Two words: German Romanticism. Although the article‘s premise seems reasonable (given the author‘s origin, the USA, being renown as prone to prescribe pain killers and psychotropics for the most menial things[1]) - a similar bias must be outlined when trying to understand the German perspective: That we are still romanticists. Many German doctors will send you off with „some rest“ and „tea“. Some will prescribe homeo…
> homeopathics Ah the good 1000€ per kilo magic sugar... I can't understand how healthcare can cover that!
Healthcare does not. Some insurances do, but you can opt to switch do another.
You mean, $30,000 to $40,000, the median cost in the US, nearly all of which would be covered by insurance. No sense in fabricating magical numbers, like a multi-million dollar bill, everyone knows the flaws in the US system as is. It costs about 1/3 to 1/2 as much in Germany, paid for by other tax payers.
If I read this story correctly the other day, giving birth to premature twins in the US can max out your $2M insurance cap and leave you with $450k of medical debt to boot: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2018/jan/1... In my own back of the woods in Europe, the same would cost you nothing.
back of the woods in Europe, the same would cost you nothing.
Sure, it would be much cheaper when one or more patients doesn't survive in the first place, for example.
Keep in mind that story is a donation appeal and is weak in details -- for example, why a healthy mom needs to stay in a $10K/day NNICU private room for months on end is beyond me (would that even be an option in "backwoods Europe"?) The article also misstates ACA numbers.
Compared to where? I found US doctors much more likely to prescribe them than Australian doctors.
The undertreatment of pain in the US is affecting my grandparents in a huge way. My poor grandfather spends a week or more a month suffering from the rapid taper the doc is putting him through. We are trying to get him into pain management, apparently every doc in CA is scared of prosecution. The irony is he would be just fine if they never rescheduled hydrocodone. When they did thst he had to be put on fentanyl and…
I'm not sure how amenable you are to alternatives, but after suffering myself with chronic pain in the past and discovering kratom to help with the pain in lieu of a narcotics prescription, I would suggest looking into this to improve your grandfather's quality of life. Years ago, my dad had surgery to "fix" a turn muscle that healed poorly, and was prescribed Tramadol for long-term pain management. After the docs started cutting everyone off, my dad suffered greatly from the pain, and I couldn't stand to see him like that, so I introduced him to kratom, as well. He takes it once in the evening before bed and he has also stopped getting regular migraines. The kratom subreddit is a good place to start looking for information. Just be aware that special interests have been spreading disinformation for a couple of years now, so take everything you read with a grain of salt. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions. There is a growing body of research available to help.
I had all four wisdom teeth removed at once and all I needed was one ibuprofen the first night, but a fucking migraine and I need at least one, sometimes two.
I had a wisdom teeth removed and was given basically nothing, besides the anesthetic injection needed for me not to feel pain during the procedure. Please note that my wisdom tooth was about 80-90% developed and outside the gum, so no "surgery" was required, just some lever movement to pull it out. Also, no stitches were needed. I was sent home with just an advice to eat non-solid, cold stuff "using the other side of…
I can second that experience. I'm still quite baffled by how little force is required to remove a tooth. The dentist barely wriggled his wrist and it popped out.
All I got sent home with was a wad of bandage to bite down on for the first 10 minutes. All in all probably the least painful experience I've ever had at the dentist. (Novacaine doesn't quite work properly on me it seems)
> homeopathics Ah the good 1000€ per kilo magic sugar... I can't understand how healthcare can cover that!
Healthcare does not. Some insurances do, but you can opt to switch do another.
Not "some".
Out of 110 existing "statutory health insurance companies" 84 cover Homeopathy [1][2]. They aren't required to do so, but are by law explicitly allowed to cover it [3], which is weird enough. And as the numbers suggest, most of them happily do because it attracts many Germans, especially the well-offs.
Would you rather live in a country where medication is freely available over the counter, or one in which you need a prescription for everything? Having lived in both, I'd choose the former. What is a problem in the latter is trivial in the former. Does requiring medical intervention lessen drug abuse? Not entirely. But the vast majority of medications purchased are not drugs of abuse. When was the last time you hear…
I'd choose the former as well. After moving to Belgium I discovered that I need a prescription for almost every medication. Even metamizole, topical minoxidil and contraceptive pills need prescription.
But Tylenol is freely available, so I guess you can give yourself liver poisoning an die, but you can't treat alopecia without going to a doctor.
Two words: German Romanticism. Although the article‘s premise seems reasonable (given the author‘s origin, the USA, being renown as prone to prescribe pain killers and psychotropics for the most menial things[1]) - a similar bias must be outlined when trying to understand the German perspective: That we are still romanticists. Many German doctors will send you off with „some rest“ and „tea“. Some will prescribe homeo…
When I feel like I'm getting a cold, I take a multivitamin (or at least some vitamin C), maybe a Dayquil/Nyquil, and try to sleep as soon as I can. Nearly always solves the problem. The homeopathy prescriptions are baffling to me. Have any of these gone through clinical trials? If not, I assume the doctors must be hoping for a placebo effect when they feel that prescribing something actually effective is overkill. At…
AFAIK not a single homeopathic treatment beats placebos in clinical trials.
But "universal healthcare" to some extend means that the electorate can decide "what's right". By law, the public insurances are explicitly allowed to cover homeopathy. Weird enough, but understandable if a large chunk (and generally more important chunk) of voters are also Homeopathy adherent patients.
While Homeopathic doctors are by no means the majority here, the majority of "science" doctors will shy away as much as possible from confronting their patients with their stance on alternative medicine.
I had a wisdom teeth removed and was given basically nothing, besides the anesthetic injection needed for me not to feel pain during the procedure. Please note that my wisdom tooth was about 80-90% developed and outside the gum, so no "surgery" was required, just some lever movement to pull it out. Also, no stitches were needed. I was sent home with just an advice to eat non-solid, cold stuff "using the other side of…
I can second that experience. I'm still quite baffled by how little force is required to remove a tooth. The dentist barely wriggled his wrist and it popped out. All I got sent home with was a wad of bandage to bite down on for the first 10 minutes. All in all probably the least painful experience I've ever had at the dentist. (Novacaine doesn't quite work properly on me it seems)
Well one of mine was tilted 90°, it had to be cut into pieces first and then cut from the bone. The others were quite OK though, not just a wiggle but no crazy stuff involved.
"And please be careful with ibuprofen" Ibuprofen is what allows me to get out of the bed for the past 3 months. I'm not sure that doctor knows how bad pain can be without medication.
Without knowing your situation, plenty folks take (liberal amounts of) painkillers to numb the pain and thus never find out or work on the real cause of the pain. Warmth and daily stretching, massage and exercise fixes most sore tight spots that, if left untreated, can escalate to chronic pain setting you up for an unending painkiller loop eventually making you a walking stiff. Almost my whole body was a painful soli…
Herniated disc. During the worst weeks, I could hardly move inside the bed, let alone "work on it". Imagine you desperately need to pee but it takes you ten minutes to get out of bed.
It's much better now so I take smaller doeses, do physiotherapy and I can even use the bycicle to work again, but taking Ibuprofen is still necessary to be able to work on it in the first place. Plan is to be able to run again and Ibuprofen helps to get to that point.
Well, I suppose in Germany they also have a week of vacation, sick leave, or disability to take off while feeling this pain and drinking tea. When that's the case in the U.S., let's revisit this. Till then, let's hold off on the moral judgements when the reality is some of us literally have to go back the same day to work as the surgery. I've only taken pain killers once for a bad dental abscess that my dentist was t…
> Well, I suppose in Germany they also have a week of vacation, sick leave, or disability to take off while feeling this pain and drinking tea.
No, we don't have "a week of vacation, sick leave, or disability". We have as many days or weeks as it takes. In many companies, you don't even need a doctor's notice for the first three days.