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

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

#301

Post by exo-pla-net »

smileysteve wrote: post #169
joshowar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its complicated. Technically speaking, if there's any decay in your teeth, that's a cavity. The deeper it is, the faster it'll get worse. When you want to get that filling though, is a judgement call that a lot of dentists make for you sadly. Is it best to go ahead and get those fillings now? Probably, as far as your dental health is concerned. Can it be delayed though and done later? Almost certainly. Just a bigger…

> Is it best to go ahead and get those fillings now? Probably, as far as your dental health is concerned. Modern science says no, you should apply topical fluoride for most early cavities; and if the teeth use a modern pronamel (cough stuck behind USDA approval) should be able to recover quickly.

Could you add more regarding pronamel, so I can begin my negotiations with The Algorithm?

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

#302

Post by xeromal »

bsuvc wrote: post #181
the_only_law wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point can I just purchase old medical machinery on eBay and run my own blood tests and stuff.

No need to buy the machinery, unless you really want to. You can order your own tests right now from LabCorp and Quest, through sites like requestatest.

Labcorp is fantastic. I do my own yearly checkups through them. You can pay 100-200$ and get a comprehensive panel done on you even checking your testosterone or estrogen levels. You can pay a few bucks and have a doc review your results too or you can give them to a teledoc to review that most insurance providers have.

I hate going to the doctor's office to have them order a panel so that I can go to a labcorp and have the doc call me and say everything is good. It's all free but my time isn't.

Going directly to labcorp bypasses everything and they give me the results to review myself.

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

#303

Post by awinter-py »

jnovek wrote: post #40

“ Medicine has become a three-way negotiation between you, your doctor, and The Algorithm.” This characterization makes it sound like a good thing. In reality, the doctor’s responsibility is being pushed to the patient because they are overbooked in the name of economic efficiency. As a patient with complex, non-specific medical condition, I can tell you how miserable this is. I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to mov…

ugh yes re gatekeeping -- maybe there's an argument for requiring a prescription for some treatments, but at least in the US it's illegal for patients to self-order diagnostic testing. the new york AG sued a lab for doing walk-in blood tests without a prescription

'didn't accept insurance' is interesting -- in the econtalk episode with the surgery center of oklahoma, the guest claims that he's able to offer better medical outcomes by being out of the insurance system, and implies that billing things at a mainstream hospital has become so hard that it consumes more mental cycles than medicine

it seems like the medical system as-is isn't the right service for people who are fighting the system to get a diagnosis; I wonder if there's a different model that would work better

or tbh a specialized concierge doctor that just prescribes things that you ask for

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

#305

Post by johncessna »

matsemann wrote: post #12

Why are dentists so scammy? In Norway I've seen documentaries about them sending the same people to multiple dentists, and some of them receive wildly different advice. Some of that can be ascribed to some being in the school of pro-active, so they want to fix your teeth at the first glance of issues. But in the end, most of the things being quoted were unnecessary. They all seemed very intent on removing wisdom teet…

Pediatric dentistry is especially scummy. If you don't do insanely expensive treatment that almost no one did 20 years ago you could maybe potentially sometimes damage your kid's oral hygiene permanently.

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

#306

Post by sharno »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #190
JKCalhoun wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought expert systems were supposed to replace diagnosis, like three decades ago.

In an April's fool story where Eliezer Yudkowsky was pretending to come from a rationalist parallel world (or outer planet), he suggested a medical system with a different way to specialize people. Most notably, he suggested we separate diagnosticians and prognosticators from practicians . The former do their best to guess what you have, send you to the right kind of practician, and estimate your possible outcomes (w…

This seems to make sense to me as a better medical system.

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

#307

Post by csa »

salsadip wrote: post #119
gtirloni wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gatekeepers that block access to potential treatment pathways until you can convince them it’s worth a try. You assume they actually know what needs to be done. In my experience, you can see they don't have a clue and aren't willing to do research to learn. They just hand out their usual prescriptions, etc and sometimes hope an exam will give them an obvious answer. On top of that, most doctors only have a very nar…

I‘m really not trying to sound snarky, but - is this the supposedly high quality treatment that U.S. citizens get that is so much more expensive as opposed to the „socialized“ insurance we get in Europe that is cheaper for everybody and supposedly therefore not as good/cutting edge?

> is this the supposedly high quality treatment that U.S. citizens get that is so much more expensive as opposed to the „socialized“ insurance we get in Europe

I am an American who has lived in several countries and had experience several medical systems.

The US has the best care… if you have access to it. This access can be limited by geography, insurance, money, awareness of the specific doctor, etc.

In a random provincial area with no university medical school nearby, the treatment will often be quite sketchy.

In other countries I’ve lived in, the best medical care was still in the large cities, but the standard in provincial areas was to a much higher standard (imho) than in provincial areas in the US.

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

#308

Post by hungryforcodes »

pc86 wrote: post #170
Bedon292 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "subluxations" being a myth? Most of my back issues come from subluxation of the T2 vertebra. As shown by x-rays and physically being able to feel that is is out of alignment with the rest of the spine. Are you referring to those charts that say these are the random other symptoms you might have from alignment issues? Those definitely seem shady, and pseudoscience at best. Edit: Oh, I see. Overloa…

Yes, I just meant the chiropractic side. They're absolutely real and can be a problem medically. Chiros sort of co-opted it.

Yeah, I'm not sure about this. After two car accidents one year apart my back was killing me. I went to a year for physio and nothing happened. Then a friend recommended this chiropractor and within 3 months I was fine. To be fair this chiropractor said alot of chiropractic was a bit fluffy, and I insisted we discuss the science behind it and stuff which he was totally literate about.

I'd go to another one again.

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

#309

Post by foobarian »

jnovek wrote: post #40

“ Medicine has become a three-way negotiation between you, your doctor, and The Algorithm.” This characterization makes it sound like a good thing. In reality, the doctor’s responsibility is being pushed to the patient because they are overbooked in the name of economic efficiency. As a patient with complex, non-specific medical condition, I can tell you how miserable this is. I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to mov…

It seems that they have very little incentive to take risks/deviate from the common path. Why help an outlier patient, when even if their unusual treatment doesn't do any harm, it could be wrongfully associated with some random bad outcome?

With the system set up like this, game theory basically guarantees we end up with the state as OP describes.

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

#310

Post by pessimizer »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #248
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Just because having plaque on your teeth will block acids doesn't mean it's actually a good idea not to clean your teeth. I guess if you could show a study showing that leaving plaque/tartar on teeth leads to better health outcomes I might be interested.

The reason it's a good idea to clean your teeth is because if you don't they'll stink and become discolored. It's not because it keeps them healthy, because cleaning your teeth strips some protection from bacteria and acids away from them while deepening the pockets around them, creating a nice place for disease to live.

The idea that intensely cleaning your teeth (and keeping them white) is healthy is an intuitive leap that marketers take advantage of, just like the bad intuition that makes people clean their faces intensely to get rid of skin problems. The reality is more complicated. Clean, pure, healthy, white.

Fossils have better teeth than we do, but we have prettier, less fragrant teeth.

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