’t need anything done with it. Well, duh. When I sit and read for over a half an hour (as I always do is his waiting room when I visit him,) my blood pressure (both values) drops back down to the normal range. The one spot on the twenty four hour test where my blood pressure was completely normal was during the one hour when I kicked back on the couch and read one of my favorite books - which I had explained to both doctors.
Since then, I have begun getting dizzy spells. These coincide with periods when the lower value of my blood pressure is way too high. I’ve explained this to the doc, and he has tried to convince me that the dizziness is caused by the weather -right. That’s why I’ve had these dizziness attacks all my life (not.) :rolleyes: I suppose I could go back to the local doctor, but I’m not real fond of him, either. He once misdiagnosed my broken elbow as a sprained wrist, and then did the bit with prescribing a medication against the manufacturer’s recommendations.
So, any ideas of where I can find a general practitioner who can tell his ass from a hole in the ground (with out using his sense of taste?)
Second:
Has there ever been a Germany dopefest? I recently saw note that one of the dopers in the U.S. (Quasimodem, I think it was) is coming to Germany in December. I would like to suggest that we take this as a cue to organize a Germany dopefest.
Any interest?
Hello?
::Shivers at the hollow echoes of an unvisited thread and tip-toes back out again::
I don’t think there are many Dopers in Germany. I’ve been keeping an eye out for some time (relating to my desire to get an authentic nutcracker for LESS THAN $220 US) and haven’t noticed any until you.
There are a few. I see them every now and again on the boards. The ones I’ve seen don’t usually have the “location” filled out in their profiles. They simply answer questions and make comments that include references to being in Germany.
So, what kind of a nutcracker are you thinking of?
There are some German Dopers. We used to live in Germany with little ones. My son had some (minor) health issues and we had no major troubles with the doctors we used. If you are in the Frankfurt or Wiesbaden areas I could see if I could find our doctor’s name somewhere (maybe on some med receipts).
We also had a neighbor that was Turkish but practised medicine in Germany (Bad Soden). That might be a way to go if they haven’t studied medicine directly in Germany they might be a bit less likely to go the homeopathy/natural medicine direction.
FWIW, I once had some extreme gas pains. It really felt like I might die. I finally found the late open pharmacy and they gave me an herbal remedy that worked great.
Good luck. And I’ve not heard of a German Dopefest. Maybe you should organize one.
Just a very traditional nutcracker. My mother-in-law would love one from Germany (hers are cheap made-in-china types) but I am too cheap to buy the ones I see here stateside.
I can remember doing to visit a friend-of-a-friend when I was in Germany. He was recovering from a kidney removal. I remember being aghast that the hospital wasn’t air conditioned. The poor guy had heat and sweating to contend with, as well as his incision and various and sundry pain.
Don’t know about the health system, but I will be moving to the Mannheim area in just 2 months. I’d be happy to attend a Germany dopefest!
Jman
Do you mean the stand up soldier looking thingies with the handle in back that moves the jaws to crack nuts? I can take a look the next time I am downtown.
As for the Germany Dopefest, I am going to bookmark this thread for the names, and point folks here when I notice someone who seems to be from from here posting.
Do you mean the stand up soldier looking thingies with the handle in back that moves the jaws to crack nuts? I can take a look the next time I am downtown.
As for the Germany Dopefest, I am going to bookmark this thread for the names, and point folks here when I notice someone who seems to be from from here posting.
Oh. Shibboleth: I work in Wiesbaden. Don’t go to any trouble digging up addresses, but if you happen to have a name handy it would be much appreciated.