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I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

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Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#471

Post by quickthrower2 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #444
mpsprd wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors are technicians. Technicians with a large toolkit, but technicians nonetheless. When you compare their behaviors to IT it all starts making sense.

Being a doctor is like debugging a unique humongous software application with thousands of years of organic patchwork added by a godlike AI which just generates random code and watches the failed experiments die, no source code to any of it just the final binary, no debugger that lets you kill the process and dump its memory or trace its execution, just a bunch of test cases that cost lots of money to run and may yie…

Not only that but you need to provide expertise more on the timelines of a customer support agent rather than a software developer or researcher.

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#472

Post by ornornor »

goostavos wrote: post #386
ornornor wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like dentistry in particular is one of the least rigorous of medical sciences. From my point of view (patient), I feels like dentists base their treatment recommendations on how much kickback they’re getting from medical corporations (Invisalign anyone?) and biased papers. I wonder why dentistry is so far removed from the rest of the medical profession on this. Not that MDs are immune to the above but it feels…

Invisalign works pretty well, though. I'm pretty pleased it was "pushed" on me. I had some messed up teeth. 12 months of trays later and I my teeth are more or less in the right place now.

What bothers me is that it’s a commercial product that is pushed very hard and where dentists have a financial incentive in you getting the treatment they’re recommending.

It might work, but the conflict of interest is there and you’ll never know if there wasn’t a superior/cheaper/more suitable alternative.

Ditto Oral B toothbrushes. Or Pedigree Pal at vets.

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#473

Post by steeve »

Waterluvian wrote: post #47

My son when 3 had a fall and a few teeth were bent. Went to our local dentist who mostly had a wait and see opinion. But then calls a day later and says they’ve decided they should just come out. Two top front teeth. Would have no top front teeth for years. I went into engineer mode and while I acknowledged I didn’t have domain expertise, I asked questions and probed the whole situation. Very unsatisfactory, meanderi…

Exactly my own experience with a Guillain Barré syndrome.

Went full engineer and finally met the right people.

Medicine is a marvel, but it’s a opportunity cost. You meet with people who have 10 minutes to pattern match you, which works for probably close to all the cases they see, until it doesn’t, and it’s you.

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#474

Post by josephg »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #447
wpietri wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. A friend of mine went to med school and chose the general practitioner path. One time I was hanging out at their place, so I leafed through some of the GP journals on the coffee table. It seemed much more akin to car repair than to science.

yeah, I was just thinking about this today. Doctors seem less like engineers and more like QA testers or PMs trying to fix bugs since there's nobody better suited to the job available. Hopefully medical science will keep advancing rapidly here..

I doubt doctors will get better at this in our lifetimes. As we discover ever more about the human body, how are doctors expected to keep up with the research on top of everything else?

I’m hoping AI systems can help. A good medical AI should be able to stay abreast of all the research, know your personal medical history and suggest and evaluate any and all medical tests that are needed. Doctors will hate it, but I expect AIs will give much more accurate diagnoses than humans before long.

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#475

Post by Scoundreller »

thefaux wrote: post #418
noelwelsh wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the NHS is seriously under-funded, the Tory government is responsible, and healthcare is suffering as a result. However, I do want to provide an anecdote to illustrate that private healthcare is not perfect. I had some persistent pain in my foot. Realized I wouldn't get anywhere with the NHS so I went private. The person I saw had an excellent manner. They suggested some fairly gnarly surgery. Said I should…

Long ago I broke my collarbone in a bicycle race. It's a common injury in the sport so I got a referral to a surgeon from another racer who'd had a fracture of his own surgically repaired. To my surprise, she took a very conservative course of action. The clavicle had broken pretty cleanly in half and the outer half had settled in about an inch inward underneath the inner half. You might think that would be a good ca…

My Canadian experience with that injury was basically the surgeon would operate on me if I wanted, and that would get me back to 100% faster, but it's more invasive and largely unnecessary unless your everyday life required faster healing (e.g. you job depends on it). Which it didn't because I had a desk job.

There might be an age component to it: the risk of it not healing correctly increases with age.

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#476

Post by guythedudebro »

gcanyon wrote: post #437
Waterluvian wrote: post #47

My son when 3 had a fall and a few teeth were bent. Went to our local dentist who mostly had a wait and see opinion. But then calls a day later and says they’ve decided they should just come out. Two top front teeth. Would have no top front teeth for years. I went into engineer mode and while I acknowledged I didn’t have domain expertise, I asked questions and probed the whole situation. Very unsatisfactory, meanderi…

I was probably four when I fell against the sandbox in the playground and knocked one of my top front teeth right out. I carried it inside to the teacher, who had me bite on a paper towel to stop the bleeding and sent me home with the tooth wrapped in another paper towel in my pocket. About a week later I fell against a large wooden block in the classroom and knocked the other top front tooth clean out. I went for so…

You need a mouth guard

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#477

Post by chmod600 »

smsm42 wrote: post #313
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. I had a SO with severe chronic gastric pain and they got passed around by doctors for years. One jerk wrote "drug seeking behavior" into her file and that made things even worse. Finally someone took her seriously, got imagery done, and discovered surgery was necessary. In US healthcare you have to be your own advocate and be willing to push. The system breaks down if you don't have a routine and o…

It's not specific to the US. It's the problem of doctors seeing every particular patient for literally minutes and having zero incentive to dig deeper. 90% of the problems are of the nature that is either covered by standard remedies or will pass by itself with time. If you have one of the 10%, you need to have good luck to encounter an extra-ordinary doctor that would take personal interest in your problem, usually…

While there's some truth here, medical diagnosis and treatment can be really hard.

People have weird habits, weird diets, are exposed to weird chemicals in small amounts over extended periods of time, etc. There are all kinds of genetic factors where something can be really minor for most people and debilitating for others. There are all kinds or problems or diseases that people can have, and there can be weird combinations that interact or provide an overall confusing array of symptoms. And it's all mixed up with the patient's brain, which may be exacerbating or compensating in all kinds of ways (psychologically or through behaviors that the patient develops).

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#478

Post by kelnos »

Waterluvian wrote: post #47

My son when 3 had a fall and a few teeth were bent. Went to our local dentist who mostly had a wait and see opinion. But then calls a day later and says they’ve decided they should just come out. Two top front teeth. Would have no top front teeth for years. I went into engineer mode and while I acknowledged I didn’t have domain expertise, I asked questions and probed the whole situation. Very unsatisfactory, meanderi…

> I believe in modern medicine.

It's completely reasonable to believe in modern medicine, but also to remember that humans are imperfect and have all sorts of biases and limitations when practicing modern medicine. Add on top of that how most health care systems make things much more difficult than they need to be, for both the doctor and the patient.

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#479

Post by Scoundreller »

NovaDudely wrote: post #332
wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have learned from personal experience to never take healthcare medicals for their words. Always do your own research. Ask them consequences and how sure they are. And take into consideration the impact of treatments and diagnosis to the life quality of yourself or loved ones. At times can be hard for doctors and others to look beyond their own worldview. Personally I’ve had this eczema where I found the correct cre…

Oh yeah I had really bad skin flaking, they would orescibe all kinds of hormone or steroid based creams that would next to nothing. One search on Reddit and many people just said to use petrolium gel. Bam fixed it up in two days! Costs me about $3 a year to control this now.

petrolatum is underappreciated as a moisturizer imo. Too cheap for a good marketing budget.

Most of the expensive moisturizers is going to be 80-90% petrolatum and a bunch of crap that's more likely to irritate than help (but smells nice!).

Don't get me started on "non-greasy" formulations... it's the greasiness that makes it work!

Pro-tip: put your moisturizer on just after washing. You want to trap in all that water!

Re: I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

#480

Post by lowkey »

colordrops wrote: post #245
basisword wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I’m not a conspiracy nut. I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. Ask anybody who’s experienced a “chronic” illness about the “experts” and they’ll tell you a tale or two. The experts are great until they have a case that is unusual. The don’t have the time or know…

This whole fear of being labeled a "conspiracy nut" for exploring less trodden paths needs to end. Calling people conspiracy nuts for looking behind curtains they shouldn't was a good tactic by various entities to cover up secrets and misdeeds, but it has spilled over into the non political arena and poisoned everything. Humans don't have a full understanding of everything, and in fact it's quite the opposite, in tha…

I don’t think it is possible to end the derogatory use of the term conspiracy theorist universally, but I do have some hope that we can put a stop to it’s use as an ad hominem here on Hacker News.

It is never used in the spirit of promoting insightful discussion.

Instead it is used to shut down a line of inquiry in its tracks. It’s like calling someone an anti-semite.

It is used as a soft form of censorship, to disqualify the mere idea of engaging in the specifics of an argument.

If someone dismisses a comment by implying it is a conspiracy instead of offering a substantive rebuttal of why the comment is mistaken, it reduces the quality of the entire community.

I think we can do better, but more people need to call out this bad behavior.

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