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scumbagio
New Member
Canada
12 Posts |
 Posted - 04/18/2002 : 19:06:36
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Maybe it's just me, but it seems That every second person I run into is a hypocondriac. Is it just me. I don't think I'm spectacularly healthy or anything. Its just that when I hear someone complaining all the time that they're sick or alergic to this or that it drives me mad. I think that quacks, oops, I mean doctors can't figure out what is wrong with someone they either make somethiing up or send the person for "tests" which panics the individual. They would think "oh my god, my doctor (who to them is next to god, and does not make mistakes) can't figure out what is wrong, it must be serious. Any comments on hypocrodriism would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
"The truth is seen through keyholes"
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Dr Shari
Skeptic Friend
135 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2002 : 01:34:39 [Permalink]
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We are next to God!! Didn't you know that?
I see a lot of people who are not true Hypochondriacs but the news media daily has some new scare on and when the economy is bad and the world is in a major crisis so I do see more people with stress with the idea that they have something wrong with.
With the way the medical profession gets sued every 10 minutes we run more tests just to cover our bases which reinforces peoples ideas that they are truly sick. The good advice of take two aspirin and call me in the morning just doesn't cut it anymore.
Even TV shows like ER make everyone think they can self diagnosis themselves and every womens magazine has an article about ilnesses we supposedly miss. The internet has people self-diagnosing themselves too.
Aches and pains, viruses and colds have people believing they have some horrible illness. Pre-occupation with health is more prevelent then it used to be even in men. I often gently lead the conversation towards what is going on in thier personal lives. It's a stressful world and are bodies are taking it out on us.
I can't afford to ignore a complaint because I ignored my own and it turned out to be a terminal blood disease but I also reassure my patients that if it is mild illness to go out and get more exercise, really watch thier diet and find reasons to be happy.
Death: The High Cost of Living
It is easier to get forgiveness then to get permission! |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2002 : 02:16:34 [Permalink]
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In my experiences, hypochondria is rare. I am mostly familiar with working class people that simply can't afford to be sick. Every day of work missed is a day nearer to financial ruin. The closer to the poverty line someone is, the less chance there is of that person seeing a doctor, except in the rare case of the social sponge living off of gov't assistance. There's always those confounding exceptions to every great generalization!
"The Constitution ..., is a marvelous document for self-government by Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society." P. Robertson |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2002 : 17:10:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
With the way the medical profession gets sued every 10 minutes we run more tests just to cover our bases which reinforces peoples ideas that they are truly sick
That's true. But on the other hand there are the cases, I don't know how rare they are, but like me, my doctors did not do all they could because they did think I was complaining too much(my words). It took me 5 years to find out I had something that could be potentially serious. My surgeon afterward told me he was surprised I wasn't in more pain with the size of the stones he took out. Thereby validating what I had been telling my doctors all that time.
Now I have an ulcer and belive me you don't want to go through that test if you don't have to, to find out if you are sick. Maybe there are people who like that sort of thing. LOL then they deserve to be Hypochondriacs.
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*Carabao forever. |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2002 : 22:10:37 [Permalink]
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Yeah, but how much do all these tests cost us? The reason I ask, I was recently told about that scaffoid cyst - now they want to run a nerve scan? I don't get it? I understand that I have CTS in the same wrist. And it has something to do with that. But that doesn't solve the problems associated with the cyst. I want that fixed. But the doctor seemed more concerned at the pins and needles feeling in my fingertips. Why, I don't know, was told that's part of the CTS and it's been the same for the last 5 years. It still doesn't do anything to alleviate the pain from the cyst (if that's what caused my hand/wrist/arm to swell in the first place).
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...no one has ever found a 4.5 billion year old stone artifact (at the right geological stratum) with the words "Made by God."
No Sense of Obligation by Matt Young |
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Dr Shari
Skeptic Friend
135 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2002 : 10:29:35 [Permalink]
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I wish I had an answer to the medical dilemma that people face with costs but I don't. I have not raised my office visit charge in three years but have raised the salaries of my staff. My insurance has quadrupled and with HMO's running the health community in America I often spend hours on one patient to get reimbursed less then $20.00. I actually have checks from insurance companies displayed in my office for 3-17 cents. Their opinion of what my treating illness is worth.
I have never turned away a person for inability to pay but then see them drive away in a car much nicer then mine. I am not bitter but confused as people assume that as MD's we are all wealthy, play golf and live like the doctors on the soap operas do.
I love medicine. I understand the fear of my patients at the cost of treating what may be a life threatening illness but I still believe that the news media, television and self-diagnosing is a major factor in the life of those people who are overly preoccupied with their health.
Death: The High Cost of Living
It is easier to get forgiveness then to get permission! |
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scumbagio
New Member
Canada
12 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2002 : 18:49:02 [Permalink]
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Dr. thanks for the replies. I really do appreciate them. I first have to appologize though about the "quack" comment. I have had bad experiences with doctors in the past. The ones I have run into so far in my life have told me nothing I didn't already know, and they have this way of telling me with an attitude. Perhaps they thought they were better than me?
Anyhow, I forgot to mention that I am from Canada so our Medicare system pays for any care a person needs. I think alot of Canadians abuse this system. Unfortunately, you doctors have to listen to people complain about a sore throat or a broken toenail, when there are some really ill people out there. Perhaps that explains the attitude, maybe the doctor thought I was a "complainer" (I mean I only had a sore neck), or maybe it was the way my sentences ran on. LOL Thanks
"The truth is seen through keyholes" |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2002 : 21:20:41 [Permalink]
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quote:
I first have to appologize though about the "quack" comment. I have had bad experiences with doctors in the past.
I too have had those same expierences but I've thought of it more as it's the person, the individual doctor rather than the profession. Perhaps there are a lot of doctors who do have that attitude hence the reputation but there are some very good ones too.
quote:
The ones I have run into so far in my life have told me nothing I didn't already know, and they have this way of telling me with an attitude. Perhaps they thought they were better than me?
Can anyone make you feel you are less than they are, unless you let them? Maybe the doctor didn't realize he was acting like that but that's the way you percieved it, expecting that is the way they are. One should learn from those situations and use the information for a different outcome the next time.
Funny you should bring that up now too because I'm about to see another doctor that I've not been to before. I was trying to think of ways to handle the situation so she doesen't lable me a Hypochondriacquote:
Anyhow, I forgot to mention that I am from Canada so our Medicare system pays for any care a person needs. I think alot of Canadians abuse this system.
Our system is also taken advantage of by people who don't have insurance and go to emergency care when they are not 'bleeding to death' in other words they go for everyday problems but since they don't have money or a job in many cases they don't care if they clog up the system. Once when my boy had a high fever, after office hours, we were told to go to the urgent care(different then emergency care) facilities so he could get examined in order to get some medication. When we got there we were told it would be over a 3 hr. waite so we decided to leave.
quote:
Unfortunately, you doctors have to listen to people complain about a sore throat or a broken toenail, when there are some really ill people out there. Perhaps that explains the attitude, maybe the doctor thought I was a "complainer" (I mean I only had a sore neck), or maybe it was the way my sentences ran on. LOL Thanks
Yes, there are levels of pain but if it's yours it's important and I think the doctor should realize that too. However from what you say about 'talking too much', you do have to have a plan. Try to be concise. Make a list and keep it simple. Personaly, I would not waste my time or the docs by asking a question that I could look up myself, for example about a medication. But I would follow up by calling back if after reading, I didn't understand. The nurse in the office usually takes care of those questions.
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*Carabao forever. |
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The SollyLama
Skeptic Friend
USA
234 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2002 : 19:56:37 [Permalink]
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My wife gets sick alot. The tubes in her ears suck and don't drain. I forgot what they're called. I hardly ever got sick before I married her. My daughter has bad tunes too and gets sick easy. Daycare is a leper colony.
My mother isn't worried about her health. Hell she bought a motorcycle for her 60th birthday. But she is sick when it comes to her vehicles. She has spent more money on frivolous auto repair than anyone in history.
Her big thing is brakes. She gets new pads and rotors (or at least rotors turned) like every six months. She constantly hears noises no one hears. Feels a shimmy like a psychic feels a spirit. It's fucked. Even totally honest mechanics have told her everything is fine, but she insists that $700 will fix it. This has been the case for the past 4 cars she's owned. She could about buy a car every year with the money she blows in repair work.
Driving down the road, mid-sentence, she'll nearly smash her hand into the radio to turn it off so you can hear 'the noise'. She doesn't even argue that you can't hear it. It's just there, dammit, here's $700.
I know a fair amount about cars and she completely ignores me. HELP!!!
Bleed for me, I've bled for you. Embrace me child, I'll see you through. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2002 : 20:38:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
Our system is also taken advantage of by people who don't have insurance and go to emergency care when they are not 'bleeding to death' in other words they go for everyday problems but since they don't have money or a job in many cases they don't care if they clog up the system.
Are saying that unless a poor person is "bleeding to death" they do not deserve medical care? I am self employed and have two preexisting conditions. I am also over fifty. Do you know what that means? Do you have any idea of how expensive insurance premiums are for someone like me? And lately, insurance company's are cherry picking. A preexisting condition can mean that "low cost" insurance is simply not available. I'm sorry you feel that poor people are clogging up the system. Darn those pesky poor people anyway....
The Evil Skeptic
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous. |
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The SollyLama
Skeptic Friend
USA
234 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2002 : 21:36:05 [Permalink]
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Whether it's nice or not, the reality is that poor people ARE a drain on the healthcare system. Illegal mexicans can cross the border at noon and be cack home (free ride and a lunch) by nightfall with perfect teeth.
We are generations deep in welfare cases. The various social programs to house, feed, support, police, council, and provide medical care come at the expense of tax payers who could do better for themselves and thier families if the terminally needy weren't hanging from our necks.
The New Deal spawned most of these social programs, and were intended as a short term thing to help people recover from things like the stock market crash and the dust bowl drought.
It has not remained that way. Welfare and it's associated programs have become shelters for so long an entire demographic has developed. Generations deep. The people who actually work and pay ever increasing taxes (as the welfare population rises) pay an entire segment of the population to merely exist.
The theory is that because your parents fucked, you are owed a living. And I don't buy how difficult it is. Demographics show that this is the population most likely to blow money on things like drugs. Obviously they aren't starving despite blowing that free check on crack every month. Of course there's always free medical care for their uninsured asses when they OD or get a disease like AIDS. Another trait strong in the welfare population.
I'm all for programs to get people on their feet again after a tragedy. I do not believe in paying people just to exist and create another generation of permanant needy so my daughter has to be saddled with thier problems too.
You should get what you earn. There will be some exceptions, like mentally retarded people, cripples, etc that shouldn't be expected to have to go without assistance. But those people wouldn't be nearly the drain we have today.
Insurance is government sanctioned hiway banditry. No other corporation could be so prejudiced based on sex, age, race, weight, etc and still be allowed to function. That process is flawed severely right now.
Bleed for me, I've bled for you. Embrace me child, I'll see you through. |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2002 : 23:15:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Are saying that unless a poor person is "bleeding to death" they do not deserve medical care? I am self employed and have two preexisting conditions. I am also over fifty. Do you know what that means? Do you have any idea of how expensive insurance premiums are for someone like me? And lately, insurance company's are cherry picking. A preexisting condition can mean that "low cost" insurance is simply not available. I'm sorry you feel that poor people are clogging up the system. Darn those pesky poor people anyway....
The Evil Skeptic
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Kil,
In order to get health insurance for my kid when I was laid off, through the state program, I would have had to go on welfare and not collect my unemployment, because on unemployment I made too much money. the system isn't set up to 'get a person off welfare' but seems more designed to keep a person on welfare once they've started.
People should have access to adequate health care. But in order to not have to pay or to pay up front, a lot of those without health insurance will go to the emergency room instead of the clinic where they might be charged. My cost at the clinic was $35 per visit my cost at an emergency room $0.
The system needs looked at. Welfare needs to become a help not a way of life.
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I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Archibald Stuart (1791) |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2002 : 00:33:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
the system isn't set up to 'get a person off welfare' but seems more designed to keep a person on welfare once they've started.
The system needs looked at. Welfare needs to become a help not a way of life.
Bingo!
The ....SYSTEM, or in other words, handouts from the government, is *designed* to keep people dependent and subservant. Trish is exactly correct, it needs to be a temporary assistance, the way I believe it was 1st set up to be. Not something the public expects.
Certain political partys want to get elected by making people think they will help them but they are really making things worse in the long run.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
www.CuriousCreations.com
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2002 : 10:17:09 [Permalink]
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quote:
Whether it's nice or not, the reality is that poor people ARE a drain on the healthcare system. Illegal mexicans can cross the border at noon and be cack home (free ride and a lunch) by nightfall with perfect teeth.
We are generations deep in welfare cases. The various social programs to house, feed, support, police, council, and provide medical care come at the expense of tax payers who could do better for themselves and thier families if the terminally needy weren't hanging from our necks.
For the most part, it is not welfare recipients who are clogging up the healthcare system. The cost of insurance premiums are so high today that the working poor and the lower middle class simply cant afford to pay them. There are a lot more of these people than those who you are ranting about.
In case you didn't notice, I gave my own situation as an example. I make decent money. The cost of health insurance for me, the monthly premium, is more then my car payment. If I actually did get sick and needed to take time off, It would not take long before that insurance payment would be too much for me to pay.
I can agree that welfare needs reform. (All your cliches and miss statements about it not withstanding.) That is a social issue and a tax issue. For the most part, it is not those people on welfare who are causing the healthcare crisis we now face. Most of the people sitting in emergency rooms without access to a regular physician are simply too poor to buy health insurance. Most of them work for a living. If you want to throw stones, throw them at the sue happy lawyers who are driving up the cost of healthcare for everyone.
Check what Dr. Shari said about malpractice insurance, the fear of being sued and how that effects the cost of supplying healthcare.
quote:
Insurance is government sanctioned hiway banditry. No other corporation could be so prejudiced based on sex, age, race, weight, etc and still be allowed to function. That process is flawed severely right now.
Well, at least you concluded your rant with a statement that made sense....
quote:
In order to get health insurance for my kid when I was laid off, through the state program, I would have had to go on welfare and not collect my unemployment, because on unemployment I made too much money. the system isn't set up to 'get a person off welfare' but seems more designed to keep a person on welfare once they've started.
That is a real problem that needs to be addressed. It's insane that you would have to make that kind of choice. But it also serves to make my point. People on welfare are not the ones "clogging up the system." Welfare recipients have access to healthcare.
What you describe is a problem of allocation of funds. Since you paid into unemployment insurance at your job, they should have no right to prevent you, or force you to turn to welfare for healthcare assistance. That is just stupid. Obviously those rules need changing.
As for welfare being designed to keep a person on welfare, again, those rules need changing. But they are not the cause of the healthcare crisis we face today.
quote:
My cost at the clinic was $35 per visit my cost at an emergency room $0.
Snake said she had to wait for three hours at the clinic too. And for some, that $35 dollars might represent food on the table. I suppose there are those who abuse the system, but again, for the most part, we are not talking about people on welfare.
quote:
Certain political partys want to get elected by making people think they will help them but they are really making things worse in the long run.
Oh my, what party can you be talking about? Just for your information, there are less people on welfare now then there were ten years ago. Also, much of what is given out in assistance has been left up to the States to control in the form of block grants. I don't think there is a giant conspiracy to keep people on welfare. There has been a lot of mismanagement and wrong headed decision's. True. So do something about it.
All this talk of welfare has really nothing to do with the current crisis in healthcare.
The Evil Skeptic
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous. |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2002 : 23:32:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
That is a real problem that needs to be addressed. It's insane that you would have to make that kind of choice. But it also serves to make my point. People on welfare are not the ones "clogging up the system." Welfare recipients have access to healthcare.
What you describe is a problem of allocation of funds. Since you paid into unemployment insurance at your job, they should have no right to prevent you, or force you to turn to welfare for healthcare assistance. That is just stupid. Obviously those rules need changing.
For starters, that was me and not Solly. But hey...
I could have kept my health insurance from my employer, at a cost of $525/mo for 6 mo through Cobra. That's federal law. However, I was only receiving $850/mo in unemployment. CO offers a healthcare program for low income families. But as a single parent I had to make less than $500/mo to qualify. That's well below subsistance level. $850/mo barely covered my rent and utilities.
Those on welfare do have access to healtcare, it's called Medicaid. It's those who are temporarily unemployed who will have the most difficulty finding adequate healthcare coverage. As I said, to qualify for healthcare coverage, I would have had to accept welfare to get medicaid. I couldn't see going on welfare. It just seems hard to try to get off welfare.
Welfare quits the minute you make more than a certain amount. There is no coverage to allow you the time to get medical coverage through your employer. There is no coverage to all you the time to find a permanant job. for instance, let's say ou've been on welfare and have gone to school and are trying to find a job. To get experience you accept temporary employment, there is no transition between welfare, specifically medical coverage and the finding of a permanent job. For alot of people, they are unwilling to take that step, especially with small children.
I would rather see transitional coverage than the complete stoppage of welfare while someone attempts to find permanent employment. There are alot of people out there who are unwilling to risk the loss of those benefits, even though they've worked to get off welfare.
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I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Archibald Stuart (1791) |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2002 : 01:02:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
For starters, that was me and not Solly. But hey...
I know. Sorry. I moved from quote to quote. Maybe I should get in the habit of writing in the persons name I'm quoting. Still, it's true. I was addressing Solly while using your post to help make my point....
The Evil Skeptic
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous. |
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