Griping about doctors’ diagnoses is about as pointless as griping about the mechanic when he delivers the bad news that your car’s tires are going to keep blowing out as long as you keep not inflating them.
They’re just the messengers. And most doctors get to see their patients come in for band-aids 'cause they don’t want to stop cutting themselves<metaphorically speaking>. It gets old.
And yes, you have to break in new doctors. You do have to prove, to a point, that you are not looking for a pill to fix your laziness, lack of discipline, etc etc. They need a history, a read on you, and they aren’t going to get it in one visit. They aren’t psychiatrists, life coaches, mommies or daddies. They are not your best friend. They would LOVE for you to take their advice, but know you probably won’t. For the record, I’d be a grumpy-assed, pissed doctor if I were one. So it’s a good thing I’m not.
I do think the system needs to be FAR more cohesive, however. A national medical database would be so useful, I am just flabbergasted that there isn’t a relatively seamless way to handle medical histories. It’s just…wow. So stupid not to have it.
For ages I had a deal with my doctor and my dentist. My dentist would deliver the Breast Self Exam lecture and the doctor would tell me to floss more. I figure it gave them both variety from the same lectures every day. They were both amused.
(I do both, until my sisters breast cancer, neither as often as I should. Now I do too many BSEs).
A BSE lecture from your dentist is a bit odd, but FWIW flossing has been shown to reduce heart disease. My dentist explained that oral bacteria love to attack heart tissue, including (especially?) the valves. Start flossing regularly now, and you may avoid valve replacement surgery somewhere down the road.
As for the OP…
They certainly don’t have all the answers, and I don’t believe they think they do. They are not miracle workers. You see a doctor for maybe 15 minutes a year (0.00285% of your life), and you alone are in charge of your body the rest of the time (99.997% of your life). Apart from treating health issues that are present at the time of the exam, all they can do is advise you on how to best care for your health while you’re outside of his office; your actions during that 99.997% of your life will have much more impact on your health/longevity than his actions ever will.
WRT the stress of daily life, there are healthy ways to relieve it, and unhealthy ways. There are organizations and medicines that can help you quit drinking, quit smoking, and get your diet under control; your doctor may help connect you with these things, or you might be able to dig them up on your own. Some health insurance plans will help you pay for a health club membership if you use it regularly. Got all that under control, and stress is still buggin ya? Make some lifestyle changes - different job, reduced responsibilities in other areas, etc. - to get it under control.
If you can’t/won’t make these changes, then the only response is that you will be at greater-than-average risk for health problems (heart disease, stroke, etc.) down the road. Unpleasant and frustrating news, to be sure, but there’s no justification for being angry at its bearer.
I don’t know you, but it seems like you think doctors should have all the answers.
The doc is giving you the bottomline on how to improve your physical health. If you expect someone to give you a reason to live, or motivation to become the best you can be, that’s not a GPs job.
There are people in and out of the medical profession who specialize in those things but-- the last time I checked–success isn’t guaranteed.
It doesn’t seem like your doctor should be the target of your frustration.
I grew up in the country, and we had a simple “Doctor’s Rooms” where two different Doctors practised, each with a very distinct approach to health.
One Doc was a health nut. In his personal life, he was a champion cross country runner, so most of his recommendations involved a lot of exercise and eating right.
The other Doc was a chain smoking, haggard, drinker, who predominantly prescribed drugs to solve health troubles. Not to any excess or questionable level, it was all carefully prescribed at proper levels, as far as I can recall.
The haggard chain smoking Doctor lived to be 70 years old. Though he did die of lung cancer.
The health crazed running Doctor died unexpectedly at 50, from a previously undiagnosed heart defect.
Doctors are just people, and all they can suggest is what they think is best, gleaned from the information they have in front of them, and their many years of education and experience. Outside of that, they’re no more insightful and helpful than your interfering busybody neighbours.
Exercise is one of the best ways to deal with stress and helps to improve overall outlook. Even a meandering stroll through the park is good for stress levels. This is one of the reasons we always walk to and from work. IMHO a lot of people would be better off skipping one TV show to take a short walking tour.
Sometimes you can’t do what your doc tells you for various reasons.
I would absolutly love to lose weight, being a fat diabetic … but - I eat the nutritionist mandated diet, I do the doc mandated drugs. I don’t smoke, drink or binge eat. I can’t do 90% of the forms of exercise out there thanks to arthritis in various forms in essentially every joint from the waist down. [New orthopod, new diagnostics and diagnoses…I was wondering why everything hurt…:rolleyes:]
Now, if I cut my 1800 calories a day down, I don’t get all the nutrients in my fairly carefully crafted nutrition plan.
I can’t just ‘go out for a walk’ and the nearest swimming pool is 35 miles away. Tricare will pay for 18 physiotherepy sessions per year. So I have to drive mrAru 50 miles in the morning, then go 50 miles back in the evening so i can have the car for a 1 hour session … 200 miles plus the 35 mile round trip down to the PT office.
Now what do you suggest I do? No, We do not get along with the neighbors, so I cant mooch a ride, most of my friends are military and live in different duty stations, some all over the world. Other friends are internet friends and live all over the world. My friends from my last job all live 50 miles away, in Hartford and it’s environs, and have jobs.
And you know what? Other than the CPPD in my feet, my joint damage all dates from my athletic past, when I wasn’t fat. SO if I had been anorectic for the past 19 years I would still be gimped out.
Diet, exercise and lifestyle are about the only things we can have total control over. I think it’s amusing that the OP is angry about the things that don’t enslave us to “Big Pharma,” don’t subject us to endless, costly procedures, and don’t drive up the cost or limit the availability of healthcare.
Your boss tells you to leave your personal problems at the door and to be happy, positive and 100% (or more!) productive at all times. Eastern Philosophies tell us to shed our ego and our desires. Western Religions tell us to turn all our problems over to God. Our moms tell us to do this, our dads tell us to do that. Our friends tell us to do other things.
The overly simplistic “Oh just do X!” is human nature. Doctors are no different.
Yeah, they stay fresh and crisp. Cut-up veggies will go limp faster than whole veggies due to surface evaporation issues and the exposed surfaces/cut-through plant cells leaking water faster. Putting them in water is like putting cut flowers in water; both will suck up water and stay nice for longer.
The carrot chips I’m on board with, but the ice chips suggestion…well, it’s amusing because it betrays that the person making the suggestion has no understanding of what’s really going on with you. Ice chips aren’t going to address any of the issues that lead to binge eating–they’re not satisfying in taste, texture, volume, or nutritional content, nor sucking on them make you feel like you’ve eaten something.
I think a lot of it is because many of the things that work for you work because you don’t have the same sort of issues surrounding your diet/exercise regime. It’s hard to explain to someone who is actually satisfied by a few carrot sticks or some ice chips what it’s like to eat those things and still be hungry or craving salt/fat/sugar/whatever to the point that you’re miserable. Most of the people I’ve seen giving such advice don’t stop at pointing out that it works–they go on to spout off about how it’s really not hard to do…and for people who have the sorts of issues that tend to lead to obesity, it is hard, because it involves being miserable a whole lot of the time. When someone can’t understand something so terribly basic, it’s easy to write off everything they say. I’m not saying it’s right, mind, but I do think it’s human nature.
It does indeed. Not only from the Sisyphusian frustration of it all, but the fact that in a lot of cases you’ve been treating these people for a long time, gotten to know and like most of them, and seen it bearing down on them like a freight train. It’s hard, emotionally, to watch someone you like and care about kill themselves by inches, you know?
I don’t think that’s what people are saying at all. They’re saying that doctors have an ethical duty to tell us all the stuff the OP is bitching about. Health care professionals are duty-bound to act in our best interests, and that often includes making recommendations we don’t much want to hear. My doctor has to make sure I know that my exam shows abc and it has xyz implications, just like I have to tell the guy who’s clutching his own crotch at the suggestion that not neutering his dog will increase the little fellow’s risk of this, that, and the other. I know good and well that I’m wasting my breath, but I have to say it anyway, because it’s what’s best for my patient. He can take my advice or not (and it’s generally not), but I have a duty to my patient to put the information out there so he can make an informed choice.
It seems a little dishonest to me for doctors to charge the amounts they do if they are only dispensing the same advise everybody else gives. Overeating and smoking - two huge killers - and the best the medical community can come up with is" “don’t do that - that will be $100, pay on your way out”? Someone up-thread mentioned that it must be frustrating to be a doctor in these cases and I bet it is, but I also bet the yacht sort of compensates for that mild frustration.
I don’t know any doctors with a yacht. I’m sure some own one. One of the doctors I work for was super-psyched about her hybrid Prius, though.
The appointment charge is paying for their time and knowledge (and rent, and electricity, and employee salaries, and…). It’s like bringing a kid to the doctor when they just have a cold and being insulted that you didn’t even come away with a prescription. I’m sure they could give you a prescription for something, but it’d be more likely to do nothing at all or cause side effects. So then you get to pay even more on top of the appointment for nothing good.
This isn’t going to come out nice, so I won’t sugar-coat it. With that being said, I’m not trying to be a dick. Apparently, it’s just natural for me.
You reap what you sow. You’re in this because you’ve got a long history of doing it to yourself. Now you’re at the point where, because of your lack of previous activity, any little bit of activity helps, but now there are other problems/excuses getting in the way. You can’t lean on friends and neighbors because you didn’t cultivate those relationships. It takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes effort to maintain the village and the relationships within. You may very well have some pre-existing conditions or some defects, but that’s not the whole picture.
I can remember the exact moment when I realized that food was a big issue for me. I was driving through an apartment parking lot to visit a friend and there were two guys walking through the parking lot holding pizza boxes and my first thought was, “I wonder if I sped toward them really fast if they would drop the pizzas and run?” I didn’t actually try to run them down and steal their pizza or anything but I sure as hell thought about it for a moment. I’m pretty sure someone who thinks that eating less and exercising more is a simple process has never had that kind of thought.
