Ask me questions about (American) medicine in specific or the human body in general. Wanna know how something works? Want to know what a test does? Don't understand something you read? ASK ME.
What I won't answer:
Anything personal. At all. Ever.
Anything self-identifying.
Any requests for "what should I do." You should see a doctor.
I can not. Will not. Give medical advice. I legally can't and y'all aren't worth going to jail for.
It is worth noting, "how can I get the system to help me" is NOT medical advice. I will happily give you pointers on navigating our broken system, such as what your rights are and aren't. Again, nothing specific, please - don't ask me who to talk to at a specific hospital.
I reserve the right to delete rude, shitty, or otherwise inappropriate asks. All posts go in the queue.
If I go to urgent care is there anything they can do for a cold? I feel like crap but I feel like a cold you mostly just wait out /: Iāve already taken DayQuil
1. If it is covid or flu they could give you an antiviral if its within 3-5 days of getting sick
2. If you're wheezing or short of breath they can check for pneumonia or bronchitis and get you an inhaler
3. Benzonatate for cough (its magic for some people and trash for others)
ALL of this depends on your particular symptoms, how long you've been sick, and whether you have any comorbidities. If it is JUST a cold, you want sleep and fluids.
Doctors (USAmerican-centric) do not start with what a problem -is- they start with what a problem is -not-
The entire list of what a problem COULD be is a Differential Diagnosis. This is why googling your symptoms always includes cancer: its ALWAYS maybe cancer (or a heart attack, or lupus) until it's been ruled out.
What this means for YOU is sometimes a doctor will order tests that have no obvious result. An XRay won't show ligament damage BUT it's a cheap way to rule out a break or arthritis or bone spurs or pneumonia or a number of other things, so they do the XR first, which dramatically cuts down the list of maybes. Blood tests that "don't show anything" rule out all the usual suspects and narrow that focus down more.
The tests that DO make an actual diagnosis are usually highly specific and often intrusive, like a biopsy or genetic test. They wait until they're pretty-darn-sure that's what the problem is, because the goal is to have the treatment be LESS risky than the problem. Cutting into a tumor can release it into the blood stream, creating metastases where there weren't any before; giving medication for a stroke without knowing if it's hemorrhagic or ischemic can make the problem fatal instead of reversible.
Your doctor might still suck and refuse tests and miss things. I'm a nurse, my whole job is to keep those pricks from killing people. This is just how it's supposed to be practised, and why. The More You Know!
Especially if you're USAmerican and you need a (free) source of information about whatever it is you're experiencing:
Cleveland Clinic has articles about almost everything and they're written for somebody who knows -nothing- about medical care. Like what to expect from a blood test, level of detail.
Mayo Clinic also has a health library that covers just about everything, as well as a reasonable symptom checker (linked).
If you see either of those pop up when you're searching for information, click those results first.
Friendly reminder, they ALWAYS have to tell you it MIGHT be cancer, for the 1 in 15,000,000,000 chance it is cancer and you sue them for not saying it might be cancer. I'll post about differential diagnoses next.
Ladies, gentlemen, you,
Please, do me a favor ā check yourself for odd spots, tumors or birthmarks, and if you see anything that worries you, donāt delay a visit to the doctor and DONāT NEGLECT IT. Better to turn out paranoid, but aware.
genuinely especially with everything happening in britain rn with regards to trans healthcare we need to start shutting down the "your brain doesn't fully develop until 25!" pseudoscience bullshit asap
please reference the dead-salmon-in-the-MRI study. This is the point, this is why that was a big deal. All of the 'brain isn't mature until 25' comes from the exact same sort of fMRI imaging as the dead salmon study.
they teach 'brain mature at 25' in med school. I got it during psych nursing. it's supposedly the average age of schizophrenia diagnoses (it's not, that is better described as a range from late-teens-to-early-thirties, and with medicine the way it is the age of diagnosis means exactly nothing) and used as a benchmark in psychiatry. It's used as a legal precendent (ex: Scotland). it's USED. Which means people 'referencing it in jokes or posts as if it's a fact' isn't what's causing the problem.
The National Institutes of Health has it right there on their damn website. I get what you're saying but just telling people to stop calling it a fact and then not giving any context or receipts to counteract organizations with frankly more clout than a random tumblr user, well... it doesn't help your cause much.
IFLS did a write up on this, as did Slate, if you want an explanation on why OP is calling it pseudoscience.
What Iām really proud of is the fact that he made SURE the audience understood why the caller was being an idiot. He made a PERFECT comparison, gave the caller an honest chance to re-evaluate and change his mind. His point landed, everyone knew it, even the caller (note his pause and almost hesitancy after being asked).
But when the caller decided to bulldoze on anyway, because god forbid actually listen to the other person in the conversation, the expert cut him off and refused his time. And good for him.
[VD: A tweet by @ g33kgurli, tweeted at 9:47 PM on Dec 17, 2021. It reads, "Perhaps the best clap back to antivaxxers and antimaskers." Attached is a video from The Thom Hartmann Program, where Hartmann is talking with a caller. The conversation goes as follows:
Caller: Hey Thom. Uh, I was listening to you for the last hour so, um, I heard survival of the fittest. Um, you know some of us choose not to vaccinate and uh--
Hartmann: You're nuts, Nicholas.
Caller: --because we work very hard about staying fit, eating healthy, and our natural immune system.
Hartmann: So Nicholas if you're so healthy, would you have unprotected sex with somebody who has syphilis or gonorrhea?
Caller: You're missing the point.
Hartmann: No, I'm not missing the point. They're contagious diseases. Would you have unprotected sex with somebody who has syphilis and gonorrhea and not worry about it because you're so healthy?
Caller: [pause] No, I wouldn't do that.
Hartmann: Okay, then why would you expose yourself to covid without having some protection?
Caller: Because the protection is my natural immunity.
Hartmann: No, it's not. Tell that--
Caller: Yes, yes, my natural immune system--
Hartmann: Tell that to eight hundred thousand dead Americans. Nicholas, this is- this is a stupid conversation and I'm not going to continue it.
If you're in a relationship that involves intimate physical touch, teach your partner to do your breast exam! For many people, this is a great way to be reminded to do your self-check.
[Image description: Two smartphone screenshots of a Facebook post by a person named Sheila Toll posted 2 Sep. It is black text on a white background and the post is public. The post reads:
I am a Family Doctor and I want to keep a promise made to a patient.Ā
Julie was a healthy, post-menopausal woman in my care who came in for a periodic health examination. One of my routine questions, in what is called theĀ āReview of Systemsā, was to ask if she had experienced any vaginal bleeding.Ā
She saidĀ āNoā but then laughed and added,Ā āOther than when my period came back for a few months last yearā.Ā
All health care professional are taught early on thatĀ āvaginal bleeding in a post-menopausal woman is Cancer of the Uterus until proven otherwiseā. This comment by Julie was, therefore, a red flag (no pun intended) prompting further questions, an examination and an ultrasound of her pelvis.Ā
Julie was surprised to see me so concerned, especially since the symptoms had not recurred over many months.Ā
Sure enough, a pelvic ultrasound and tissue sampling confirmed Cancer of the Uterus.Ā
Julie underwent a hysterectomy and radiation therapy. She is now healthy, cancer-free and is expected to stay that way.Ā
After all this was done, Julie sat ME down for a talk. She told me sheād had no idea aĀ āshort returnā of her period after menopause was a danger signal. Furthermore, she addressed the topic with friends over coffee and discovered that, out of 20 women, NONE of them knew this symptom was abnormal! She admonished me toĀ āTell women this! Donāt assume we know it!ā
From that day on, I have kept Julieās advice in mind when talking with post-menopausal patients. But recently my wife suggested that I should take this to a wider audience.Ā
So, Julie, this is for you:Ā
If you are a post-menopausal woman and your periodĀ ācomes backā or you have even one episode of vaginal bleeding, TELL A HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL and insist on having it investigated!Ā
Wishing you all good health and long lives. End image description.]
It is checked with an ultrasound which is cheap (even in American medicine) and should ALWAYS be followed up on. This ranks up there with "found a lump" in terms of medical severity.
Upwards of 1.7% of people do not fit your biological definition. That is more common than Type 1 Diabetes in the US.
Gender assignment surgery is routinely done on intersex infants.
I apologize for pathologizing these states, but if you fall under one of the headings mentioned above, then you already know all this and you're not my target audience.
Any arguments about gender having a biological basis are made in bad faith. You're just wrong. Flat wrong. Full stop.
Health care decisions for transgender and intersex individuals need to be made between the individual and their doctor. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.
Obesity (not being overweight, but obesity) is correlated with something they call "all-cause mortality." Meaning, the heavier you are, the more likely you are to have something kill you.
That's it. That's the whole thing. Everything else you've ever read about the dangers of being fat are linked to that. Here's the most up-to-date thing on the CDC website about it (as of February 2024).
What does that mean?
Fuck all.
Because as we all know, correlation does not equal causation.
If you read thru that link (it's like 500 pages, good luck) you'll find a lot of studies that talk about blood sugar improvements with weight loss, and cholesterol improvements with weight loss. That makes it sound like the weight was the problem, right? Except they're using correlations, here.
How did people lose the weight? Did they cut carbs? That will reduce your blood sugar. Did they reduce the fat in their diet? That will reduce cholesterol.
The point: whatever it is that is causing us to have a higher BMI is also what is causing us to die. And while, yes, some of those things we arguably have control over, a lot of them we don't.
The critical questions are:
Is my BMI actually indicative of my health?
Answer: Probably Not.
2. Should we be using BMI at all, ever?
Answer: No. Here's a good introduction to its problems.
3. Is there something else contributing to BOTH obesity and poor health outcomes?
Answer: Yes, and everybody in power knows it.
4. Why are we so focused on what people weigh, if the relationship between body fat and health isn't 1-to-1?
Answer: Follow the money.
The entire point to medicine should be to help individuals live the best life they can. There is not one weight that is good for everyone. There is not one diet that is good for everyone. Keto was developed to help with intractable epilepsy. Some people can't eat protein. For every diet one person needs to be on, there's someone else who cannot eat that way and survive. There is no sweeping one-size-fits-all advice, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something (or has fallen victim to fatphobia and/or propoganda).
The bottom line is, if your doctor answers a concern with you need to lose weight and come back thinner if the problem is still there, you need a new doctor (because even if that IS the problem, there's ALWAYS a cause that needs addressed and they need to help you address it). If you feel the need to tell someone their weight isn't healthy, and you're not a doctor currently looking at their CMP and medical history, you need to learn to mind your own business.
If there's something here you want more information on, drop an ask in my box. Also give me suggestions for tags!
