41–50 of 114 posts
Do not underestimate private clinics in Europe. They saved my life after multiple rounds of doctors in the Washington D.C. area could not prevent me from getting repeated ear infections which led to eventual moderate hearing loss. The clinicians in a central European country took a fundamentally different approach to diagnosing me and resolved my health issue rapidly. I spent years of my life going to a dozen doctors…
Concierge healthcare. It's also gotten more widespread than when it first became a thing, so even there I would make sure to do due diligence to see what level of service you're getting. But if you're willing to fork over the money, the level of care that you're supposedly given seems far better than even anything in stories you hear about in Europe or Asia. Seems like you should expect to pay five digit amounts per…
https://www.amazon.com/Back-Mechanic-Stuart-McGill-2015-09-3...
It gives you a lot of information so you can a) intelligently talk about your pain to your providers and b) build up strength and flexibility in your back to hopefully address the issue on your own.
Private care in the UK can be very fast - e.g. I went from an initial consultation with a doctor for "knee pain" to having two sessions with a consultant and an MRI complete and booked in for physiotherapy within 48 hours. Things are often done the same day or within 24-48 hour turnarounds, although sometimes you can only get seen by specific consultants on certain days (e.g. they only see people on wed + Fri etc) . I am not sure what the on-ramp for that is as I go through my work health insurance but presumably you can just pay out of pocket.
www.hcahealthcare.co.uk seems to be what everything my healthcare insurance (from a BigCo) goes through, so could be worth starting there if you fancy a visit to the UK.
Good luck.
So, other medical systems around the world are cheaper, but that doesn't make them magic. Chronic pain - especially back pain - is often an unsolvable quagmire for most doctors. Not a doctor, but several family members have had to go through something similar. So here is my advice: - Get imaging tests (Xray, MRI). And screen out the any of the worst case scenarios (like tumor or etc). But if there is nothing inherent…