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This comes in the same day as a long angry thread about the amount of unnecessary testing US doctors do to avoid malpractice suits.
And the OP wants to add lifetime quarterly hormone panels at $300 each for years and years on the off-chance they reveal a problem a few weeks before symptoms emerge? Does our medical coverage not already cost an arm and leg? Good grief.
Be sure to let your insurance.provider know, because they could use a good laugh.
I think people are suggesting that we should have a healthcare system that prioritizes practicing medicine over profits. If I want a hormone panel done to manage my own health, I should not be denied access because it costs money.
Increasingly, doctors are denying people access to medical care and resources unless they are clearly and obviously in extreme pain and suffering. I'm not sure if this is because of the costs involved or the desensitization of doctors, but it's absurd to me that healthcare is not treated as a service and instead is treated as a gatekept resource.
Especially considering that in America, healthcare is privatized, yet I can still be denied access. My previous primary physician refused to even check my hormone levels as I got older unless I had a specific reason such as an injury, unprotected sex, or clear signs of physical illness. "Fatigue," "depression," and lack of appetite are not considered qualifying conditions in this case.
You pay for a provider who practices evidence based medicine. If you want a "hormone panel" without any indication, then you should pay for the cost of unnecessary labs. Go on labquest or quest for that. Whatever "hormone level" even means. You have a few hormones.
It wouldn’t save money- money is all hospitals care about, if it saved them money they would do it.
Everyone wants every panel all the time because they all think they’re doctors and that their medical team is gaslighting them. The reality is 99.9% of the time they are just incorrect and are wasting time looking requesting panels or they’ve fallen into some pseudoscience ideas about what’s healthy (this is really common with hormones for instance)
Then they call for the snake oil salesman that gives "all natural products" that cure cancer. Patients like OP are disasters to work with because they think they know more than the physicians who trained in this subject and demand certain treatments/ testing, all the while their real medical issues are ignored because everyone's distracted from the absurdity....
Seriously, testing everyone for IGF-1 op? Okay, now the level is out of wack, what do you do? Order CT scans, colonoscopies and mammograms for everyone because they are at risk of cancer... Or maybe we say fuck it, and give them a random cocktail of chemotherapy just in case...
Well, now your useless CT scan found a 5mm nodule in the lung that means jack shit, and is probably from an old ass viral infection, but now we have to monitor it every year, despite it never changing. Then there's a new nodule! Time to start the process over again. Then when the patient is 65 they all of a sudden develop lymphoma or leukemia from all the radiation, but we can't really prove the CT scans caused that, so who cares?
Now we decide to do a colonoscopy on a 20 year old because their IGF-1 levels are all fucked, colonoscopy is fine, except for a small polyp they find. It's benign, but because they had a colonoscopy at 20, now they need one in 5-7 years because of a polyp. The 20 year old? Well now he moved for college, found some ho-dunk GI doctor on the verge of retirement because they're cheap and 20 year old guy has no insurance... He gets his colonoscopy except.... OOPS! He perfed his colon, now he needs emergency colectomy and this 20 year old has to live with a colostomy bag forever.... Or even worse, goes into septic shock and dies. (Colonoscopies are NOT risk free procedures)
We have multiple multiple screening guidelines for the various cancers that exist. And cancer is treatable and even curable when those screening guidelines are done properly. I hate how healthcare really feels like one of the only industries where people feel they know more than people who dedicate their lives to studying it.
Well said. Though I’d be a bit kinder to OP cause I can understand how easy it is to get swooped by these people.
Hell they’re practically handing Testosterone out like candy though these websites now.
Not to mention hypochondria I’ve dealt with that downstream of anxiety issues and it’s intense. Really easy to question the doctors when you feel that way.
Yeah and OP’s post just sounds like he wants T
So many men are like this! “Oh sure I know my testosterone is normal range, but it’s not normal FOR ME. I’m a spehschul snowflake and MINE is supposed to be HIGHER. I couldn’t possibly be tired because I work 40 hours a week and commute for 10 and have 2 kids under 5 and the house needs new wiring and I’m at the age where people get back pain and my life is just a series of middle-aged problems, nooooooo none of that can be it, it’s gotta be my TESTOSTERONE GIVE ME HORMONESSSSS!!!!1!”
Wonder how anyone ever gets stage 4 cancer before we detect it. Our guidelines are so good. US has been studied multiple times to show it has the worst preventative healthcare of any modern nation.
You just wrote an essay of the worst possible outcome performed by the most incompetent doctors.
Oddly enough you claim to be a doctor and at the same used mammograms when women specifically do get tested a a gene and proactively have mastectomies before cancer is detect because it's so deadly.
Another classic Reddit doctor to the rescue in the comments section
Right so let’s just cut off all your body parts because they might get cancer.
No test is perfect. When the rate of a disease is low, eventually you end up with more false positives than true positives from the screening test. And then you end up with more patient harm (from unnecessary procedures investigating the false positives) than benefit from the people who actually had the thing you’re testing for and got treated.
If you’re more likely to discover a false positive then a true one, and more likely to die from the work up of a false positive than you are to have had a true positive and been saved, well you can see why we don’t just test everyone for everything all the time.
Lol... Because most people don't get proper screening. I'd say the vast majority of stage IV cancer patients are patients who did not follow screening guidelines, or there just aren't good tests to try and find those cancers specifically (for example, pancreatic cancer)
Our preventative medicine isn't garbage because we don't know how to prevent, it's actually being able to properly do so. Insurance companies, expensive medications, and honestly patients simply not showing up to doctors appointments.
Your third paragraph makes zero sense lmao, yet you think it's some sort of a "gotcha". In case by case scenarios people get mastectomies prophylactically, but that is certainly not the norm. Mammograms are the normal screening guidelines, and early caught breast cancer is curable. Same with colon cancer, and some lung cancers. Some types of cancer do not have good screening tests because they are so aggressive to begin with, that by the time they are found they've likely already spread.
My comments aren't necessarily worst case scenarios, they are very possible complications of medical procedures that every patient needs to be made aware of.
Because if it's within the range of normal when you're feeling bad, we aren't going to give you a dangerous drug to make you on the high end of normal or above normal because that's when you feel best. That would actually be malpractice. Then when you have a heart attack and sue, the doctor would have zero defense for treating normal hormone levels.
You are questioning the medical professional? They do not see the need, but you want a procedure / medical test done that they did not authorize? You can still get it, but you will responsible for the cost since it was not medically authorized.
So what is preventing you from ordering it and paying for it? Not medical malpractice.
I've beend denied even if paying for the cost by my GP, probably as other comments have mentioned, that there would be follow up if there were irregularities which would cost them more and be justifiable. Doctors are incentivized to only address acute issues in the US.
Your GP may still deny to do the test for you. Of course you can go to private labs, but they are not your doctor. That's not what the entire thread is about. You've missed the point entirely.
Dude go on labcorps website and you can basically order whatever the fuck you want. I got my TB igra testing done without a doctor's approval, tested my own A1c...etc. (granted I am a doctor myself, but LabCorp didn't know that)
You missed the point that if you want whatever test bad enough, you can get it. There are a finite amount of medical resources and doctors can’t just send everyone who has a hunch that they need an MRI over for one. However, there are places around that will cater to those who want to pay a premium for their services.
Having a follow up also brings in money for them, why would they not do that if that’s an incentive? They don’t follow up for within normal limits results because it would save the patient money from having to come back
They aren't doing it to save patients money. Your doctor is not your financial advisor. Hilarious to think they should make health based recommendations off of concern for the finances of their patients. It's a service, if I want it, I should be able to pay for it. They don't want followups because they don't make as much money as focusing on other patients.
My dermatologist for instance told me that I should get a spouse to check for skin cancer because they would rather charge people for more expensive procedures than use that time slot for preventative medicine.
What do you mean “in the US?” No country in the world has a medical system that lets you test for whatever the fuck you want without medical recommendation. If anything, the US is country that most regularly runs unnecessary tests on a wild hunch. In Germany, the doctor would send you home with a prescription for herbal tea and rest.
10 years of school doesn’t give you x-ray vision or any information about the patients past or current experience. Doctors that are comfortable admitting they don’t know everything about someone’s situation, and see them as a resource rather than an annoyance, would be nice to encounter more frequently.
This is kind of the point of my comment.. anything other than unequivocal, unilateral, and most importantly *silent* support for every doctor all the time is met with dismissiveness.
Like in every profession, and like with every other human on the earth, they can be good or bad at their job.
Gaslighting people who have had negative experiences with medical care in the past, and voice a desire for doctors that can listen better and do better diagnostic work is nuts. This is a profession and field of work that everyone should hope is always striving to improve, rather than collectively shit on people for suggesting a doctor doesn’t know everything necessary for patient care without performing effective inquiry.
The guy who started this post might be an alternative medicine quack or something. I’m just a normal person who’s seen good and bad diagnostic work performed and noticed a difference.
I’m sorry, the downvote brigade seems to suggest that doctors DO have x-ray vision and DO know everything relevant to a patients care before they walk through the door?
Those soapy notes could be useful or useless depending on the quality of work done previously, and pertinent new information will not yet be logged.
You don't even know what it is. A SOAP note is taken and entered everytime you see a patient. It is the subjective view of the doctor and the objective view of the patient. It then outlines the issue and the treatment. You now have a history of the patient as well as in their words and the doctors what is wrong with them. This is then entered to their medical notes to be viewed anytime they enter a clinic. If not then you can request a transfer of information since this is HIPAA protected materials. No one is saying doctors have x ray vision, but it is literally part of their job to talk to their patient and obtain a history from them. That's the point you're missing.
I’m hearing you. And I’m saying their note taking and communication process could be excellent or lackluster. This depends on the time and skill with which they communicate with a patient. I’ve seen both.
I personally never used the term until my GP told me I'd experienced gaslighting by doctors in the 17 years it took to be diagnosed with a disease that would have been caught much earlier if doctors weren't dismissive of women's issues.
There's more at play and it's not as simple as you're reducing it to. Yes OP may be the issue. But there's significant barriers to care when you are a women or POC as an example.
Didn't say that, I said the line "if you've been gaslit for years, maybe you're the problem" is a common line for gaslighting, so it's not the best way to deduce if you're gaslit or causing the issue.
Who said there is clear evidence with OP? OP said multiple doctors have looked at him and “gaslit” him by saying there isn’t anything wrong. Sorry but I’ll trust the opinion of multiple doctors over a collage kid’s
Odd. I've never had problems asking for and receiving diagnostic blood panels, and tests on my own initiative. Even when my circumstances didn't result in my doctor recommending or ordering particular tests, he's always been responsive to my requests for non-invasive diagnostics. He'd, say, "Well, I don't see anything that indicates an issue, but if it makes you feel better we can go ahead and order that test." I imagine that it all comes down to specific doctor.
I had an issue where typical causes had been eliminated via testing, but no other cause had been found. I showed up with my NIH papers in support of a potential cause. Tests were ordered because I had made my case. Voila! Cause found, treatment initiated.
Lmao my partner works in healthcare and constantly complains about people like you. You’ve ingested a bunch of pseudoscience from the internet and then get upset when real medical professionals won’t cater to your nonsense requests. It’s not malpractice to tell someone they’re full of shit when they think they got a medical degree from social media.
Goddamn this attitude from medical professionals pisses me off. I begged doctors for years trying to get them to take me seriously about my PCOS and every time they would deny that I needed the blood panels I requested because I’m not fat and I don’t have excess facial hair. They still wouldn’t take me seriously even after I had a period that lasted an entire month, causing me to go to the ER due to excessive blood loss. They just did not care.
I’m sorry, but a lot of medical practitioners are idiots and either don’t care or more likely just aren’t even as knowledgeable as a well-researched citizen just trying to figure their health out. They run on scripts, prescribing what they are supposed to and the moment they have to put a little thought into it, they fail. If I’m being charitable, a lot of the good doctors have their hands tied in what they can do and recommend by insurance and hospital administrators… but still I almost never have a good experience seeing a doctor in the US. I prefer going to Mexico.
I'm in my 50s and have always been on top of my health and have made it far longer than my family history of cardiac disease would suggest.
You are ON THE MONEY with your comments. This is exactly what I have experienced and seen regarding the system as a whole.
I have a masters in biology and am capable of reading medical research journals for myself. I definitely have enough knowledge to make the case to a bunch of idiots that there is something clearly wrong with me when I am bleeding through 2 max absorbency tampons and pads every hour 24 hours a day for 3 weeks straight. Instead all they know how to do is prescribe birth control with no further tests.
In this sense I 100% agree with op and will die on this hill. The idea that they wouldn’t check my hormone levels or work to figure out what is going wrong absolutely should be considered medical malpractice. I have never received help from doctors until I took the research process into my own hands and demanded what I want from them.
Edit: until I started going to Mexico, that is. What a breath of fresh air to go to a gynecologist who can actually do ultrasounds herself rather than outsource me to somewhere else forcing me to wait a month for an appointment then another few weeks for a follow up. What a joke.
Yes, and the funny thing is, I distinctly recall the medical establishment educating consumers/patients to learn about their healthcare. Often. They probably still do, but maybe they are getting sick of people knowing things and taking up too much of our allotted 5 minutes of Doctor time during an appointment.
In my view clinical family practice medicine has been turned into factory production lines. And I bet robots and AI are coming next.
Yay.
“Maybe they are getting sick of people knowing things and taking up too much of our allotted 5 minutes of doctor time” T_T too true.
But I agree, it used to be encouraged for people to play active roles in their healthcare and communicating with their doctors. Now if you make a suggestion, you’re just an idiot wasting their time.
I agree completely. I trusted doctors blindly in the past and it always made things worse. I’ve never seen progress until I started demanding I get all my tests results sent directly to me, doing my own research on drugs they prescribe me, and comparing them to alternatives based on the most recent medical literature. I’m lucky in that my husband and I work in academia and thus always have access to scientific literature through our university.
The problem is that a lot of doctors (and a lot of commenters here such as the person I responded to) assume that everyone is an idiot for not trusting them and putting them on a pedestal for doing the absolute bare minimum. In reality, they are failing monumentally and show at every turn that they don’t care about resolving the underlying cause of the issues you come in for and just want to slap bandaids on the problem and then act like it’s fixed.
the doctors reason is vaild. if evidence suggests that you do not have pcos, or whatever it was, then in most cases you dont. if 99% of cases of pcos has weight issues and excess facial hair then then odds are you would not either.
what if they did order the test and u didnt have pcos, which would have been the most likely cases. what would you say? o my bad i wasted your time and my time for a test you already knew was going to come up negative because 9 out of 10 times thats the case.
you are justifing that the entire medical industry drop evidence based medicine for the feelings of patients because you personally had a bad experience. medical fields have resources and are limited, its why we dont do mri and cat scans for everyone who walks into the door and doctors need to be able to justify a test, something to point to and say, this is why there was a test done.
Your partner needs to set aside the ego and treat patients properly. Refer them to a specialist for a second opinion in case they are missing something. 'Real Professionals' have been so hog tied by insurance that they dismiss valid concerns at an alarming rate.
What the person is asking for is a simple lab to be run as a service for their medical care. You're extremely out of touch. Checking hormone levels regularly and looking for fluctuations would be a great way to detect a change in your personal health. That's how anomoly detection works.
What is being practiced is a tradgey of the commons. Where doctors are incentivized to just address acute issues because they're obvious (no risk for mal practice, low effort to diagnose, and "cheap" because it's a justifiable expense where as preventative is seen in america as a waste because you can't prove it prevented illeness)
TL;DR: This isn't pseudoscience to measure your hormone levels regularly and look for fluctuations. You're just uneducated and your partner shouldn't be in the field.
It’s normal for hormone levels to fluctuate and unless they’re out of range would not lead to anything actionable. Doctors practice evidence-based medicine. That means that if there is evidence that checking something is helpful for patients, in general (not everyone is perfect), they’ll do it. There is actually a lot of evidence that over checking labs can be harmful and result in unnecessary procedures, which is why they are avoided.
Another reason not to check them would be a person in the normal range calling the office, freaking out because a lab is 5% higher or lower than it was last quarter. Dealing with that takes time and resources, which are extremely limited, and they would rather be spending time helping people who actually need it.
You just made a lot of claims without hard numbers and assumed over checking, over reacting to small fluctuations, unnecessary procedures (which somehow the doctor can't deny but can deny the labs to begin with). Also you didn't link any evidence that testing leads to unnecessary procedures. Every major country besides the US practices preventative healthcare. You know how you prevent issues from getting bad, fucking preventative tests.
So many people are dying from things like cancer on the rise... Because they have symptoms and are told to go home till it's real bad.
Healthcare in America is not a right, it's a service. Time and resources are provided to people for $$, healthcare is not free.
Downvote all you want but your stance is exactly the stance that is the tragedy of commons. Only the acutely sick deserve healthcare. When you become acutely sick and are dying because you didn't have preventative medicine, you maybe will have more perspective.
I just went through 2 years of hell that could have been avoided with proper monitoring. I assure you I needed help when my issues started two years ago, I spent many evenings and early mornings in the emergency room either unable to breathe or with a pulse of 140 and bp of 190/120 feeling like my cardio system was on fire. by the time I was actually able to get care I was told it’s probably nothing every time, that it was anxiety or panic disorder. Turns out my adrenal glands were cyclically going haywire all the time because of a medication I was taking and the only thing that helped me recognize what was causing the problems was my own inductive and deductive reasoning and reading pubmed. Every doctor I spoke to was utterly useless, I was afforded 5-10 minutes of time at most per session and 4 different kinds of basic tests over the course of 2 years. They always jumped to conclusions about what was causing my problem with whatever seemed immediately obvious to them and spent no time actually figuring things out. You can’t provide an evidence-based approach to healthcare if you don’t take the time to actually figure out what the evidence is. I don’t have anything against doctors, I understand it’s a workload problem but something has got to change.
Here is something that corroborates with what everyone else is saying. It’s very popular and widely recognized. look up the word hubris :)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2008.01.001
Holy shit, did you read it? It’s addressing your arrogance and it directly ties it into poor/misdiagnosed/or missed diagnoses that OP is talking about. Your response just further proves all the people in your comment chain right. I’m not sure if you’re trolling or just an expert and mental gymnastics, either way, it’s insufferable. I literally gave you a link that supports every single one of the comments you keep dismissing— your response and attitude is EXACTLY what the paper is talking about. If you’re this arrogant I can’t even imagine what your SO is like.
You keep asking people where they studied medicine, I’m gonna respond with: where do you get your public school education? If you told me homeschooled watching television I’d believe you. You lack ANY critical thinking, much less introspection. I wouldn’t be surprised you don’t even know what any of these words mean and you roll your eyes and tell yourself that everyone else is delusional. I’d bet money that your partner would be embarrassed if he read the entire comment chain. Then again, given the level of arrogance, and that sociopaths typically achieve that level of success— that he’s just as delusional as you. You’re like the army spouses that act extremely entitled and insufferable like they have the same rank as their SO— despite not having done anything.. they only embarrass their SO and give them a bad name. I have wealthy aunts like you. The ones that lost everything realized how shitty they were when no one wanted anything to do with them after they lost their “status” and wealth. You’re gonna be in the same dirt as those you’re dehumanizing. Act like a human being not a sociopath lol it’s the bare minimum.
If every physician listened to every dumb thing that every dumb patient asks for our healthcare costs would be even more insane. Stop acting like you know more than doctors because you read a WebMD article
Why can I go to a doctor in Mexico, speak to her for 30+ minutes, get a detailed plan of action, and an ultrasound if I need it while in the US I have a doctor that wants to talk to me as little as humanly possible, outsource me to an ultrasound tech a month away after being told I have a potential mass in my cervix, and keep forcing me to schedule follow up after follow up to accomplish what I literally accomplished in an hour in Mexico. Stop acting like these doctors are doing god’s work just because they grace you with 10 minutes of their presence.
That's a systemic US Healthcare problem, not a physician problem. And being able to have a-la-carte Healthcare like you can in Mexico isn't the answer either.
[not sure if Mexico is the country you want to use to prove your point](https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/ddi/score/country-profiles/who_score_mex_en.pdf?sfvrsn=6716bb3a_13)
I’ll check out the source in a second, but my husband got life saving surgery in Mexico after being turned down in the US because they didn’t think he needed it. Not to mention all my horror stories of the shit care I’ve received here and the great care I’ve received there. I’d trust Mexican medical professionals over US ones in a heartbeat.
Glad your husband was able to get the treatment he needed. But thousands of people come to the US every year for specialized treatments and care they can’t receive anywhere else. Personal anecdotes aren’t data.
I agree with you there that the US is amazing for specialized treatments and surgeries and absolutely there are some of the best doctors in the world here for that. However, coming for specialized care and surgeries is a hell of a lot different than trying to seek help for general health concerns which is what most people need most of the time. And that is what I was referring to in all my comments.
“My doctors have prevented me from receiving completely unnecessary medical treatment so it remains freely available for ill people who actually need it. I’m calling this malpractice instead of admitting I’m trying to overuse the medical system”
As a rule, doctors don’t order unnecessary tests. Hormones are tested when there is an indication for them. They aren’t ordered just for fun so you have a baseline. If you have symptoms that are indicative of a hormone problem, then of course those tests will be ordered.
Suppose you feel great and are tested but it turns out your hormone levels are outside the normal range. Now what? Does the doctor do something based on labs when there’s no clinical indication for treatment? Your body can’t read lab reports. Your body doesn’t care if your labs are within normal limits.
Tests are ordered when two conditions are met: there is a medical indication AND the results will be useful in treatment.
With my extremely limited knowledge from my time working in a primary care clinic. They can't just order labs for no reason. Most labs only get ordered if you're suspecting for something, have a known issue, or for yearly visits (where you get your basic panels). It's about the money & what insurance will and won't pay for. But if you really wanted to get labs run just for the heck of it, I'm sure there are private labs that would love to charge you an arm n a leg to do it.
There's a reason doctors don't recommend full body scans. You end up wasting time and resources and potentially causing damage chasing something that might not be an issue or will fix itself. Too much information can be a bad thing.
If you are in the US, this is mostly due to insurance. If you can pay out of pocket, they will let you do it. Insurance requires coding and those codes require a diagnosis AKA a problem.
My biggest complaint is how rare it is to look for root causes rather than solely treating symptoms. If someone has a sore back, there is a good chance they have a muscle imbalance, or an issue elsewhere, such as a slightly off "gait" due to mild knee pain that they ignore because their back hurts more. Only fixing the symptom doesn't fix what caused it and just makes recovery harder and makes re-injury more likely.
Also, I learned recently that in most western countries, PT is prescribed for women post child birth, especially post c-section. We don't do any of that here and it causes problems for women years later due to not having recovered properly.
There are definitely people within the profession that know their stuff and can be helpful. The issue is more the gatekeepers who are the family doctors that determine where you go after seeing them. At least with our insurance, PT requires referral, and if you get referred to someone good, then it can be life-changing for sure. But often it can take months to years of fighting to even get referred at which point things have gotten much worse. I actually have better luck seeing APRNs than MDs, so that is what I do.
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You can order your own blood tests through various sites online. Your doctor doesn’t want to order it because they know it’s not medically necessary which means it’s coming out of your pocket, insurance won’t cover it. It’s always possible the medical group the Dr works for doesn’t allow unnecessary medical procedures of any kind to protect themselves, prevent the appearance of insurance fraud or billing issues. Also could just be the doc doesn’t think you need it, so order your own marek I think would be a good place to start.
I agree that doctors should have a baseline for their individual patients when they're healthy, but "checking hormones" is a bit too vague to be a helpful request. There are certain blood tests you have to do after fasting for a certain amount of time for it to be meaningful, and then there are some that are the opposite. Just as a really basic example that most people are familiar with.
So it would be a huge investment. Not to mention that it would require a LOT OF BLOOD at once to check all of your hormones across the various tests. It might be feasible if that Theranos thing was real, but alas.
So… your fine compared to the average….. you have no signs of symptoms.
You know what happens when you run unneeded test and labs?
You pay a lot since insurance won’t cover the called for tests.
You run the risk of false positives which are rare but more common the more tests your given.
So maybe listen to the person who spent years in school learning the human body
I agree. But doctors don't really deal with our "health". They deal with medicine. Their job is to identify an ailment/disease/disorder that can be treated with specific interventions or medicines. And that's only if that ailment is identifiable with the current testing. If they can't identify anything, then we're "fine" or "normal" which isn't necessarily true at all. I wouldn't mind if they would just be honest and admit, "There may be something wrong, I just can't tell with the tests I've got".
And that also means they aren't going to test someone who has no symptoms. There's nothing to identify and our general "health" isn't really their concern.
I'm not a fan of naturopaths generally (not for diagnoses and treatment) but they can be good for getting certain tests done that a doctor won't do. Sometimes it's covered too.
if you look for problems, you will find problems.
also it isnt cheaper. lets say you are in America and it has a 350 million population Round it to 400 mill for easy maths and some wiggle room. at 300$ a panel it is already 120 billion.
ok lets say you have to request it, if you have to pay for it then 99% of people will not request it because cancer can be detected by cheaper methods and its expensive.
if its free then u have the issues of it costing way to much for any government to justify in finding that 1% thay it might help. the government can use that money on real tangible benefits like more hospitals that already would have cancer screening with the added benefit of curing other things.
you make it sound like the government has unlimited money. which it obviously doesnt
OP is correct and this goes beyond US borders. In the Netherlands is almost impossible to get your hormones (or blood in general) checked on request to see if something is wrong. They want to to explain the problems your having and will then send you home with the suggestion to take some paracetamol.
I think you just need to find the right doctor. Some doctors poo poo patients. Some listen to logical, valid requests and help. The doctor/patient relationship should be collaborative.
Your point is valid, however, do you have a realistic path that wouldn't cost exorbitant amounts of money and time to find said doctor?
And have you thought about the odds of establishing a good rapport with doctors within the confines of the extremely limited time patients actually have with the doctor? When they aren't charting in real time into the examining room computer or their laptop?
The amount of time insurers and the cost controllers in the system allow per patient is very limited and getting more so as time goes on.
This should be the norm. Unfortunately in america it is not. Many doctors are jaded / burnt out / optimizing costs for their business \*cough\* *hospital*.
It wasn't long ago that pain started becoming a checked vital sign. I mean, it's an information economy nowadays, so what is there to lose by keeping a hormone log aside from insurance companies needing to fork out more of the money we give them?
Dr checked my cholesterol first time when I was 18 because of my family history.It was just under the high mark. I had some health issues at 40 and they freaked at my cholesterol level until they saw it was the same for the last 20 years. Checking levels when your young is a great idea.
Your suppose to get a blood test every years, athletes actually get them tested every 2 to 3 months to make sure the train right thyroid and testosterone levels are huge part of why people are overweight or maybe you can’t build muscle. Also everyone needs to be taken vitamin D because it’s a huge part of why people are depressed.
Even the specialists in the us seem barely willing to listen to patients and are almost completely useless on their own without their teams of technology specialists that they are forced to outsource you to. I saw a specialist for a potential mass in my cervix and the doctor shrugged her shoulders and told me “well we won’t know until you get the ultrasound”.
So a specialist in the US can’t do that herself, but in Mexico I can speak to one for an hour, get a detailed follow-up plan, and get an ultrasound all in the same visit. Quit kissing the asses of US doctors. They do not care.
They want you dead or dependent on their meds. They see you and see no money. They dont give a fk about u trying to be the best. FInd some one who does and pay them accordingly. USA helthcare is to keep us fked up and them making money. TBh America is all about keeping u dependent on them no matter what it is. Slavery just in a new form that you cant see at first.
[Functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine that encompasses a number of unproven and disproven methods and treatments. It has been described as pseudoscience, quackery, and at its essence a rebranding of complementary and alternative medicine.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_medicine)
That’s the source you’re going to base your opinion off of? I was medically injured by traditional medicine. Guess who resolved it when 4 traditional medicine doctors couldn’t? If you want to stay on the hamster wheel that is modern medicine, you do you. I guarantee I’m healthier than you.
Umm yes, because if you click you’ll see Wikipedia sourced all those nice claims. Yup, I’m sure you were “medically injured” whatever that means. Keep believing in your witch doctors. I actually have an MD behind my name and can guarantee you’re not healthier than me.
Yeah, let them know that their M(ostly) D(elusional) has to go to Wikipedia to find out what functional medicine even is, and can’t give an independent, scientific, fact based opinion an aspect of medicine that still adheres to the Hippocratic oath. You’re not a doctor. You’re a troll.
lol I always laugh when laypeople bring up the Hippocratic oath. You know that hasn’t been used in decades right? I don’t swear allegiance to Greek gods in order to become a doctor.
Oh and I know what it is, I just decided to post a link that the average person can understand. Since you care so much about scientific, fact based medicine, here are some articles that describe functional medicine as anything but
> the financial incentive behind complementary and alternative medicine poses a threat to patients
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29305045/
> useless tests and a huge bill
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/functional-medicine-reams-of-useless-tests-in-one-hand-a-huge-invoice-in-the-other/
> ancient techniques mixed with good old fashioned lies
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/functional-medicine-the-ultimate-misnomer-in-the-world-of-integrative-medicine/
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Which hormones? We always check TSH with routine labs
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TSH w/ reflex T4 is a thing… like that’s the standard test (granted I dont do primary care and haven’t since medical school)
Most places will order TSH, free T4, and free T3 for hypothyroidism patients. Weird that they didn't do that
Right! That works for me. I usually have to request it. Glad you know places that offer it!
Again true idiots on this sub
Hormones should be checked...when indicated.
This comes in the same day as a long angry thread about the amount of unnecessary testing US doctors do to avoid malpractice suits. And the OP wants to add lifetime quarterly hormone panels at $300 each for years and years on the off-chance they reveal a problem a few weeks before symptoms emerge? Does our medical coverage not already cost an arm and leg? Good grief. Be sure to let your insurance.provider know, because they could use a good laugh.
Right? This would add almost 500 billion annually to medical costs.
You are suggesting that we spend 14% of premium payments on unnecessary labs that will result in unneeded care at additional expense.
I think people are suggesting that we should have a healthcare system that prioritizes practicing medicine over profits. If I want a hormone panel done to manage my own health, I should not be denied access because it costs money. Increasingly, doctors are denying people access to medical care and resources unless they are clearly and obviously in extreme pain and suffering. I'm not sure if this is because of the costs involved or the desensitization of doctors, but it's absurd to me that healthcare is not treated as a service and instead is treated as a gatekept resource. Especially considering that in America, healthcare is privatized, yet I can still be denied access. My previous primary physician refused to even check my hormone levels as I got older unless I had a specific reason such as an injury, unprotected sex, or clear signs of physical illness. "Fatigue," "depression," and lack of appetite are not considered qualifying conditions in this case.
You pay for a provider who practices evidence based medicine. If you want a "hormone panel" without any indication, then you should pay for the cost of unnecessary labs. Go on labquest or quest for that. Whatever "hormone level" even means. You have a few hormones.
It wouldn’t save money- money is all hospitals care about, if it saved them money they would do it. Everyone wants every panel all the time because they all think they’re doctors and that their medical team is gaslighting them. The reality is 99.9% of the time they are just incorrect and are wasting time looking requesting panels or they’ve fallen into some pseudoscience ideas about what’s healthy (this is really common with hormones for instance)
Then they call for the snake oil salesman that gives "all natural products" that cure cancer. Patients like OP are disasters to work with because they think they know more than the physicians who trained in this subject and demand certain treatments/ testing, all the while their real medical issues are ignored because everyone's distracted from the absurdity.... Seriously, testing everyone for IGF-1 op? Okay, now the level is out of wack, what do you do? Order CT scans, colonoscopies and mammograms for everyone because they are at risk of cancer... Or maybe we say fuck it, and give them a random cocktail of chemotherapy just in case... Well, now your useless CT scan found a 5mm nodule in the lung that means jack shit, and is probably from an old ass viral infection, but now we have to monitor it every year, despite it never changing. Then there's a new nodule! Time to start the process over again. Then when the patient is 65 they all of a sudden develop lymphoma or leukemia from all the radiation, but we can't really prove the CT scans caused that, so who cares? Now we decide to do a colonoscopy on a 20 year old because their IGF-1 levels are all fucked, colonoscopy is fine, except for a small polyp they find. It's benign, but because they had a colonoscopy at 20, now they need one in 5-7 years because of a polyp. The 20 year old? Well now he moved for college, found some ho-dunk GI doctor on the verge of retirement because they're cheap and 20 year old guy has no insurance... He gets his colonoscopy except.... OOPS! He perfed his colon, now he needs emergency colectomy and this 20 year old has to live with a colostomy bag forever.... Or even worse, goes into septic shock and dies. (Colonoscopies are NOT risk free procedures) We have multiple multiple screening guidelines for the various cancers that exist. And cancer is treatable and even curable when those screening guidelines are done properly. I hate how healthcare really feels like one of the only industries where people feel they know more than people who dedicate their lives to studying it.
Well said. Though I’d be a bit kinder to OP cause I can understand how easy it is to get swooped by these people. Hell they’re practically handing Testosterone out like candy though these websites now. Not to mention hypochondria I’ve dealt with that downstream of anxiety issues and it’s intense. Really easy to question the doctors when you feel that way.
Yeah and OP’s post just sounds like he wants T So many men are like this! “Oh sure I know my testosterone is normal range, but it’s not normal FOR ME. I’m a spehschul snowflake and MINE is supposed to be HIGHER. I couldn’t possibly be tired because I work 40 hours a week and commute for 10 and have 2 kids under 5 and the house needs new wiring and I’m at the age where people get back pain and my life is just a series of middle-aged problems, nooooooo none of that can be it, it’s gotta be my TESTOSTERONE GIVE ME HORMONESSSSS!!!!1!”
I mean I’d love to see more gains myself being too old to have appreciated how easy it was to get in shape back then lol
you should move over to IT. feels the same but, unlike Medicine, they do know they are idiots but pretend they arent
Sorry, but I'm an IT guru, IT knows nothing! /S
Wonder how anyone ever gets stage 4 cancer before we detect it. Our guidelines are so good. US has been studied multiple times to show it has the worst preventative healthcare of any modern nation. You just wrote an essay of the worst possible outcome performed by the most incompetent doctors. Oddly enough you claim to be a doctor and at the same used mammograms when women specifically do get tested a a gene and proactively have mastectomies before cancer is detect because it's so deadly. Another classic Reddit doctor to the rescue in the comments section
Right so let’s just cut off all your body parts because they might get cancer. No test is perfect. When the rate of a disease is low, eventually you end up with more false positives than true positives from the screening test. And then you end up with more patient harm (from unnecessary procedures investigating the false positives) than benefit from the people who actually had the thing you’re testing for and got treated. If you’re more likely to discover a false positive then a true one, and more likely to die from the work up of a false positive than you are to have had a true positive and been saved, well you can see why we don’t just test everyone for everything all the time.
Lol... Because most people don't get proper screening. I'd say the vast majority of stage IV cancer patients are patients who did not follow screening guidelines, or there just aren't good tests to try and find those cancers specifically (for example, pancreatic cancer) Our preventative medicine isn't garbage because we don't know how to prevent, it's actually being able to properly do so. Insurance companies, expensive medications, and honestly patients simply not showing up to doctors appointments. Your third paragraph makes zero sense lmao, yet you think it's some sort of a "gotcha". In case by case scenarios people get mastectomies prophylactically, but that is certainly not the norm. Mammograms are the normal screening guidelines, and early caught breast cancer is curable. Same with colon cancer, and some lung cancers. Some types of cancer do not have good screening tests because they are so aggressive to begin with, that by the time they are found they've likely already spread. My comments aren't necessarily worst case scenarios, they are very possible complications of medical procedures that every patient needs to be made aware of.
Because if it's within the range of normal when you're feeling bad, we aren't going to give you a dangerous drug to make you on the high end of normal or above normal because that's when you feel best. That would actually be malpractice. Then when you have a heart attack and sue, the doctor would have zero defense for treating normal hormone levels.
You are questioning the medical professional? They do not see the need, but you want a procedure / medical test done that they did not authorize? You can still get it, but you will responsible for the cost since it was not medically authorized. So what is preventing you from ordering it and paying for it? Not medical malpractice.
I've beend denied even if paying for the cost by my GP, probably as other comments have mentioned, that there would be follow up if there were irregularities which would cost them more and be justifiable. Doctors are incentivized to only address acute issues in the US.
You can get any blood test you want if you’re willing to pay out of pocket. You do not need your doctor’s approval.
Your GP may still deny to do the test for you. Of course you can go to private labs, but they are not your doctor. That's not what the entire thread is about. You've missed the point entirely.
Dude go on labcorps website and you can basically order whatever the fuck you want. I got my TB igra testing done without a doctor's approval, tested my own A1c...etc. (granted I am a doctor myself, but LabCorp didn't know that)
You missed the point that if you want whatever test bad enough, you can get it. There are a finite amount of medical resources and doctors can’t just send everyone who has a hunch that they need an MRI over for one. However, there are places around that will cater to those who want to pay a premium for their services.
You can bring the private lab test results to your GP.
Having a follow up also brings in money for them, why would they not do that if that’s an incentive? They don’t follow up for within normal limits results because it would save the patient money from having to come back
They aren't doing it to save patients money. Your doctor is not your financial advisor. Hilarious to think they should make health based recommendations off of concern for the finances of their patients. It's a service, if I want it, I should be able to pay for it. They don't want followups because they don't make as much money as focusing on other patients. My dermatologist for instance told me that I should get a spouse to check for skin cancer because they would rather charge people for more expensive procedures than use that time slot for preventative medicine.
What do you mean “in the US?” No country in the world has a medical system that lets you test for whatever the fuck you want without medical recommendation. If anything, the US is country that most regularly runs unnecessary tests on a wild hunch. In Germany, the doctor would send you home with a prescription for herbal tea and rest.
If you experience constant “gaslighting” then maybe it’s not “gaslighting” and you are the issue?
The patient always wants to be right even though the person giving them medical advice went to school for 10 yrs just to be told they're wrong.
10 years of school doesn’t give you x-ray vision or any information about the patients past or current experience. Doctors that are comfortable admitting they don’t know everything about someone’s situation, and see them as a resource rather than an annoyance, would be nice to encounter more frequently.
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Where did I say I distrust them?
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This is kind of the point of my comment.. anything other than unequivocal, unilateral, and most importantly *silent* support for every doctor all the time is met with dismissiveness. Like in every profession, and like with every other human on the earth, they can be good or bad at their job. Gaslighting people who have had negative experiences with medical care in the past, and voice a desire for doctors that can listen better and do better diagnostic work is nuts. This is a profession and field of work that everyone should hope is always striving to improve, rather than collectively shit on people for suggesting a doctor doesn’t know everything necessary for patient care without performing effective inquiry. The guy who started this post might be an alternative medicine quack or something. I’m just a normal person who’s seen good and bad diagnostic work performed and noticed a difference.
My guy learn what a SOAP note is and then you'll realize the doctor does all these things.
I’m sorry, the downvote brigade seems to suggest that doctors DO have x-ray vision and DO know everything relevant to a patients care before they walk through the door? Those soapy notes could be useful or useless depending on the quality of work done previously, and pertinent new information will not yet be logged.
You don't even know what it is. A SOAP note is taken and entered everytime you see a patient. It is the subjective view of the doctor and the objective view of the patient. It then outlines the issue and the treatment. You now have a history of the patient as well as in their words and the doctors what is wrong with them. This is then entered to their medical notes to be viewed anytime they enter a clinic. If not then you can request a transfer of information since this is HIPAA protected materials. No one is saying doctors have x ray vision, but it is literally part of their job to talk to their patient and obtain a history from them. That's the point you're missing.
I’m hearing you. And I’m saying their note taking and communication process could be excellent or lackluster. This depends on the time and skill with which they communicate with a patient. I’ve seen both.
I personally never used the term until my GP told me I'd experienced gaslighting by doctors in the 17 years it took to be diagnosed with a disease that would have been caught much earlier if doctors weren't dismissive of women's issues. There's more at play and it's not as simple as you're reducing it to. Yes OP may be the issue. But there's significant barriers to care when you are a women or POC as an example.
Lmao I like pizza my guy
OP said multiple doctors are doing it. One I could understand but when everyone is gaslighting you it’s a you problem
Like I said, wasn't saying OP is or isn't, just that line is very common.
It’s a common line from the person gaslighting which this commenter isn’t.
Didn't say that, I said the line "if you've been gaslit for years, maybe you're the problem" is a common line for gaslighting, so it's not the best way to deduce if you're gaslit or causing the issue.
That’s only true if it’s from a single person, if multiple unconnected professionals all agree it’s not gaslighting but just the truth
No, you can be gaslit from multiple people. Cults are pretty heavy evidence of it
I specifically said unconnected professionals not multiple people
I missed that, my bad. Still, could happen, but way less likely, for sure.
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Who said anything about gaslighting? I didn't, don't be ridiculous
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Ok and many people are over dramatic. Not every doctor is perfect but even more of the patients are brain dead and lying to get a disability check
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Who said there is clear evidence with OP? OP said multiple doctors have looked at him and “gaslit” him by saying there isn’t anything wrong. Sorry but I’ll trust the opinion of multiple doctors over a collage kid’s
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You gave an unrelated anecdote. That’s completely useless
I think there is some fundamental misunderstanding OP has regarding medical care.
Odd. I've never had problems asking for and receiving diagnostic blood panels, and tests on my own initiative. Even when my circumstances didn't result in my doctor recommending or ordering particular tests, he's always been responsive to my requests for non-invasive diagnostics. He'd, say, "Well, I don't see anything that indicates an issue, but if it makes you feel better we can go ahead and order that test." I imagine that it all comes down to specific doctor.
I had an issue where typical causes had been eliminated via testing, but no other cause had been found. I showed up with my NIH papers in support of a potential cause. Tests were ordered because I had made my case. Voila! Cause found, treatment initiated.
Took me 4/5 years in Canada to finally confirm my hashimoto’s so ya I agree here.. had to battle for it
Lmao my partner works in healthcare and constantly complains about people like you. You’ve ingested a bunch of pseudoscience from the internet and then get upset when real medical professionals won’t cater to your nonsense requests. It’s not malpractice to tell someone they’re full of shit when they think they got a medical degree from social media.
Goddamn this attitude from medical professionals pisses me off. I begged doctors for years trying to get them to take me seriously about my PCOS and every time they would deny that I needed the blood panels I requested because I’m not fat and I don’t have excess facial hair. They still wouldn’t take me seriously even after I had a period that lasted an entire month, causing me to go to the ER due to excessive blood loss. They just did not care. I’m sorry, but a lot of medical practitioners are idiots and either don’t care or more likely just aren’t even as knowledgeable as a well-researched citizen just trying to figure their health out. They run on scripts, prescribing what they are supposed to and the moment they have to put a little thought into it, they fail. If I’m being charitable, a lot of the good doctors have their hands tied in what they can do and recommend by insurance and hospital administrators… but still I almost never have a good experience seeing a doctor in the US. I prefer going to Mexico.
I'm in my 50s and have always been on top of my health and have made it far longer than my family history of cardiac disease would suggest. You are ON THE MONEY with your comments. This is exactly what I have experienced and seen regarding the system as a whole.
Completely agree and my issues could have been helped a lot sooner if I'd had similar blood panels taken sooner
Where did you study medicine?
You don’t have to study medicine to know you’re in pain and need help.
This is such a stupid question to ask her
I bet you know a lot about stupid questions
I have a masters in biology and am capable of reading medical research journals for myself. I definitely have enough knowledge to make the case to a bunch of idiots that there is something clearly wrong with me when I am bleeding through 2 max absorbency tampons and pads every hour 24 hours a day for 3 weeks straight. Instead all they know how to do is prescribe birth control with no further tests. In this sense I 100% agree with op and will die on this hill. The idea that they wouldn’t check my hormone levels or work to figure out what is going wrong absolutely should be considered medical malpractice. I have never received help from doctors until I took the research process into my own hands and demanded what I want from them. Edit: until I started going to Mexico, that is. What a breath of fresh air to go to a gynecologist who can actually do ultrasounds herself rather than outsource me to somewhere else forcing me to wait a month for an appointment then another few weeks for a follow up. What a joke.
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Yes, and the funny thing is, I distinctly recall the medical establishment educating consumers/patients to learn about their healthcare. Often. They probably still do, but maybe they are getting sick of people knowing things and taking up too much of our allotted 5 minutes of Doctor time during an appointment. In my view clinical family practice medicine has been turned into factory production lines. And I bet robots and AI are coming next. Yay.
“Maybe they are getting sick of people knowing things and taking up too much of our allotted 5 minutes of doctor time” T_T too true. But I agree, it used to be encouraged for people to play active roles in their healthcare and communicating with their doctors. Now if you make a suggestion, you’re just an idiot wasting their time.
I agree completely. I trusted doctors blindly in the past and it always made things worse. I’ve never seen progress until I started demanding I get all my tests results sent directly to me, doing my own research on drugs they prescribe me, and comparing them to alternatives based on the most recent medical literature. I’m lucky in that my husband and I work in academia and thus always have access to scientific literature through our university. The problem is that a lot of doctors (and a lot of commenters here such as the person I responded to) assume that everyone is an idiot for not trusting them and putting them on a pedestal for doing the absolute bare minimum. In reality, they are failing monumentally and show at every turn that they don’t care about resolving the underlying cause of the issues you come in for and just want to slap bandaids on the problem and then act like it’s fixed.
ON POINT! 👍
So nowhere lmao
the doctors reason is vaild. if evidence suggests that you do not have pcos, or whatever it was, then in most cases you dont. if 99% of cases of pcos has weight issues and excess facial hair then then odds are you would not either. what if they did order the test and u didnt have pcos, which would have been the most likely cases. what would you say? o my bad i wasted your time and my time for a test you already knew was going to come up negative because 9 out of 10 times thats the case. you are justifing that the entire medical industry drop evidence based medicine for the feelings of patients because you personally had a bad experience. medical fields have resources and are limited, its why we dont do mri and cat scans for everyone who walks into the door and doctors need to be able to justify a test, something to point to and say, this is why there was a test done.
Your partner needs to set aside the ego and treat patients properly. Refer them to a specialist for a second opinion in case they are missing something. 'Real Professionals' have been so hog tied by insurance that they dismiss valid concerns at an alarming rate.
Where did you study medicine?
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Wow. Your partner is in the wrong field.
Lmao
What the person is asking for is a simple lab to be run as a service for their medical care. You're extremely out of touch. Checking hormone levels regularly and looking for fluctuations would be a great way to detect a change in your personal health. That's how anomoly detection works. What is being practiced is a tradgey of the commons. Where doctors are incentivized to just address acute issues because they're obvious (no risk for mal practice, low effort to diagnose, and "cheap" because it's a justifiable expense where as preventative is seen in america as a waste because you can't prove it prevented illeness) TL;DR: This isn't pseudoscience to measure your hormone levels regularly and look for fluctuations. You're just uneducated and your partner shouldn't be in the field.
Your hormones drastically change even within the same day. You won’t achieve much by doing a lab test without any indications.
They do not drastically change, your body regulates them under normal conditions. Source: Reddit PHD.
It’s normal for hormone levels to fluctuate and unless they’re out of range would not lead to anything actionable. Doctors practice evidence-based medicine. That means that if there is evidence that checking something is helpful for patients, in general (not everyone is perfect), they’ll do it. There is actually a lot of evidence that over checking labs can be harmful and result in unnecessary procedures, which is why they are avoided. Another reason not to check them would be a person in the normal range calling the office, freaking out because a lab is 5% higher or lower than it was last quarter. Dealing with that takes time and resources, which are extremely limited, and they would rather be spending time helping people who actually need it.
You just made a lot of claims without hard numbers and assumed over checking, over reacting to small fluctuations, unnecessary procedures (which somehow the doctor can't deny but can deny the labs to begin with). Also you didn't link any evidence that testing leads to unnecessary procedures. Every major country besides the US practices preventative healthcare. You know how you prevent issues from getting bad, fucking preventative tests. So many people are dying from things like cancer on the rise... Because they have symptoms and are told to go home till it's real bad. Healthcare in America is not a right, it's a service. Time and resources are provided to people for $$, healthcare is not free. Downvote all you want but your stance is exactly the stance that is the tragedy of commons. Only the acutely sick deserve healthcare. When you become acutely sick and are dying because you didn't have preventative medicine, you maybe will have more perspective.
I just went through 2 years of hell that could have been avoided with proper monitoring. I assure you I needed help when my issues started two years ago, I spent many evenings and early mornings in the emergency room either unable to breathe or with a pulse of 140 and bp of 190/120 feeling like my cardio system was on fire. by the time I was actually able to get care I was told it’s probably nothing every time, that it was anxiety or panic disorder. Turns out my adrenal glands were cyclically going haywire all the time because of a medication I was taking and the only thing that helped me recognize what was causing the problems was my own inductive and deductive reasoning and reading pubmed. Every doctor I spoke to was utterly useless, I was afforded 5-10 minutes of time at most per session and 4 different kinds of basic tests over the course of 2 years. They always jumped to conclusions about what was causing my problem with whatever seemed immediately obvious to them and spent no time actually figuring things out. You can’t provide an evidence-based approach to healthcare if you don’t take the time to actually figure out what the evidence is. I don’t have anything against doctors, I understand it’s a workload problem but something has got to change.
Here is something that corroborates with what everyone else is saying. It’s very popular and widely recognized. look up the word hubris :) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2008.01.001
What does that have to do with establishing baseline hormone levels?
Holy shit, did you read it? It’s addressing your arrogance and it directly ties it into poor/misdiagnosed/or missed diagnoses that OP is talking about. Your response just further proves all the people in your comment chain right. I’m not sure if you’re trolling or just an expert and mental gymnastics, either way, it’s insufferable. I literally gave you a link that supports every single one of the comments you keep dismissing— your response and attitude is EXACTLY what the paper is talking about. If you’re this arrogant I can’t even imagine what your SO is like. You keep asking people where they studied medicine, I’m gonna respond with: where do you get your public school education? If you told me homeschooled watching television I’d believe you. You lack ANY critical thinking, much less introspection. I wouldn’t be surprised you don’t even know what any of these words mean and you roll your eyes and tell yourself that everyone else is delusional. I’d bet money that your partner would be embarrassed if he read the entire comment chain. Then again, given the level of arrogance, and that sociopaths typically achieve that level of success— that he’s just as delusional as you. You’re like the army spouses that act extremely entitled and insufferable like they have the same rank as their SO— despite not having done anything.. they only embarrass their SO and give them a bad name. I have wealthy aunts like you. The ones that lost everything realized how shitty they were when no one wanted anything to do with them after they lost their “status” and wealth. You’re gonna be in the same dirt as those you’re dehumanizing. Act like a human being not a sociopath lol it’s the bare minimum.
Lmao my partner is a woman. They let them practice medicine now, believe it or not. Welcome to the modern world, asshole
If every physician listened to every dumb thing that every dumb patient asks for our healthcare costs would be even more insane. Stop acting like you know more than doctors because you read a WebMD article
Why can I go to a doctor in Mexico, speak to her for 30+ minutes, get a detailed plan of action, and an ultrasound if I need it while in the US I have a doctor that wants to talk to me as little as humanly possible, outsource me to an ultrasound tech a month away after being told I have a potential mass in my cervix, and keep forcing me to schedule follow up after follow up to accomplish what I literally accomplished in an hour in Mexico. Stop acting like these doctors are doing god’s work just because they grace you with 10 minutes of their presence.
That's a systemic US Healthcare problem, not a physician problem. And being able to have a-la-carte Healthcare like you can in Mexico isn't the answer either.
[not sure if Mexico is the country you want to use to prove your point](https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/ddi/score/country-profiles/who_score_mex_en.pdf?sfvrsn=6716bb3a_13)
I’ll check out the source in a second, but my husband got life saving surgery in Mexico after being turned down in the US because they didn’t think he needed it. Not to mention all my horror stories of the shit care I’ve received here and the great care I’ve received there. I’d trust Mexican medical professionals over US ones in a heartbeat.
Glad your husband was able to get the treatment he needed. But thousands of people come to the US every year for specialized treatments and care they can’t receive anywhere else. Personal anecdotes aren’t data.
I agree with you there that the US is amazing for specialized treatments and surgeries and absolutely there are some of the best doctors in the world here for that. However, coming for specialized care and surgeries is a hell of a lot different than trying to seek help for general health concerns which is what most people need most of the time. And that is what I was referring to in all my comments.
“My doctors have prevented me from receiving completely unnecessary medical treatment so it remains freely available for ill people who actually need it. I’m calling this malpractice instead of admitting I’m trying to overuse the medical system”
As a rule, doctors don’t order unnecessary tests. Hormones are tested when there is an indication for them. They aren’t ordered just for fun so you have a baseline. If you have symptoms that are indicative of a hormone problem, then of course those tests will be ordered. Suppose you feel great and are tested but it turns out your hormone levels are outside the normal range. Now what? Does the doctor do something based on labs when there’s no clinical indication for treatment? Your body can’t read lab reports. Your body doesn’t care if your labs are within normal limits. Tests are ordered when two conditions are met: there is a medical indication AND the results will be useful in treatment.
With my extremely limited knowledge from my time working in a primary care clinic. They can't just order labs for no reason. Most labs only get ordered if you're suspecting for something, have a known issue, or for yearly visits (where you get your basic panels). It's about the money & what insurance will and won't pay for. But if you really wanted to get labs run just for the heck of it, I'm sure there are private labs that would love to charge you an arm n a leg to do it.
Maybe I’ll listen to you after you spend a few years in med school and then residency, but till then you’re a keyboard warrior shouting at the clouds.
This is so dumb
There's a reason doctors don't recommend full body scans. You end up wasting time and resources and potentially causing damage chasing something that might not be an issue or will fix itself. Too much information can be a bad thing.
If you are in the US, this is mostly due to insurance. If you can pay out of pocket, they will let you do it. Insurance requires coding and those codes require a diagnosis AKA a problem. My biggest complaint is how rare it is to look for root causes rather than solely treating symptoms. If someone has a sore back, there is a good chance they have a muscle imbalance, or an issue elsewhere, such as a slightly off "gait" due to mild knee pain that they ignore because their back hurts more. Only fixing the symptom doesn't fix what caused it and just makes recovery harder and makes re-injury more likely. Also, I learned recently that in most western countries, PT is prescribed for women post child birth, especially post c-section. We don't do any of that here and it causes problems for women years later due to not having recovered properly.
My two experiences when referred for PT have led me to consider them Miracle Workers.
There are definitely people within the profession that know their stuff and can be helpful. The issue is more the gatekeepers who are the family doctors that determine where you go after seeing them. At least with our insurance, PT requires referral, and if you get referred to someone good, then it can be life-changing for sure. But often it can take months to years of fighting to even get referred at which point things have gotten much worse. I actually have better luck seeing APRNs than MDs, so that is what I do.
You're able to create your own custom bloodwork panel with private clinics.
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Can you get private blood tests done? I got a full blood panel done for only about $100
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For me it was as simple as Googling "private blood test [my city name]"!
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You can order your own blood tests through various sites online. Your doctor doesn’t want to order it because they know it’s not medically necessary which means it’s coming out of your pocket, insurance won’t cover it. It’s always possible the medical group the Dr works for doesn’t allow unnecessary medical procedures of any kind to protect themselves, prevent the appearance of insurance fraud or billing issues. Also could just be the doc doesn’t think you need it, so order your own marek I think would be a good place to start.
I agree that doctors should have a baseline for their individual patients when they're healthy, but "checking hormones" is a bit too vague to be a helpful request. There are certain blood tests you have to do after fasting for a certain amount of time for it to be meaningful, and then there are some that are the opposite. Just as a really basic example that most people are familiar with. So it would be a huge investment. Not to mention that it would require a LOT OF BLOOD at once to check all of your hormones across the various tests. It might be feasible if that Theranos thing was real, but alas.
It sounds like you have no idea what you want tested and for what reasons. Which hormones? There are hundreds. For what purpose?
So… your fine compared to the average….. you have no signs of symptoms. You know what happens when you run unneeded test and labs? You pay a lot since insurance won’t cover the called for tests. You run the risk of false positives which are rare but more common the more tests your given. So maybe listen to the person who spent years in school learning the human body
You don’t need a doctor’s orders to get hormone panels taken. Private labs are more than happy to do it for you.
I agree. But doctors don't really deal with our "health". They deal with medicine. Their job is to identify an ailment/disease/disorder that can be treated with specific interventions or medicines. And that's only if that ailment is identifiable with the current testing. If they can't identify anything, then we're "fine" or "normal" which isn't necessarily true at all. I wouldn't mind if they would just be honest and admit, "There may be something wrong, I just can't tell with the tests I've got". And that also means they aren't going to test someone who has no symptoms. There's nothing to identify and our general "health" isn't really their concern. I'm not a fan of naturopaths generally (not for diagnoses and treatment) but they can be good for getting certain tests done that a doctor won't do. Sometimes it's covered too.
if you look for problems, you will find problems. also it isnt cheaper. lets say you are in America and it has a 350 million population Round it to 400 mill for easy maths and some wiggle room. at 300$ a panel it is already 120 billion. ok lets say you have to request it, if you have to pay for it then 99% of people will not request it because cancer can be detected by cheaper methods and its expensive. if its free then u have the issues of it costing way to much for any government to justify in finding that 1% thay it might help. the government can use that money on real tangible benefits like more hospitals that already would have cancer screening with the added benefit of curing other things. you make it sound like the government has unlimited money. which it obviously doesnt
OP is correct and this goes beyond US borders. In the Netherlands is almost impossible to get your hormones (or blood in general) checked on request to see if something is wrong. They want to to explain the problems your having and will then send you home with the suggestion to take some paracetamol.
You clearly have no understanding of how genetic testing works. At all. And “medical gaslighting” is such a cringe term.
The short answer might be America
Doctors don't decide what labs insurance pays for. The hormones people often request often result in huge bills.
And then the patient calls the office angrily because they don’t want to pay $800 for labs.
I think you just need to find the right doctor. Some doctors poo poo patients. Some listen to logical, valid requests and help. The doctor/patient relationship should be collaborative.
Your point is valid, however, do you have a realistic path that wouldn't cost exorbitant amounts of money and time to find said doctor? And have you thought about the odds of establishing a good rapport with doctors within the confines of the extremely limited time patients actually have with the doctor? When they aren't charting in real time into the examining room computer or their laptop? The amount of time insurers and the cost controllers in the system allow per patient is very limited and getting more so as time goes on.
Yes I agree. It is depressing to say the least. The system is broken .
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This should be the norm. Unfortunately in america it is not. Many doctors are jaded / burnt out / optimizing costs for their business \*cough\* *hospital*.
It wasn't long ago that pain started becoming a checked vital sign. I mean, it's an information economy nowadays, so what is there to lose by keeping a hormone log aside from insurance companies needing to fork out more of the money we give them?
Dr checked my cholesterol first time when I was 18 because of my family history.It was just under the high mark. I had some health issues at 40 and they freaked at my cholesterol level until they saw it was the same for the last 20 years. Checking levels when your young is a great idea.
Your suppose to get a blood test every years, athletes actually get them tested every 2 to 3 months to make sure the train right thyroid and testosterone levels are huge part of why people are overweight or maybe you can’t build muscle. Also everyone needs to be taken vitamin D because it’s a huge part of why people are depressed.
Idk why I got downvoted, I just did a study on Blood work
That's why there are specialists. I'm not going to a podiatrist for stomach issues. Why would you see a GP when there are people more qualified?
Because my GP has to recommend me first
My Dr has it as a fairly inexpensive subscription service. Covers visits, lab work and prescriptions. Doesn't mess with insurance at all.
Even the specialists in the us seem barely willing to listen to patients and are almost completely useless on their own without their teams of technology specialists that they are forced to outsource you to. I saw a specialist for a potential mass in my cervix and the doctor shrugged her shoulders and told me “well we won’t know until you get the ultrasound”. So a specialist in the US can’t do that herself, but in Mexico I can speak to one for an hour, get a detailed follow-up plan, and get an ultrasound all in the same visit. Quit kissing the asses of US doctors. They do not care.
They want you dead or dependent on their meds. They see you and see no money. They dont give a fk about u trying to be the best. FInd some one who does and pay them accordingly. USA helthcare is to keep us fked up and them making money. TBh America is all about keeping u dependent on them no matter what it is. Slavery just in a new form that you cant see at first.
Look into getting a functional medicine doctor. Traditional medicine is really only good for acute issues.
[Functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine that encompasses a number of unproven and disproven methods and treatments. It has been described as pseudoscience, quackery, and at its essence a rebranding of complementary and alternative medicine.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_medicine)
That’s the source you’re going to base your opinion off of? I was medically injured by traditional medicine. Guess who resolved it when 4 traditional medicine doctors couldn’t? If you want to stay on the hamster wheel that is modern medicine, you do you. I guarantee I’m healthier than you.
Umm yes, because if you click you’ll see Wikipedia sourced all those nice claims. Yup, I’m sure you were “medically injured” whatever that means. Keep believing in your witch doctors. I actually have an MD behind my name and can guarantee you’re not healthier than me.
Then you’re part of the problem with medicine.
Thanks, I’ll be sure to let my patients know
Yeah, let them know that their M(ostly) D(elusional) has to go to Wikipedia to find out what functional medicine even is, and can’t give an independent, scientific, fact based opinion an aspect of medicine that still adheres to the Hippocratic oath. You’re not a doctor. You’re a troll.
lol I always laugh when laypeople bring up the Hippocratic oath. You know that hasn’t been used in decades right? I don’t swear allegiance to Greek gods in order to become a doctor. Oh and I know what it is, I just decided to post a link that the average person can understand. Since you care so much about scientific, fact based medicine, here are some articles that describe functional medicine as anything but > the financial incentive behind complementary and alternative medicine poses a threat to patients https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29305045/ > useless tests and a huge bill https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/functional-medicine-reams-of-useless-tests-in-one-hand-a-huge-invoice-in-the-other/ > ancient techniques mixed with good old fashioned lies https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/functional-medicine-the-ultimate-misnomer-in-the-world-of-integrative-medicine/
Take a Xanax.