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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

#321

Post by leksak »

mmcdermott wrote: post #294
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not hard to diagnose once you eventually get to a person that can diagnose it. You said it yourself. It is not about difficultly, but time spent with the patient. But I literally showed my doctor the cutaneous lupus in my ear and she said "Oh, some people just get gunk in their ears" and would not send me to a rheumatologist. The slow diagnosis is because the specialists are so reluctant to see people. Right no…

> 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 hard to get a face-to-face with even with socialized medicine (personal anecdote from Sweden). I assume that one thing that transcends national borders is that unless your symptoms suggest anything life-threatening care will be administered in accordance with heuristics. The most probable diagnosis is set, and it is assumed that a patient will return if things does not improve.

However, failing to communicate to a patient that a diagnosis is provisional might serve to undermine their faith in the healthcare system leading to periods of fatigue wherein one doesn't have the self-efficacy to continue seeking care if things haven't improved even if quality of life is severely impacted.

From my limited understanding of the US healthcare system I'd imagine you don't want an excess of cases because each case

1. Is a responsibility, and thus a liability, and 2. every patient your staff needs to accommodate is draining (risk of overwork).

If that would apply to a country with socialized medicine I imagine that Item 1. receives significantly less consideration but that Item 2. is still very much considered. If a unit isn't a first-line care-provider they can in theory be a bit more guarded about who they receive, while first-line just has to bear whatever comes through the doors.

I feel as if I'm shifting to a different point of discussion but I still struggle not to mention the fact that a specialist may not be readily at hand depending on what city you are in.

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

#322

Post by FollowingTheDao »

JamesBarney wrote: post #290
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not hard to diagnose once you eventually get to a person that can diagnose it. You said it yourself. It is not about difficultly, but time spent with the patient. But I literally showed my doctor the cutaneous lupus in my ear and she said "Oh, some people just get gunk in their ears" and would not send me to a rheumatologist. The slow diagnosis is because the specialists are so reluctant to see people. Right no…

There are too many patients and not enough doctors. This isn't caused by capitalism, capitalism doesn't limit the # of doctors. Becoming socialist doesn't magically allow doctors to see patients for twice as long. If we had socialism more people could afford doctors(a good thing!) but it would make this specific problem worse, because there would be more patients. This is caused by the AMA lobbying to limit the suppl…

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.

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

#323

Post by gs17 »

karencarits wrote: post #33
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…

Article: https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/hvor-ofte-ma-du-ga-til-tannlege... "Gjessing visited eight dentists. * Five found no holes. * One found a hole. * One found two holes. * One found three holes. * Three removed tartar. * One recommended brace for 2500 kroner and a new appointment. ... Memo visited six dentists. * Three thought everything looked good. * Two recommended replacing fillings. * One found two holes and…

Reminds me of an experience I describe as "two out of three doctors agree: you're not on fire".

(It was just a bit of body hair hit by an electrocauterizer that was smouldering, but two doctors in the room told me I was imaginging the heat and smell, while the third rushed to grab a cup of water).

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

#324

Post by gs17 »

orangepurple wrote: post #192

Search google for the phrase "climate change" without quotes. About 4,010,000,000 results (1.01 seconds) Why don't the results go past page 5? (Only a few dozen exist) If the dead internet theory [1] is true a new search engine may eventually emerge which focuses on indexing verifiably human-generated content with high information value. I have no idea what is going on with Google search results. [1] https://forum.ag…

> verifiably human-generated content with high information value.

I'm not sure that will be possible to implement without the "search engine" being more of a magazine.

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

#325

Post by mguerville »

My eye doctor a few years back tried to get me to get some kind of treatment (a device or some snake oil potion, can't recall) because I was allegedly not blinking enough and had dry eyes that could spiral into (insert mildly scary eye disease) if left untreated. Some googling helped me reach the same conclusion as this blogger.

So it's not just dentists... at least my dermatologist is pretty transparent about all the aesthetic treatments that complement their medical services, though they seem to always find a mole that needs a biopsy and every year it turns out benign. I wonder how many times it was necessary, versus how many times it was just an easy money grab because my insurance covers it and it's very minimal of a procedure. I don't have a problem with for-profit healthcare, but fee-for-service is driving the insane cost inflation in the US

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

#326

Post by throwamon »

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.

This argument keeps being thrown around but it's pretty clear to me that this time it's actually different. Every new attention-grabbing invention is more potent than the last, and the Internet just might have crossed a threshold where it can actually break us on a large scale.

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

#327

Post by jacobr1 »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #318
throw10920 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is caused by the AMA lobbying to limit the supply of doctors in order to drive up salaries. This. This is the problem - not the vague spectre of "capitalism" being waved around.

Since when do salaries have nothing to do with capitalism?

The presumption is that under a "free market" the demand would drive more production - more doctors. But that the rules of the current system artificially restrict the supply of doctors. Some of that we want - credentials clearly serve a purpose - yet are the rules more restrictive than they should be? Should there be more residencies? Should we have more "lower-level" providers like nurse-practitioners, PAs or pharmacists that can prescribe? There is limited ability for the market to innovate in such a regulated environment.

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

#328

Post by cowmoo728 »

denvaar wrote: post #247

I have been dealing with "mysterious" pelvic pain (cpps) for about 8 months or so. No doctor has been able to figure out what is wrong with me. The process of working with doctors has been traumatizing to say the least. I once had trust in our medical system, but my perspective has changed. I now have little faith in most doctors ability to solve my medical problems. I recall someone on HN saying they are basically "…

My wife has a mystery condition that flares up every few months / years. Every time it gets bad enough, the doctor prescribes antibiotics and then runs some tests. When the test results come back 24hr later, the conversation is always the same: "I thought it was [a very common problem], but the test results ruled that out. Since you already started the antibiotics, you should finish the course. Call me again if the problem gets worse."

So we're left without answers and with an unnecessary prescription for antibiotics, every time. It's pretty frustrating, to say the least. The internet has come up with "interstitial cystitis" as a possible culprit, but it's not much of a diagnosis with an unknown cause, no diagnostic test, and no peer reviewed treatments.

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

#329

Post by JamesBarney »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #322
JamesBarney wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are too many patients and not enough doctors. This isn't caused by capitalism, capitalism doesn't limit the # of doctors. Becoming socialist doesn't magically allow doctors to see patients for twice as long. If we had socialism more people could afford doctors(a good thing!) but it would make this specific problem worse, because there would be more patients. This is caused by the AMA lobbying to limit the suppl…

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.
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