back from the doctor

[gusl]

Just got back from doctor.

I wrote my history on this problem chronologically, filling half a page, and took it with me. Service was quick: I waited only about 10 minutes. I was seen by a doctor at about 11:15am, when the blockage was much better, something like 80%L / 50%R (about the same as now). When I woke up, it had been something like 50%L/0%R.

I told him that 2 hours before I could hardly breathe (1/4 capacity), and was afraid of going back to sleep.
His response: "You won't die from it. You can breathe through your mouth."

Making no attempt to determine what was causing my blockage, he promptly gave me xylometazoline hydrochloride nose drops. It turns out that this stuff is only meant for colds, which I show no signs of having.
Then I was told that if I wanted to see an ENT doctor, then I would have to go the normal route, through my huisarts (GP). I will do this ASAP.

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To fuel one's skepticism of doctors, Robin Hanson's "Fear of Death & Muddled Thinking: It Is So Much Worse than You Think" is brilliant. Hanson defends the idea that most medical care is a luxury, and is interested in phenomena of self-deception (and normal deception too).

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Survey:
(1) when was the last time you visited a doctor?
(2a) when was the last time a doctor was useful to you? how many visits ago was that?

Now consult the oracle of counterfactuals, and ask him "what if I hadn't gone to the doctor that time?"
and answer
(2b) when was the last time a doctor was useful to you? how many visits ago was that?

what kind of help did you get?
* education/prevention
* told you what you had
* got a prescription that made the difference (did you already know what you needed?)
* surgery
* other?

Comments

[brkvw.livejournal.com]

1: Do you include chiropractors? A few days ago then. Otherwise, about a year ago, I was hit by a horse, and was finishing up my last visits.

2: Chiro: Yes, I have greater mobility, and less pain. Otherwise, no doctor has ever really been directly useful to me, other than to identify the right drug to stop a pain, although my guesses were correct. I have gotten blood poisoning several times, that about covers it.

I have had surgery, wisdom teeth out, vasectomy. I can afford full medical coverage, plus I add onto this that I pay out of my own pocket for even more comforts. Where standard medicine will not use an anesthesiologist, I provide my own.

I view doctors as the second opinion to my own.

However, and this needs to be stressed here, most people are…well, average. 100 IQ. Observing this, I can see that these sheeple, er, people, will not recognize ailments they could cure themselves.

This alone may explain why we are living longer. Normal people are simply as part of process…getting help they would otherwise not have gotten. Nothing more, nothing less.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Did you write about the horse incident somewhere? Chiropractic treatment sounds interesting, even if the mechanisms are not clear.

Re: vasectomy. Lifestyle choice?
Re: blood poisoning. Scary! How did that happen, and why so many times?

Hanson seems to argue, from results of controlled studies, that medical care is hardly ever useful, and that it's truly puzzling why people are living longer.

[jbouwens.livejournal.com]

that medical care is hardly ever useful,

He probably did his research in Western countries then.

and that it's truly puzzling why people are living longer.

Anti-biotics and vaccinations are probably among the biggest factors there. People used to die from things like TBC and pneumonia which, are relatively easy to treat nowadays, and Diphteria, Tetanus, Polio and all those other things kids get vaccinated against.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, but I've learned not to underestimate Robin Hanson. Those explanations seem pretty simple and common sense... so if it's that easy, he would agree with us, and yet he doesn't.

[brkvw.livejournal.com]

I agree as well. I consider this part of "Normal people are simply as part of process…getting help they would otherwise not have gotten."

If we knock off 20 (to pick a random number) items that once killed people, this could show a huge increase in lifespan (or free people to live longer).

But if one considers that there was a time in history where a nasty cough was cured with…"more whiskey" then that trip to the doctor became really important.

[brkvw.livejournal.com]

Horse: http://joyjoycafe.com/Blog/2004/O201.html

Chiropractic. Simple, (even if they don't admit it), the body locks down the vertebrae around nerves to protect them, manual manipulation forces them to get moving again before they would normally (normally being "rest" I would guess).

Vasectomy: Yes, have no interest in children.

Blood: I learned I have a strong reaction to the vain in shrimp (which is actually their intestine). I now visually inspect shrimp that I eat one by one, and never eat things where the shrimp is mixed with other things (like soup). Have not had a problem since.

Hanson: Yeah, I read the paper, but his conclusions seemed Opinion. In other words he sites research, but the research does not declare his conclusion.

Sort of like talking about cops that die from attacks on the job, and breaking it down into Knife, Gun, and Vehicular deaths. But ignoring the fact that “being a cop" is what actually gets you killed in these situations.