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Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

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Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#81

Post by brandonb »

shabda wrote: post #16

I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…

I find the discussion in this thread so frustrating (not your or anybody's fault).

It's 2015, and there's still no general agreement on which tests to run to tell if you are healthy or not. We don't even have firm evidence whether your annual physical with a doctor is a net positive or negative.

Meanwhile, people are dying decades prematurely due to uncaught illnesses that we know how to fix.

We have a check engine light for our car engine. Why on earth don't we have one for our bodies yet?

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#82

Post by Osmium »

shabda wrote: post #57
CatDevURandom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My spouse -- an md -- cringed a bit when I read your post. And not because it's not well meaning, or important, but because without qualifying what "comprehensive health check" means, that check could very well do you more harm than good. So, yes. Please find a good primary care physician you trust and visit on an annual basis. Make sure you update that phsyician with what's going on in your life. That includes any f…

We could argue about what comprehensive means, but if you see my post below, the test I recommended has blood work for internal organs health check, chest xray, abdomen ultrasound and (pap smear/mamogram etc depending on gender/age). This requires one single blood draw, and no significant levels of radiation. Most tests do have some degree of false positives, but there a number of defensive diagnostic tests which are…

Not disagreeing about your post at all, which sounds entirely reasonable to me (I'm not a doctor), but I think this is worth emphasising:

> Most tests do have some degree of false positives,

I think many people don't appreciate the danger of false positives.

The complications that can come from unnecessary treatments, the dangers that more invasive tests might cause, the aggregate effect of all the time and expense the extra testing causes (e.g. by putting a strain on hospitals who may need that MRI for someone else), the negative emotional consequences of the stress from the false diagnosis, the possible financial implications etc. Even a very small chance of a false positive can have huge consequences if the test is deployed widely enough.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#83

Post by timr »

brandonb wrote: post #81
shabda wrote: post #16

I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…

I find the discussion in this thread so frustrating (not your or anybody's fault). It's 2015, and there's still no general agreement on which tests to run to tell if you are healthy or not. We don't even have firm evidence whether your annual physical with a doctor is a net positive or negative. Meanwhile, people are dying decades prematurely due to uncaught illnesses that we know how to fix. We have a check engine l…

Because biology is much harder and more complicated than even the most complex mechanical system.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#84

Post by Spockulus_Rift »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #67
mrbill wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way too many people dismiss sleep apnea. Folks, it can kill you - or cause other serious problems. In addition to narcolepsy, your general metabolism can get messed up too. I spent 4+ years not getting any REM sleep and my metabolism STILL suffers as a result - even 14 years after starting on CPAP and using it EVERY night since then. It's too long to go into here - but I did a writeup years ago about my "journey", al…

Another good question, do you wake up to urinate in the night? That was one of my indicators of my sleep disorder, as I sleep through the night now. I was diagnosed with sleep hypopnea, which is not as severe as sleep apnea. The difference between the two is how low your pulse ox falls while you have stopped breathing. I think my diagnosis was an artifact of the sleep study however because they didn't really let me s…

haha pee pants

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#85

Post by coldtea »

smm2000 wrote: post #24
shabda wrote: post #16

I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…

What do you mean by comprehensive health check? What tests should I do? I do yearly physicals, but I feel they are mostly "feel good" exercises.

>What do you mean by comprehensive health check? What tests should I do?

Start by NOT asking random people on the internet.

Ask your doctor about what tests to do and he'll tell you based on your age / history, and you can trust him better than a random stranger or some web post.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#86

Post by downandout »

CatDevURandom wrote: post #41
shabda wrote: post #16

I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…

My spouse -- an md -- cringed a bit when I read your post. And not because it's not well meaning, or important, but because without qualifying what "comprehensive health check" means, that check could very well do you more harm than good. So, yes. Please find a good primary care physician you trust and visit on an annual basis. Make sure you update that phsyician with what's going on in your life. That includes any f…

So you're saying executive physicals like this [1] are bad? Personally, I'd like to know if I'm dying. Many cancers and other serious problems betray few if any symptoms before it's too late to treat them.

[1] https://health.ucsd.edu/specialties/ehw/services/Pages/gold....

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#87

Post by [deleted] »

adevine wrote: post #54
dandrews wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, pancreatic cancer patient here. Mine presented as acid reflux, which my GP treated with Prilosec. Only after I went anemic and the ER staff scanned for a bleeder did they find the 8-9 cm tumor. Push your GP if necessary for some soft-tissue radiology if you feel "not right". Wish I'd caught mine a couple months earlier. (Six months after surgery - I'm well so far, still doing chemo for the next three months. We…

Glad you are doing well. Pancreatic cancer is probably the scariest of all cancers, and I can hardly imagine your ordeal. Still, one needs to be careful about taking one incident and generalizing from that. There is, for example, a very real possibility that performing an ionizing-radiation scan for every patient who presented with acid reflux would cause more cancer than it cured.

[deleted]

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#88

Post by ams6110 »

brandonb wrote: post #81
shabda wrote: post #16

I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…

I find the discussion in this thread so frustrating (not your or anybody's fault). It's 2015, and there's still no general agreement on which tests to run to tell if you are healthy or not. We don't even have firm evidence whether your annual physical with a doctor is a net positive or negative. Meanwhile, people are dying decades prematurely due to uncaught illnesses that we know how to fix. We have a check engine l…

Click and Clack would refer to the check engine light as the "empty your wallet light" (paraphrasing).

If your car starts easily and runs well, has no changes in fuel economy, and you have been keeping up with basic maintenance, it's probably fine.

Same with people. Sure there are some people who just drop dead out of the blue. But most people have symptoms. Unexplained weight gain or loss. Fatigue. Difficulty sleeping. Changes in bodily functions. For most people, if you have no symptoms and feel healthy, you most likely are. If you have family history of certain problems, of course be more vigilant about that.

We can't possibly continually test everybody for everything that might possibly be wrong with them, at least not until we have Star-Trek style medical devices. Unjustified testing in the absence of symptoms will simply further drive up the cost of medical care for those who really need it. One could argue that it already has.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#89

Post by zo1 »

Osmium wrote: post #82
shabda wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could argue about what comprehensive means, but if you see my post below, the test I recommended has blood work for internal organs health check, chest xray, abdomen ultrasound and (pap smear/mamogram etc depending on gender/age). This requires one single blood draw, and no significant levels of radiation. Most tests do have some degree of false positives, but there a number of defensive diagnostic tests which are…

Not disagreeing about your post at all, which sounds entirely reasonable to me (I'm not a doctor), but I think this is worth emphasising: > Most tests do have some degree of false positives, I think many people don't appreciate the danger of false positives. The complications that can come from unnecessary treatments, the dangers that more invasive tests might cause, the aggregate effect of all the time and expense t…

>"I think many people don't appreciate the danger of false positives."

Yes, but to most people, we compare that danger with the danger of a positive test that never gets done. More information is never a bad thing. And I'm reasonably sure that for almost every test that can have a dangerous false-positive, there is also a corresponding test that can corroborate those results, if not detect the false-positive.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#90

Post by papasmrf »

brianwawok wrote: post #76
papasmrf wrote: post #49

Of course we dont know why he died but I echo the sentiment that you need to be getting annual physicals and blood work to catch potential issues sooner rather than later. A few years ago a nurse told me my blood pressure was a bit high but I didnt think it was that high to worry about so I never followed up on it. Then a few months ago I went for a dental check up where they checked my blood pressure and after a par…

What are the side effects of your blood pressure medicine? Do you regularly exercise? Meditate? Have you looked into treating blood pressure other ways than a pill? Knowing something (blood pressure is high) is cool.. but turning that into (I must pop pill X) doesn't always seem like the best strategy.

As if I said anywhere in my post "I must pop pill x." Side effects = none. Cost = negligible. Could I afford to exercise more and lose a few pounds? Sure. But that is not going to reduce what was too high blood pressure quickly enough to not be a risk, particularly upping my exercise regimen with untreated high blood pressure.
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