The day my brain forgot where my back was • Hacker News Board

Re: The day my brain forgot where my back was

#31

Post by danbmil99 » Sat, Apr 17, 2010, 8:30 AM UTC

naner wrote: post #28

Well I was going to make some comments on specific parts of this blog post but there is just too much crap. Don't do anything the woman did in this article. Not even what she settled for at the end. She kept looking to quacks for quick-fixes where she didn't have to do any work when in reality all she needed was some physical therapy (which is hard work and a longer process and actually fixes your dysfunction). If yo…

Sounds to me like her muscle atrophy was preceded by a long period of intense pain due to one or more herniated discs. A proper course of treatment would have included pain killers and muscle relaxants simply to get her to the point where there was less spasm. Then she could have done physical therapy to build up her strength.

The Chiropractors here are the most to blame -- they took a bad situation and made it much, much worse. Note that the last guy in the UK who called them out for quackery spent years fighting a libel suit.

Re: The day my brain forgot where my back was

#32

Post by danbmil99 » Sat, Apr 17, 2010, 8:32 AM UTC

cracki wrote: post #26

and what is it with "waiting months to see a doctor"? i live in germany (socialized health care) and if there's something wrong with you, you either see your GP or walk into the next (teaching) hospital. whatever further referral you need is just days away, if not just an elevator ride and a knock on a door. waiting months, docs who dismiss your opinion, trusting chiropractors... what is wrong with you?

England. They beat you in the last war.

Re: The day my brain forgot where my back was

#33

Post by jseifer » Sat, Apr 17, 2010, 10:28 AM UTC

noelwelsh wrote: post #4

Taking a bigger picture: Muscle atrophy is one of the biggest causes of reduced quality of life in the elderly (and also the not so elderly). Women in particular are susceptible to this due to their smaller amount of muscle mass to begin with and the general cultural aversion to women undertaking resistance exercise. My own experience (as a man and admitted gym rat) is that resistance training sorts out my back probl…

I'm with you! With the caveat that your form needs to be spot on to avoid injury. There are other benefits to resistance training as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/health/06real.html?src=sch

Re: The day my brain forgot where my back was

#34

Post by tjic » Sat, Apr 17, 2010, 3:13 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #12

tjic wrote: post #5

The treatment she got from the government doctors was horrible. This bit gives me chills: "We were told that we would wait at least four months for an NHS appointmen" Uggh. I'm glad that we still have free market doctors here in the US. Well, at least for the next four years.

Yeah. My former technician, who I still keep in touch with, needed surgery to remove a long shunt that had been surgically implanted when he was a child, due to hydroencephaly. It took months for him to even get the first appointment, an x-ray which did little for diagnosis. Months later, he got an MRI, which supported the diagnosis of calcification of the shunt, but wasn't completely conclusive. More months later, a…

> he's covered under a public care option

So you're arguing that the British socialized system is good, and free market systems are bad ... and the evidence you hold up for this is about a horrible event in socialized portion of the US health care system?

That sounds like a pretty defective argument in favor of socialized medicine.

Re: The day my brain forgot where my back was

#35

Post by thaumaturgy » Sat, Apr 17, 2010, 3:46 PM UTC

dwwoelfel wrote: post #30

thaumaturgy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. My former technician, who I still keep in touch with, needed surgery to remove a long shunt that had been surgically implanted when he was a child, due to hydroencephaly. It took months for him to even get the first appointment, an x-ray which did little for diagnosis. Months later, he got an MRI, which supported the diagnosis of calcification of the shunt, but wasn't completely conclusive. More months later, a…

Where in the US was this? I ask because the health-care system varies from state to state,

California. Surgery was in Davis IIRC.

Re: The day my brain forgot where my back was

#36

Post by thaumaturgy » Sat, Apr 17, 2010, 4:08 PM UTC

tjic wrote: post #34

thaumaturgy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. My former technician, who I still keep in touch with, needed surgery to remove a long shunt that had been surgically implanted when he was a child, due to hydroencephaly. It took months for him to even get the first appointment, an x-ray which did little for diagnosis. Months later, he got an MRI, which supported the diagnosis of calcification of the shunt, but wasn't completely conclusive. More months later, a…

> he's covered under a public care option So you're arguing that the British socialized system is good, and free market systems are bad ... and the evidence you hold up for this is about a horrible event in socialized portion of the US health care system? That sounds like a pretty defective argument in favor of socialized medicine.

No, that wasn't my argument at all.

Maybe your habit of describing these things in "good" versus "bad" has stunted your ability to understand this situation.

I'll try just one more time: unless you're independently wealthy, U.S. citizens are subject to much the same wait times for specialized care as British citizens are -- or, I suspect, the citizens of most other first-world nations. And, again, unless you're independently wealthy, the quality of care in the U.S. is not any better than other countries -- and may even be worse, by some measurements. The usual counter-example that gets trotted out here are the various people that travel to the U.S. from abroad for various serious procedures; but, those people tend to be financially resourceful, and we're not talking about health care for the rich here -- we're talking about the level of health care available to most people.

In my technician's case, the "public care option" part of the anecdote merely covered most -- not all -- of the expenses after the fact. Short of having enough money to bribe hospitals and buy doctors, his experiences wouldn't have been any different if he were paying entirely out-of-pocket, or if he were covered by insurance, or if he were in his sixties and on Medicare.

The idiots that keep spreading FUD about "socialized medicine" keep trying to say that the quality of care will go down, or that our wait times for care will become terribly bad -- without bothering to notice that we aren't exactly the envy of the developed world in terms of either quality or speed. They also fail to ever explain exactly why a socialized payment system should have any negative impact on actual treatment; I for one would actually expect the opposite in a well-run system.

I'm pretty sure that all of the arguments against "socialized" health care pretty much boil down to, "the poor don't deserve health care", which stinks.

Re: The day my brain forgot where my back was

#37

Post by iag » Sat, Apr 17, 2010, 6:28 PM UTC

For those in the bay area, did you have similar success with muscle training treatments? If so, can you please refer me to a few sources where I can get help starting my regiment?

After reading this article I am determined to get my neck and back stronger, just don't know where to start.