My primary physician gave me unusual advice this afternoon. She works for Kaiser Permanente, a conventional US health care company. I called her this afternoon to ask what makes iron pills nutritionally available. She took a few seconds to think so I suggested “Do you think a V-8 would be suitably acidic?” She said, “I’d advise drinking a small Coca-Cola with your iron pill every morning.” It seems like my body could handle that, with my exercise, nutrition and physical conditions.
Which examples of unconventional advice have you ever received from your primary physicians?
I went to my primary doc, complaining about back pain and digestive problems. After quizzing me about my eating and lifestyle habits, he noticed two things. I was drinking a lot of cheap beer, and commuting in a 1-ton pickup as my daily driver.
He suggested reducing the beer consumption and buying better brands, and trading my pickup for a new, lighter-weight model to avoid the jarring ride.
I pointed out he’d just prescribed expensive beer and a new pickup, which made him the best Texas doctor ever.
I was told by a new-to-me gynecologist, out of the blue, thst I should have three orgasms a week. She also offered me a medical MJ card. By my next appointment, she was much more subdued. I figure she got a board complaint, was bipolar, or both.
Back in the late 90s, I went to an urgent care clinic when my sinus infection became so bad I lost hearing in my left ear. The doctor prescribed a decongenstant and sent me on my way. When I took it to the pharmacist, he looked at the script and asked, “Is your doctor from eastern Europe? We don’t use this here. Let me call and see if we can get you something else.” The doctor was in fact from eastern Europe.
Not me, but my wife. Many years ago, she was looking for a new therapist. She met with a guy to see if he was a good fit. They talked for a bit, and he recommended that, if she was feeling blue, to have a little snack – cheese and crackers, something like that. “You must learn to feed your inner princess,” he said.
I saw a therapist for a while during the height of COVID, due to depression. She prescribed spending 10 to 15 minutes outside in the early morning, as she had research showing that the early-morning sun helped with mood.
This triggers my professional curiosity, did they explain the mechanism, what kind of inhaler, what kind of kidney issues? PM me if you want to keep it private.
I figured you’re probably on warfarin when I saw your post.
I once dispensed that to a black woman who looked at her patient education sheet, and said, “I can’t have collard greens? I might not take my medication if I can’t have those!” I told her to discuss this with her dietician; many people can have greens in moderation after their INR is stabilized, if it’s a regular part of their diet.
My cousin is a veterinarian, now retired on disability. He said that when he was in private practice, the weirdest thing he ever prescribed, in the early 1990s, was Prozac for a cat. The cat was refusing to use a litterbox, and it was almost a joke, as a last ditch before having the cat euthanized. Guess what? It worked.
Got it in one! The fun part is all the blood tests for my INR levels. The newer drugs aren’t approved for fat guys like me, so it’s old school rat poison/medicine for me.
I think it’s actually the second drug in that combination of 3 that helps with that bladder sensation, it is an anticholinergic which would mediate spasms in the smooth muscle tissues of your bladder. It’s actually an inhaler to treat lung diseases where spasms narrow airways (also smooth muscles). Does that sound at all familiar?
I used Trelegy inhalers for asthma until Medicare refused to pay for them. They are $662 a month.
Not a doctor but a nurse or nurse practioner (I’m not sure which she is): when she was going over chemo and everything with me during my first infusion I noticed that the paperwork they gave me didn’t say anything about cold drinks. So I started to ask about cold drinks , and she took it a different way and said “if you need to eat ice cream to get through chemo YOU EAT ICE CREAM!”
I once worked with a woman who, early in her second pregnancy, only wanted ice cream for breakfast but was hesitant to eat it in front of her preschool-aged son. I’m not the only person who told her, “Oh, go ahead and eat it in front of him, and let him have some if he wants it.”
As for the weirdest prescription I ever heard of: A previous colleague said that it was a pediatrician who wrote a prescription for Premarin vaginal cream (estrogen) for a 4-year-old girl, to be applied to the face. She called the office to ask what the indication was for it; they wouldn’t tell her but they did say to just go ahead and fill it. This would have been in the early 1990s.
The strangest coincidences were Caverject (do not Google that on a work computer; just don’t) written by a urologist named Dr. Wiener, and a dermatologist in Athens, GA named Dr. William Barry.