Posted on 10/20/2015 9:35:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway
“Mammography is extremely painful”
I’ve been having yearly mammograms for decades; never felt pain. A little discomfort maybe, but no pain. Last year my mammo showed a questionable area. Had a biopsy. Had a mastectomy. Was declared free and clear. The oncologist said it was the smallest breast cancer area they’d ever seen, but if I’d waited another year it would have been a very bad situation.
Re age, my friend was diagnosed at age 42 with no family history. Her mastectomy was 35 years ago and she’s doing well.
Anyhow, everyone is different.
Doctors I know haven’t forgotten about “first do no harm” but they are getting so tired of seeing their insurance premiums climb.
One of my friends who is a doctor is paying many, many thousands of dollars every year, his went up to $16,000 this last year in spite of never being sued. He did quit prescribing any meds earlier this year, orders lots of lab tests and is quitting private practice at the end of December.
I agree that the government doesn’t care a bit about anyone’s health. However, there are too many tests being done. As for 65-year-old women and pap smears, hardly any woman that age needs one. The same is true of many other tests, and it is questionable if many preventive measures actually prevent anything.
Americans are having far too many tests and taking too many drugs. We are an over-treated society.
Check out the books by Dr. Nortin Hadler, MD and the book Overtreated by Shannon Brownlee, Overdiagnosed by H. Gilbert Welch, and How We Do Harm by Otis Webb Brawley.
Let me give you an example. I know of a 90-year-old woman who had a colonoscopy (that in itself is absurd). The doctor diagnosed cancer and they operated (another bad move on a 90-year-old). The woman developed an infection and nearly died.
Overtreatment can be deadly, particularly in the elderly.
Yes, Obamacare made a mess of everything, and in your sister’s case mammograms make sense. However, for the majority of women, mammograms may do more harm than good. Even in your sister’s case, the risk from greater exposure of the breasts to radiation must be taken into account in making the decision of how often she should have mammograms. There are a lot of gray areas.
Medical care should be between patient and doctor. Government should be out of medical care, and insurance should be for catastrophic events. If that were the case, then medical care would be more affordable.
The other thing we need is tort reform. There is much being done that is a caused by CYA, because doctors always have to be concerned about ambulance chasers.
Mammograms are not risk free. Radiation is involved. And the increased stress and cost and risks of medical procedures from false positive must also be considered.
There are many different types of breast cancers, as well as other types of cancer. Some are very aggressive and some that appear in most elderly women are slow growing and something else will cause the woman’s death long before the cancer has any effect. The tricky part is in being able to determine which ones are dangerous and which ones are not. It is similar to prostate cancer in men.
More and more there is little evidence that many preventive measures do much good. I know few people are willing to accept that, but it’s true. Health News Review has a lot of information on this.
I agree that the health care and insurance systems in the US are a mess. One thing we need desperately is tort reform. That would save a lot of money, and doctors would not be spooked into doing more tests and treatments than necessary out of the fear of being sued. Doctors are not the problem. Government interference in health care, insurance that isn’t really insurance, ambulance chasing lawyers, and patients who want more than they need are the problems.
Actually, your doctor is correct. Stress tests aren’t that useful and are often dangerous. So much of what is done is CYA medicine and not in the best interests of patients.
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