Medical Practice Today

Circumstance 1: As I was going to create this post my mother-in-law, aged 95, developed bleeding.

Circumstance 2: My 30-year old daughter approaches her 7th year of debilitating pain.

Circumstance 3: My last blood work in the pandemic showed certain parameters going out of range.

This is one aspect of what it means to be human, bodies work to maintain balance in a tricky world. Sometimes they succeed better than others and often we ourselves know how to regain that balance.  It might be to change diet, change sleep patterns or change activity.  Sometimes the worry about the problem actually is the problem.

There are so many sources of "knowledge and wisdom" on the internet, some quite trustworthy and some obviously quite insane.  Some doctors are general practice, some are specialists.  Some hospitals and clinics are among the highest rated by both patients' reviews and good outcomes, some much less so.

How do we choose among options and how do we know when to seek medical intervention or help? Probably we follow a similar way to finding a good trustworthy mechanic for our cars.  There is nothing like a family mechanic with trust built through years of honesty and proficiency for a fair price. There is nothing like a family doctor.

Unfortunately, the family doctor is more rare than once was the case.  Big box medicine is becoming quite often the replacement for the family practice.  It lacks warmth and knowledge of the person, but on the other hand it often supplies resources unavailable to the old GP.  Fortunately (and sometimes unfortunately) the modern world also provides more resources to us, the patients.  So the question becomes how we are to approach current health needs and modern medicine.

Here is how I do it.  I first have found a family doctor that I trust.  My wife has been in the health care community in a dental office for half a century, so she has a pipeline into good health care providers locally.  Also, we live in an area with some superlative research and practice facilities.  I also have found online and newsletter sources that I find to be very solid.  Third, I read and study all the science I can so that, through knowledge, I build that "built in shock proof crap detector" advised by Ernest Hemingway!  This is how Carol and I are applying it to the above three circumstances.

Circumstance 1: ... my mother-in-law, aged 95, developed bleeding.  We got in touch with her doctor, a geriatric specialist whom is highly rated and we trust, who said that the nature of the bleeding as we described it and the small amount indicates it as not an internal problem, but rather a difficulty with a local wound or tear.  She takes Plavix and Eloquis for blood clotting prevention since she has AFib.  We stopped it yesterday and already today she is showing no bleeding.

Circumstance 2: My 30-year old daughter approaches her 7th year of debilitating pain.  Right now, there is little we can do to change the situation until we can get her back into rehab work, which was proceeding well until she developed pericarditis out of nowhere and the coronavirus outbreak prevented office visits.  We just stay the course and provide emotional support.

Circumstance 3: My last blood work in the pandemic showed certain parameters going out of range.  The problem is with my high density lipoproteins that are heart protective and my thyroid hormones, which go low.  My doctor could prescribe more medication, but these results are because I can't go to the gym.  Rather than raise medication, he has prescribed me walking at a crisp pace for one hour each morning and forty-five minutes each evening.  That's almost six miles!  Smoke has complicated that considerably, but here is my result from this morning:

3.3 miles in an hour.  Why, I'll probably live to be 150!  No telling where I will have walked to, though ...

Please check out my other blog mates' takes on the same topic brought to us by Padmum at their blogs: 

Maria

Padmum
Raju
Ramana
Sanjana
Shackman

Srinivas