It's Not All In Your Head

Well, the problem with human imperfection is that you have to be aware of its many faces, because some of them make our societies more miserable.

When imperfection affects only yourself as an individual, or those around you only slightly, it doesn't seem like a big problem. And if it's not a big problem, hey, why do we even make a problem of it at all? Right?

But it turns out imperfections reach much further. I want a society that doesn't let anyone sink, that is built to be resilient, that is in control of human wellness. And we are still too imperfect to reach that. Though it's not about imperfection per se, it's about doing better as a tool to make our societies what we would like them to be. Maybe if we reached such equilibrium we could allow ourselves to go back to be much more imperfect again.

I think the source of the maladaption lies in the use of money to make people do things they would never otherwise do. Asking ourselves who we would be to others if we had money at least somewhat insulates us from the effect of this mental wildfire.

I think doctors aggravate this problem of people believing they're ill even when the clinical evidence doesn't support it.

I can't tell you how many doctors I've had tell me, explicitly, within 15 minutes of having met me that they know my body, symptoms, and experience better than I do. It used to come much later in the process, after I'd spent months following their instructions to the letter and having my symptoms only get worse because they had completely overlooked or ignored some important piece of information I'd given them, so now I just ask in the very first appointment before I consider hiring that doctor to help me.

I think I understand why they do it. I have to imagine the overwhelming majority of people they see have only a grade school-level understanding of science, and a social media-level understanding of research. And doctors are used to being assumed to be the smartest person in the room (by themselves and everybody else, fairly or not).

But the complete failure to consider the possibility that I might also be intelligent, educated, and able to understand the applicable research just because my day job isn't in medicine immediately disqualifies a doctor for me.

I remember well my classmates who became doctors. A few of them were brilliant. Most of them were very good at repeating back information and not terribly good at forming their own insights. That's fine in many contexts. I just don't assume someone in a white coat is smarter than I am, much less knows me "better than I know myself," just because they got their advanced degree in a different field than I did.

> I just ask in the very first appointment before I consider hiring that doctor to help me.

Ask what?

I'm liable to agree that there is something there.

It's probably the reason placebo works so well with chronic pain management (surgeries, spinal fusions, knee/hip-replacements, chiropractors, acupuncture, injections of any sort), i.e. the nerves are programmed to keep on "firing" until they receive a stop signal (e.g. mental/physical attention).

I've blown out my back before with a herniated disc. The initial pain was god awful, and an MRI confirmed it. But, after about a year and a half, it seems to be on-and-off of periods of discomfort (but never like the initial pain) that feel like the nerves in my back are all twisted up.

The thing I've focused on for long-term relief is stretching and mentally focusing on the area. It seems to give me months of relief, until I (safely) pick up a ladder and then the sensations comes back.

Have my nerves' sensitivity been upregulated to scream and shout when, otherwise mild or very small strain, is put on that area of the body? I'm suspicious that they have.