Posted on 01/03/2007 12:14:13 PM PST by neverdem
For most Americans, the biggest health threat is not avian flu, West Nile or mad cow disease. It’s our health-care system.
You might think this is because doctors make mistakes (we do make mistakes). But you can’t be a victim of medical error if you are not in the system. The larger threat posed by American medicine is that more and more of us are being drawn into the system not because of an epidemic of disease, but because of an epidemic of diagnoses.
Americans live longer than ever, yet more of us are told we are sick.
How can this be? One reason is that we devote more resources to medical care than any other country. Some of this investment is productive, curing disease and alleviating suffering. But it also leads to more diagnoses, a trend that has become an epidemic.
This epidemic is a threat to your health. It has two distinct sources. One is the medicalization of everyday life. Most of us experience physical or emotional sensations we don’t like, and in the past, this was considered a part of life. Increasingly, however, such sensations are considered symptoms of disease. Everyday experiences like insomnia, sadness, twitchy legs and impaired sex drive now become diagnoses: sleep disorder, depression, restless leg syndrome and sexual dysfunction.
Perhaps most worrisome is the medicalization of childhood. If children cough after exercising, they have asthma; if they have trouble reading, they are dyslexic; if they are unhappy, they are depressed; and if they alternate between unhappiness and liveliness, they have bipolar disorder. While these diagnoses may benefit the few with severe symptoms, one has to wonder about the effect on the many whose symptoms are mild, intermittent or transient.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Who knows what it's for? But if I ask my doctor "What the heck is FlusoFactor?" He'll probably give me a prescription for it.
As long as someone else is paying, lots of people will have all kinds of problems, and go to the doctor for the attention.
If the same people had to pay their own way, 75% of health problems may vanish, and folks would seek other entertainment.
When I was a kid (a bit more than 30 years ago) no one went to the doctor for colds, minor aches and pains, or in some cases, even more minor flus and such. Now, it seems, most moderns want diagnosis and symptom relief from every minor issue. Ergo, we, as people, have become overdiagnosed and overmedicated. At some point, putting all the crap into one's system has got to have knock on effects. I am glad I am old fashioned, don't run to the doc for every little nit, and rarely take pills prescription or OTC (other than vitamins).
Amen. A co-pworker and I had this very discussion this morning. it seems that every little discomfort has been elevated to a disease and someone's making a pill for it...whatever it is.
I only go to the doctor for injuries, dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, sprained ankle. I don't get "sick" and I've never been diagnosed with any long term illness crap.
Sure I've been ill but that usually had something to do with obscene amounts of alcohol or some bad food. I just suck it up and deal with it till it passes.
WOW! The second excellent article put out by the NYT.
What a concept!
Maybe...just maybe...now just maybe...if the big kahuna tells his cohorts to stop their spindly articles, more newspapers will be sold...because...because...because NOBODY LIKES A TRAITOR!
EDD....If I have to see another of those STOOPID commercials about Erectile Dysfunction, AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!
It's well documented that doctors are the third leading cause of death in America. When doctors went on strike in Australia (socialized medicine), the death rate went DOWN.
Yes, and "if you have an erection lasting greater than 4 hours, call a doctor". A doctor? I'm calling more women!!!
Celiac disease is not a fad disease. It is very serious and is under-diagnosed. People with this disease can go for years feeling ill, being malnourished and being told they're depressed while actually having a physical illness.
What was the first?
Looking back over my increasingly long life, I can say that virtually every time I've had an organic illness in adulthood, the doctor first suggested it was "all in my mind" and tried to foist anti-depressants, only to have to meet me in the emergency room shortly afterward, or have my test results come back to the office showing a silent infection or vitamin deficiency. I know I'm not the only woman to have this happen.
The placebo effect can be up to 60% effective in curing disease, imagine how effective it is in convincing people they're sick.
Excellent point!
Fad as in "anyone who's anyone" now has it.
I agree that this one is real unlike ADD and a few others but it is probably being overdiagnosed and is certainly subject to severe over self-diagnosis.
Same here, the further away I stay from Doctors, the Healthier I am.
I see people run in every other month only to be told they have some new "serious disease" and then to worry them to death when in a week it turns out to be nothing serious.
THIS is ALL so true.....at one time or another I have been "diagnosed" with ASTHMA (don't have it).....RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS (don't have it).....MITRAL VALVE PROLAPSE (don't have it).....and IBS (don't have it).
Also, I'm tired of getting told I should have a Mammogram EVERY year.....That's TOO MANY Xrays for someone with no history.
""What the heck is FlusoFactor?""
It is the generic of Corbothorbozineate. Used to regulate the Corbo and to assist in blood flow to the bozineate. If the Bozineate stays swollen for more then thirty six hours, see your doctor.
LOL....YEP...that's the ridiculous part I am always WONDERING about!
Celiac disease requires a biopsy of the small intestine to confirm the diagnosis. The findings on the biopsy are pretty specific for the disease. The reality is that this disease is underdiagnosed, not overdiagnosed.
I agree with you about ADD. If I were growing up today I'm sure I'd be on Ritalin.
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