Speaking as a person who coughs up enough colorful mucus over the course of a year to drown Belize (talk about your “Gross National Products”!), it seems to me that the pendulum has swung the other way with doctors. It used to be that you went into the doctor, told them what you were coughing up, they gave you a prescription and you went away. Nowadays you go in, you tell them what you’re coughing up, they tell you they can’t give you anything and that you’ll eventually get better. Gee thanks.
At what point in medical school do they give doctors “X-ray Microscope Vision” to automatically see whether the little beasties in your lungs are germs, viruses or bacteria? 'Cause I’ve yet to see any indication that my doctors have the slightest idea what the real cause of my recurring misery is…
And this is all irrelevant anyway, because the OP was asking what the green stuff was. He wasn’t asking for medical advice. If he had been, I think the response of most of the posters would have been, “See a doctor”, as it is inappropriate to get your medical advice from a message board. Also, I think it’s inappropriate to give medical advice on a message board. If someone posted saying “I think I twisted my ankle”, I would not say “better put some ice on it.” I would say “better get that checked out, because it could be more than a sprain, and we here at the SDMB can’t tell over the Internet what the actual problem is.”
And yeah, congrats on actually doing some research to back up one of your posts, handy. Here’s hoping we see that more often.
How was this reply for irrelevance and inappropriateness?
“Could be tofu.”
If we should be strict evenly, then we should completely ban all medical questions because based on the SD guidelines they can ONLY be answered with “Better get that checked out.”
Even Qadcop’s answers to any medical questions are inappropriate because he cannot dispense medical advice to an unseen person, without a medical examination, and he might not even be licensed in the state the person is writing from. I think his medical malpractice insurance company would boot him if they ever found out he was dispensing medical advice over the Internet.
JillGat had a good point about medical topics and what is and isn’t appropriate in them here. (Much better and more accurate than my response in this thread, too, I should say.)
Get real. Discussing medicine in general, and saying things like “It could be this, but see your doctor” certainly don’t constitute practicing medicine. No physician-patient relationship exists. By your standards, all medical advice columns would have to be shut down. From what data do you draw your conclusions?
handy I’ve prescribed antibiotics for a lot of things, including bronchitis. My point, which you seem to continue to miss, is that you are not qualified to make a recommendation to someone that they need antibiotics.
This is getting far afield of the original question (thanks Pod for finally addressing that coherently).
Man… here you were posting links and defending your position both here and in ATMB and I was thinking, “Man! Handy’s not just some drive by this time. He’s putting some serious thought into his responses”, and then you have to crap out a little biscuit like like this.
Handy per your explanations for your posting style in ATMB ie “It’s like ASL dialect get used to it”, being hearing impaired may affect your innate expressive grammer but it doesn’t make you retarded. There is no damned excuse for this crap. You’re an intelligent man and you damned well know the answer to this question.
If you want to taunt a medical doctor, who has to date displayed a fairly impressive command of his craft, with the notion that he has at some time, appropriately prescribed an antibiotic for bronchitis and that this somehow negates his ability to caution you about making treatment suggestions… then good God there’s just no hope for you.
Ferrous iron compounds are green?? I have a couple questions. What is ferrous iron? ferrous means “containing iron” so ferrous iron means iron containing iron??? Ferrous oxide (??) is red - rust.
Who is this guy Powell and what’s his Doctorate in - History?? What is Caerphilly?? Wale?? I’m teasing, obviously, but ferrous iron? The Department of Redundancy Department.
However, I still want to know how GPs are able to determine whether or not antibiotics will do me any good on the basis of a cursory examination. Is virus-caused phlegm somehow different than bacteria-caused phlegm? Does it depend on what’s “going around” at the time? Do they just not care, and don’t want to give me antibiotics even when they would help me?
There are two main oxidation states of iron: ferrous (Fe2+) and ferric (Fe3+). The form in which it is found in nature depends on the pH and on the oxygen concentration. So no, “ferrous iron” is not redundant.
jr8, medical science has shown that acute bronchitis is seldom caused by bacteria, and then generally only under special circumstances. If you don’t fit those circumstances, there’s not a lot of reason to think on it further. And most cases of nasal congestion are not cases of bacterial sinusitis, either. Once again, if the patient doesn’t meet the criteria for a diagnosis of bacterial sinus infection, they shouldn’t be given antibiotics.
Now, if you’re a chronic lunger, or have a known history of recurrent bacterial sinus infections, or have had appropriate symptoms for longer than 3 weeks, then it becomes reasonable to consider a diagnosis of bacterial infection, and a trial of therapeutic antibiotics.
The bottom line is; most cases of both upper and lower respiratory infection in an otherwise healthy population are viral, not bacterial. The medical examination should focus on looking for signs and symptoms that confirm or refute this impression. I don’t feel the need to prove that the infection is viral in order to not prescribe antibiotics. When we hear hoofbeats, we think of horses before zebras, then give a look to make sure we don’t see stripes. And we try not to think of unicorns at all.
" If you want to taunt a medical doctor, who has to date displayed a fairly impressive command of his craft, with the notion that he has at some time, appropriately prescribed an antibiotic for bronchitis and that this somehow negates his ability to caution you about making treatment suggestions."
No, you fail to see, astro, that in checking the rules here & the rules state as long as a statement is true, it’s acceptable. He said that he prescribes them for bronchitis sometimes, therefore my statement is true. I don’t need any more editorializing from anyone about the situation. But thanks for your concern.
“Sigh”. All those years at Johns Hopkins, all those patients, and now I’m demoted to Mr. by handy.
So handy, since I freely admit that after taking a medical history, doing an exam, and reviewing pertinent laboratory and x-ray studies, I have indeed provided antibiotics for individuals with bronchitis, does that mean that you do consider yourself qualified to recommend antibiotics? That was my initial assertion, after all. If you still do consider yourself qualified to make that recommendation, then indeed there is no further benefit to discussing this.
Mods, sorry for posting the above bit in two threads, but we seemed to have the same issue going in both places, and I at least felt the need for closure for both of them.
Heck, even in the United States, I know of a few ways to get antibiotics without seeing a health care professional (this term covers NPs and PAs). At least one way is even legal. I’m not going to go into details, though.
Just to throw some more facts into the discussion…I’ve told my daughter to make darn sure that she NEEDS penicillin if it’s prescribed to her, as our family has a lot of folks who are allergic to it. Every time she takes penicillin, she increases her chance of becoming allergic to it. Or so I was given to understand.
I also make sure that I NEED that antibiotic (I’m allergic to penicillin) before I will accept the prescription. Antibiotics tend to make my blood sugar soar (I’m diabetic), give me horrid diarrhea, and a raging yeast infection. Most antibiotics will kill off the beneficial bacteria as well as the infection-causing bugs. So if the doc thinks that I probably won’t need the antibiotic, I’ll be happy to just treat the symptoms. On the other hand, I WILL finish up any course of antibiotics that I’m given.
I appreciate the fact that penicillin is readily available. I just wish that more people would use it responsibly.
I just got back to see all of the replies to my question and I’m happy to announce that I’m almost 100% better. I did not go to the doctor (because I don’t like going – similar to how some people don’t like going to the dentist)but I am over it and I am only coughing up a little bit of green stuff still. I’m not dead ;). I probably should have at least stopped smoking… Oh, and I’m not giving out medical advice to stop smoking. thanks everyone.
What is Caerphilly?? Wale?? I’m teasing, obviously, but ferrous iron? The Department of Redundancy Department.
thanks everyone.