The Other Half • Hacker News Board

Re: The Other Half

#221

Post by derefr » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:29 PM UTC

eon1 wrote: post #213

ganley wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About a decade ago, I got a physical after having not set foot in a doctor's office in about 12 years. The doctor asked what made me come to get a physical after so long, and when I said nothing in particular, he pretended to write on his clipboard "Wife made me come here." He said middle-aged guys with no obvious health problems pretty much only come to the doctor for one (or both) of two reasons: Their wife made th…

The whole "getting a physical" annually is purely an old school American thing anyway. I don't know anyone in my country who does this - although apparently nowadays US med associations recommended you go visit a doctor every 5 years or so if you're under 40. Still, if I walked into a doctor and said "is anything wrong with me?" with no symptoms or obvious indication that this might be so, they would probably take bl…

Personally, I kind of wish my GP was there to help me optimize my health, rather than just to diagnose illness.

Like, all those dietary restrictions they give to people who've had heart attacks? Why not give them to me before I have a heart attack, so I won't ever get one? Make my life more of a hassle, so that I live longer!

I want to have someone in my life who plays the same role that a dental hygienist plays a dentist visit, but for my general physical health.

Re: The Other Half

#222

Post by mod » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:30 PM UTC

adamors wrote: post #135

tptacek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work. The submitter of an HN story doesn't own the story; stories are community property. Submitting doesn't entitle you to choose for the whole site what is or isn't interesting about a story. If you want to do that, you write a comment, like everybody else. This is one of the oldest meta-arguments on the site. Once or twice a month, perhaps, we get a story that isn't particularly well served by the gui…

I have no idea what the story is about, and frankly with a title like "The Other Half" I'm not even interested to find out more.

I am sympathetic to that argument, but you're making a mistake in this case.

I found it riveting.

Re: The Other Half

#223

Post by pmarreck » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:33 PM UTC

MandieD wrote: post #26

pmarreck wrote: post #4

I sat on a "weird pain" in my chest for a few days. Basically it was uncomfortable to sleep on my left side, and I felt a bit short of breath. Turns out I was suffering from a double pulmonary embolism , and that the only reason I wasn't doubled over in pain is because by an odd fluke of nature, the interior of the lungs do not have nerve endings (only the exterior) and had I waited any longer I could have died. At t…

For my husband, it was a feeling of heartburn combined with an elevated heart rate in the middle of the night. Fortunately, my reaction was, "oh my god, get up, we're going to the hospital NOW!" This was a bit over two weeks after a delayed Transatlantic flight with turbulence bad enough that we barely left our seats. The main reason I freaked out and took him to the hospital immediately instead of just saying, "that…

I got my double pulmonary embolism after a flight from California to NY, as well. Odd thing is they never found the source of the clot (my legs showed nada).

I still make sure to get up and walk around frequently on flights now! (As well as the usual anticoagulant libation... Bloody Mary)

Re: The Other Half

#224

Post by derefr » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #218

derefr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real problem is self-neglect, whose root cause is low self-esteem. I'm not sure if I disagree with you, or if my perspective is this same perspective from a different angle, but: I would say that it's more that men tend to (expect to) derive their self-esteem from things they do , rather than things they are —so they invest much more time in doing things, and much less time in being things. In order to "be" bea…

With the disclaimer that this is gender stereotyping (and my doubts have been increasing as to the utility of this way of thinking about people), this does seem like an insightful observation

Hmm, sex stereotyping is usually wrong, but I'm not sure what's wrong with gender stereotyping—as in, predicting that people will behave a certain way when (voluntarily, self-identifyingly) playing a defined gender role in a culture with clear gender-segregated role-scripts.

It's in the "Western man" role-script to "do" things—and to be expected to "do" things by others; it's in the "Western woman" role-script to "be" things—and to be expected to "be" things by others. As long as you "put on the mask", the people around you will generally push you toward playing your part. (This is what a large part of gender dysphoria is about: being pushed by society to play a part you don't identify with, because of what you present as.)

If you don't strongly identify with either of the roles of "Western man" or "Western woman", then the likelihood of you taking care of yourself isn't predictable. But if you do (and a lot of people do), it generally is.

Re: The Other Half

#225

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:42 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #170

DanBC wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He said middle-aged guys with no obvious health problems Why would anyone see a doctor unless they had a health problem? (Or wanted health advice?)

Regular preventive checkups are (or should be?) a thing. Quite a few deadly things need to be caught before they become obvious problems. As a crude example, prostate cancer is one of diseases causing death for men; and has the "nice" property that if it's detected early in a screening then it's (usually) treatable with minor side effects, but by the time it causes symptoms serious enough to seek a fix for the sympto…

[deleted]

Re: The Other Half

#226

Post by incompatible » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:44 PM UTC

blackflame7000 wrote: post #214

branchless wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand how people take the USA seriously. One of the most important things, which I doubt is in dispute, is access to healthcare. The USA tells us their model of capitalism is the best. They apply their system to healthcare. It utterly fails to deliver versus "socialist" solutions. At what point are you guys going to join the dots on this contradiction?

It is a false assumption to say that because socialized healthcare works in some countries, the entire scheme of capitalism is therefore inferior. There are a number of unique aspects of Human health and insurance that make it very difficult to manage using conventional capitalistic means. (Namely that a human cannot be totalled whereas an object can) However, that is not an indictment on capitalism but is instead a…

We can start by asking if capitalism is inferior at providing health care, at least. People sometimes assume that capitalism means free markets. In practice it can also mean oligopolies, monopolies, rigged systems, and scams. That may describe the US health system, propped up with government regulations and subsidies.

Re: The Other Half

#227

Post by lancewiggs » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:49 PM UTC

shanusmagnus wrote: post #210

bleair wrote: post #208

This part fascinated me : "" I waited 5 anxious minutes, and then was bought into a room with two doctors, one of whom turned out to be Dr. Sonny Palmer. Sonny said Georg thought I needed some help, and I’d be checked within a day. I asked if he’d seen the letter with his name on it. He hadn’t. He went and got it. He came back and said I was going to be operated on in an hour. "" You obviously don't want to be rude w…

Couldn't agree with this more. I'm from MN, we tend to be pretty polite and understated, assume that doctors (and other authorities) know what they're talking about. Had a friend who progressed to a heart attack in a waiting room because he didn't want to make a fuss. Make a fuss.

This was in Australia. A senior cardiologist has no motivation other than saving your life, and the symptoms were very clear. Meanwhile a stent operation is relatively trivial - as was explained later in the piece. If he'd asked for a second opinion it could very well have added enough time to make things a lot worse.

Re: The Other Half

#228

Post by walshemj » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:50 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #154

ganley wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About a decade ago, I got a physical after having not set foot in a doctor's office in about 12 years. The doctor asked what made me come to get a physical after so long, and when I said nothing in particular, he pretended to write on his clipboard "Wife made me come here." He said middle-aged guys with no obvious health problems pretty much only come to the doctor for one (or both) of two reasons: Their wife made th…

It's not just a macho thing. I pretty severely injured an ankle back in September, at MMA, and for the first time in my life (at 38) it doesn't seem to be healing up very well. I keep finding new little movements that cause it to feel pretty wrong ("popping", "pulling", cold sensation, mild short-term pain, weakness). One of these happened in front of my girlfriend, who ordered me to see a doctor, so I did. I filled…

But you don't know if that of pain is going to kill you or not

Re: The Other Half

#229

Post by lancewiggs » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:51 PM UTC

RandomInteger4 wrote: post #40

joebeetee wrote: post #9

A (35ish y/o) family friend died 2 months ago from a heart attack, suspected high cholesterol. He was seemingly healthy, active and not overweight. Anyone else have experience with cholesterol in early 30's?

Last time I had my cholesterol checked about 6-7 years ago, it appeared normal, though my HDL was low. I'm 31 now and have been having a weird heart feeling. Not a pain though, but like beating issues. Depending on what I eat and which supplements I take, my heart starts beating weird and my blood pressure goes up. The weird beating seems like my heart is either beating normally or weakly and then there's a "hiccup"…

Are you really seeking medical advice on HN? See a doctor for goodness sake.

Re: The Other Half

#230

Post by darkerside » Wed, Mar 01, 2017, 10:58 PM UTC

Peradine wrote: post #156

spinchange wrote: post #28

I wonder all the time why we don't have more widely available, "consumer grade" tech like handheld ECGs, etc., to help better detect stuff like this. (There are products like this, but not in U.S. markets to my understanding - at least not without a prescription) If you're unfortunate enough to suffer from something like anxiety attacks and also have heart trouble in your family's medical history it is very difficult…

To properly rule out a heart attack you would need a) A twelve-lead EKG - which requires twelve wires to be connected to specific locations on your body and b) Blood tests Therefore for a consumer-grade device to properly rule out a heart attack it would need to be a large EKG machine with multiple connectors as well as a blood test analysis machine. And that's not even considering that proper analysis of an EKG trac…

Is that very different from a Holter monitor? Those are cumbersome, but seem like they could be a feasibly portable technology at some point. Also, those two tests are necessary for getting a relatively immediate result. Might a) alone provide valuable insights over a longer period of time? I could see your EKG over the course of 48 hours having the potential to provide a comparably accurate test result. Layman, obviously.