Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.tjcx.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 438 posts

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

#341

Post by jrockway »

cupofpython wrote: post #274
avgDev wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what your friends financial situation is but maybe try to collect some money for her and buy one? I googled that the average cost is just under $1k for a CPAP machine. If it could change her life then maybe should could even pay it back one day.

I second this. Absolutely pay out of pocket if insurance drags their feet. I spent $5k on a mouthpiece for my treatment and would do it again. It is far from an ideal solution, but in the 3 months it takes insurance to get their shit together - your friend could have the energy to work a side job to pay off whatever it costs and just be generally happier overall

OK good advice, did not know that was an option.

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

#342

Post by FollowingTheDao »

JamesBarney wrote: post #329
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny you say this has nothing to do with capitalism but all the countries you listed have largely socialized medicine. Once capital gets power it uses a government to enforce that power.

Roughly a third of our healthcare spending is socialized medicine, and Medicare and Medicaid have the same issues we do.

1/3 We do not have anything close to socialized medicine.

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

#343

Post by jrockway »

cupofpython wrote: post #270
jrockway wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the situation has improved there in the last couple years. I had a friend who I suspected of having sleep apnea. She called her doctor and asked for a sleep study. They gave her a device to wear while sleeping and the diagnosis of sleep apnea came the next day. Getting insurance to approve the CPAP, though... that is still an open problem. Weeks later, no treatment for diagnosed disease.

>I had a friend who I suspected of having sleep apnea. She called her doctor and asked for a sleep study It doesnt sound like the situation has improved. Without a friend like you, would she have received treatment? I think the community has gotten better at addressing the undiagnosed sleep apnea epidemic. When I needed help, there were some discussions about it on forums that I could find with the right search terms…

Yeah, you're right that doctors kind of missed this. Sometimes I wonder how many questions they ask (depression is what she was being treated for with little success) and how much is volunteered.

I happen to enjoy reading NTSB accident reports in my spare time, and they're always sleep apnea, so it was at the top of mind when I heard things like "headache every morning" and "I randomly fall asleep on my couch". I didn't go to medical school so I'm not sure if those are anxiety/depression symptoms, but a sleep study sounded like it wouldn't hurt. You're absolutely right that doctors should at least be asking these questions ("how tired are you", there is even a scale with more specific questions).

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

#344

Post by ipaddr »

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?

This is also Canada with even more socialized medicine compared to Europe.

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

#345

Post by Phrodo_00 »

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…

> I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to move the process forward. It’s always me, reading articles on PubMed and coming up with ideas.

This seems to be the case with most medicine. Doctors in the US don't seem comfortable making suggestions. I recently got appendicitis and at first they only offered an appendectomy as a thing I could do (or not do). I had to specifically ask for a recommendation to get someone actually recommend a path, and this probably is one of the most routine cases in an ER. Can't imagine having something more complex.

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

#346

Post by asdff »

brimble wrote: post #129
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…

Can confirm. They paint people who google symptoms as kooks or as annoying, but you have to if you ever want to get an actual diagnosis and treatment, because doctors and hospitals are, quite often, worse than Google at figuring out WTF is wrong. Do your best not to end up in a hospital without an advocate (friend, relative) watching out for you. They'll fail to treat you at best, then discharge you with a shrug and…

To be fair, the vast majority of patients they see who do bring in their own sources are probably the kooks. Just look at the state of national discourse on any topic related to science. The number of people within the intersect of the venn diagram of "able to interperate the relevant literature", "has time to interperate the relevant literature", and "doesnt trust the doctors ability to interpretate the relevant literature" has to be remarkably small.

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

#347

Post by FollowingTheDao »

throwawayboise wrote: post #335
mmcdermott wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The slow diagnosis is because the specialists are so reluctant to see people. Right now I am on a six month wait to see a rheumatologist. Why? Capitalism. This remark seems somewhat lacking in rigor. I know bagging on capitalism is a common reflex, particularly in medicine, but something more is almost certainly going on. The default thought process for a retailer is to move units. A lawyer wants to rack up billabl…

Specialists are called that for a reason. They are not general practitioners and their time is extremely valuable. Access to them needs to be managed so that they do not waste their time on people who do not need their specialty. The way it's supposed to work is that the general practitioner rules out a bunch of stuff, and then starts referring to specialists who can diagnose/treat the rare things. In practice it's n…

> The way it's supposed to work is that the general practitioner rules out a bunch of stuff, and then starts referring to specialists who can diagnose/treat the rare things.

You missed a whole bunch in that progression. You forgot the insurance companies for one thing.

And you are wrong about the diagnosis process for Lupus. My Primary Care gave me the worst test for diagnosis ANA levels for Lupus. It came up negative. Therefore, I could not see a rheumatologist even though I had documented (MRI) spinal arthritis, kidney problems, and all the other symptoms.

When I found out it was a bad test I demanded they did the correct one it came up positive. So you see, when they do not know what is going on, the give up. They do not dig deeper. The process is a failure for people with chronic illnesses.

The better way to deal with it is to have fewer specialist, get rid of insurance companies, and just have more doctors that can spend more time with their patients and learn more in the process. Primary care doctors need to know more and investigate more.

And the only reason specialists time is extremely valuable is because they make sure there are not a lot of them.

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

#348

Post by FollowingTheDao »

nebulous_two wrote: post #278
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was misdiagnosed with Bipolar Disorder for 30 years. Turns out it was Neuropsychiatric Lupus. Despite all my pleading to them to look further they never did. I had to teach myself biology and genetics while I was on disability. They missed all the common signs of Lupus; my skin, bad kidneys, etc. I am afraid all this technology is taking away all of our wisdom. Too easy to know things, very hard to understand them.

Your fear is as old as time. The act of writing was considered a threat to human memory capacity and therefore wisdom too.

You are assuming I believe that writing was not a threat as well, albeit a slower one. But here we are, because of all that reading and writing.

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

#349

Post by asdff »

bcoughlan wrote: post #277
salsadip wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So tired of these "European" comments feigning cluelessness to try to feel above others. There is huge variety in healthcare quality across EU countries (waiting lists are years long in my country) and no one can speak of Europe as a monolith and make much sense. People in my (EU) country who have serious illnesses often seek to go to the US for treatment because they have facilities and doctors that specialise in th…

I think it depends on the context of the treatment and how specialized it needs to be. For example, I've had relatives from the U.S. who have gotten dental work done in Croatia because its cheap enough to the point where they can buy a transatlantic flight and spend some time visiting family members along with getting the root canal and crown done. A lot of people in southern California also opt to drive to Tijuana for dental work or other procedures. If its not some cutting edge thing or world renown surgeon, there is no point to paying the costs associated with a lot of treatment in the U.S. at least. For some stuff, yeah, the U.S. is best in class; Saudi princes fly out to Cleveland to get their heart work done.

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

#350

Post by cityofdelusion »

bigbob2 wrote: post #178
egberts1 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90-degree? Yeah, you should get those wisdom teeth out because general anesthesia at your advanced age would not be good for your longevity. That is, if your wisdom teeth were ever then to surface and rot.

Not only that but from what I understand, a major nerve in your jaw grows closer to your wisdom teeth over time. So if you wait on a procedure like that until later in life, it increases the chance that the nerve will be damaged in the procedure, leading to a potential loss of feeling in part of your face. At least this is what I was told by my oral surgeon, assuming he wasn't lying to me for profit...

I waited until later in life. I have a partial loss of feeling in my face now, along with referred sensation in the same area (I feel things on the inside and outside of my mouth simultaneously, it is bizarre.)

So I would believe your surgeon :)

Post reply on HN