Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

I don't know that you can fix this. This is what people want. They need to feel like they've researched and made intelligent decisions, even when they haven't. After all, doctors aren't in it to make them feel better, it's all just some big conspiracy to make them more money (sarcasm).

My wife is an oncology surgeon and it's absolutely mindblowing the things her patients tell her or later post on Facebook. One of her latest winners is someone that flew cross country to California to get things like 3D Bio-Scans.

3D you say? That sounds useful. It's a 3D image of you, your cancer, your organs, etc, right? No. I'm taking this straight from their website:

> It has four FDA-approved technologies in one: Pulse Oximetry, Body Composition, Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and Galvanic Skin Response Devices;

Not a damn one of those is going to tell you anything about cancer. And then there's thermagrams, where they basically check your skin temperature to try and diagnose internal medicine, like cancer, colitis, gluten allergies, etc. And people just buy this shit up.

It really just reminds me of Steve Jobs' quote on television:

  When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.

And did you know dental plaque and tartar are actually protecting your teeth? And just because vanity we want to get it removed?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17016887/

I've gotten to the point where if Insurance doesnt cover it then I don't get it. I can count on one hand the amount of non covered things that have been helpful in the past.

This policy is what stopped me from getting a treatment from my dentist that involved grinding down my teeth. Google results were mixed on the benefits. Dentist pushed it very hard. It was like $500 so I said no. Teeth have been fine without it.

Not everything is “fixable” in health and sometimes this means that there isn’t one “right” choice for treatment. Involving the patient in the decision making process is important because people have preferences for what is right for them and their life and the doctor can act as a well informed partner in care.

I have multiple sclerosis. There’s not a cure but there is highly effective medication. There’s also less effective medications. The highly effective stuff is various degrees of immunosuppressive or has a risk of fatal brain infection that is manageable with proper testing and monitoring. The less effective stuff can seem “safer” because it lacks these particular risks. A regular neurologist might not know very much at all and give outdated advice and treatment plans compared to some specialists and for this reason advocating for oneself is hugely important as long term outcomes can be greatly different based on the treatment choices. The fact is that you can’t just let “medicine happen to you” because the person that cares the most about your medical outcomes is you. Obviously this is an extreme example but it’s one of many.

>I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to move the process forward.

This has been my experience as well dealing with fatigue. I was 25 when I finally got diagnosed with sleep apnea, after over a decade of symptoms. How something so common could go unnoticed by the adults and professional doctors in my life astonishes me still today.

Eventually, thanks to ego, I questioned the narrative that I was just normal and lazy. Without the internet, I might not have ever learned that sleep studies even exist.

I was more than half-asleep for all of my schooling, college, and early professional years. I've spent the last 5+ years trying to catch up.