Bullseye Medicine
Sharon July 28th, 2009
A couple of months ago, I got a urinary tract infection. I was visiting family and had been feeling vaguely off all day, when all of a sudden I was hit with a good deal of discomfort in a spot one doesn’t really like to spend that much time attending to, while, say, out to dinner with friends. I was pretty miserable, actually.
I was also nearly certain of what it was – I’d had them before, and the symptoms are pretty hard to mistake. I actually knew that something I’d done recently might actually cause one, but decided to risk it, foolishly, since it was easier. I’d also treated/had treated my UTIs with both allopathic and herbal medicines in the past, and both had worked for me. It was Saturday evening, and conventional medicine would require an extended visit to an emergency room, or waiting miserably until Monday morning when the local urgent care center was open. Neither of these particularly appealed to me – I didn’t want to waste a rare visit to family and friends.
So I took a combination of herbal preparations – cranberry and garlic of course, to fight infection, marshmallow to sooth tissues, nettle and uva ursi… etc… etc… I mostly knew what to use, and I used it.
Now if this were a perfect story about the merits of herbal medicines, I’d be able to say that I cured my UTI, and went home happy. If it were a perfect story about conventional medicine, I’d be able to say that the herbs failed miserably, and then I went to get an antibiotic, and the problem was solved. Either way, in a good story I’d have learned some useful moral, presumably.
But it wasn’t quite like that. What happened was this – I took allopathic ibuprofen for the fever and pain, along with the herbal treatments. And the herbal treatments definitely worked – at least part of the way. By morning, after a lot of cranberry juice and garlic, along with the rest, I felt a lot better – the painkillers and the marshmallow had allowed me to sleep, the infection was no longer acute, my fever was gone, I could mostly pee and I had high hopes that I’d be completely better soon.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be an extremely strong infection, and while it mostly subsided, it never entirely went away, even after several additional treatments. I was able to function perfectly well, with very minimal discomfort, due to the treatments, but I wasn’t entirely healthy, and after four or five days of trying herbal preparations, after returning home from my trip, I broke down and went to the doctor, got an antibiotic and was healed, leaving me with a story that’s hard to derive a useful moral from 
.
Or maybe there’s a better moral than I think. Because I think in many ways, this illustrates a potential normal model for dealing with the medical system. If we are to relocalize our economies, our food systems, our ecologies – we are also going to have to relocalize our medical system – and a relocalized model for medicine may be what we need – not one that excludes either “alternative” or “conventional” medicine, but one that recognizes, just as the bulls-eye diet food system does, that one starts locally, and moves outwards only when necessary.
Right now congress is recognizing what we all know – that energy intensive, expensive industrial medicine probably can’t be made available to every person every time they want it. So what’s needed is a way of thinking about how to ration that kind of medicine – and also how to change our relationship to it, so we don’t feel deprived. Because less industrial medicine is not a deprivation.
I could have written this story precisely the other way around. Last year, my children gave me strep (thanks, kids ), and it was a particularly intractable version of the disease. In many ways the circumstances were the same – I was away from home, reluctant to stop and be sick, too busy for it. The difference was that I went straight to allopathic responses – that is, I got a script for an antibiotic. Unfortunately, this rather nasty infection was resistant, and after two failed treatments with antibiotics which threw my body out of whack so badly that I had a three week menstrual period, was sick for a month and had chronic nausea, I finally used what I knew about herbs, and managed to deal with the problem that way. My intractable strep infection (and the next allopathic step was IV antibiotics in a hospital setting) was finally kicked back with yarrow, oil of oregano and lots of garlic.
The difference between my two strategies was manifest – the herbs may not have “worked” in the sense of fully killing off my infection, but they enabled me to function well, when combined with over the counter allopathic pain killers. The antibiotics didn’t work in any sense – they didn’t affect my infection, and they made me sicker because of their harsh action. Now had they been worth the price, perhaps I wouldn’t have complained – but I think that in many (not all) cases, the reality is that the gentler strategy was a better way to start.
In both cases, it would be possible to say that this is only anecdotal evidence. In both cases it would be possible to observe that I might have done things better initially – that I should have asked my doctor for a different antibiotic up front, or that I should have used different herbs, that I really only should have needed one kind of medicine. To this I would argue that I really only did use one kind of medicine – I was sick, I used medicine. I realize that many h erbs act very differently on the body than some drugs, and that some act similarly. I realize that this is not a perfect parallel – but the truth is that it was all medicine. What mattered, was the order of application.
Now I am the first to admit that this will have to be used with common sense and care – that is, there are plenty of people with medical conditions who already know they respond best to a particular conventional or alternative treatment, who shouldn’t change, since their bodies are stable in that way. There will be acute situations only addressable with one strategy or range of strategies, and times when you shouldn’t mess around with it. These are general rules of thumb with many exceptions, and like all things, they are made for people who are willing to take full advantage of their large cranial capacity . For those who do not want to be responsible for themselves, who do not feel competent or wish to learn more about their bodies, this is probably bad advice. It is both important to learn the basics of self-diagnosis and treatment, and when to admit you don’t know, and to find someone who will to check that lump or the strain. Folks who don’t want to take that level of responsibility won’t like the bullseye diet either .
Let’s think about what I did back in May, when I developed the Urinary Tract Infection. The first thing I did was go local for my basic treatment – to precisely the extent I was able to do so. That is, I used my own knowledge to diagnose myself, something I was totally competent to do in this case – in plenty of other cases I wouldn’t have been, but just as you recognize your allergies or your carpal tunnel acting up, one comes to know one’s body when it is not behaving itself. That knowledge isn’t something one should diminish – indeed, all of us who are parents use that knowledge on bodies that are not our own. We are the ones who decide if childish fevers rate treatment or can be left alone. Often spouses are also subject to our ministry – you are the one who says “you should get that looked at” or “no, honey, I think it is a wart, not a tumor that will kill you next week, so relax.”
The tendency is to devalue this judgement, and certainly, there are reasons for saying that we might want to be careful with it. Like all judgement – certainly like professional medical judgement of all kinds – it is not perfect. But that does not mean we shouldn’t trust it. Sometimes you need a doctor or a naturopath or someone to tell you what you already know, just to be sure. Sometimes all you need is your knowledge, or perhaps an intimate loved one’s knowledge to confirm that nothing serious really is wrong. Sometimes you can learn what you need to know yourself, and sometimes you need help.
The neighborhood practitioner might be the next ring. Sometimes that would be a doctor, other times a nurse or an herbalist, or even an EMT or other practitioner – someone who knows enough to say “this cannot wait” and “this you can take care of at home” or “this we should watch and see.” If we are fortunate in a lower energy world, this person will also know how to do the things that are so often needed – how to deliver a baby when there isn’t time or resources to go elsewhere, how to splint a limb or sew up a small wound, how to tell when the end is near. Manifestly, they must also know their limits – but the neighborhood practitioner – the person willing to trade a little of their time and knowledge to their neighbors will be the first level of response, particularly for those with no access to conventional medicine, who can’t know if they should risk a thousand dollar bill or simply treat things at home.
Had this been the first time I experienced unfamiliar symptoms, I would have gone to a practitioner in the city I was staying in or otherwise local to where I was. Professional medicine has to some degree disdained localism – general practice pays badly and is difficult, so many of us have to go far afield to find a “local” doctor. Hopefully, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants and well trained naturopaths and other professionals can provide backup – but bringing home local medical care is part and parce of our collective project. How are we to find people who can help us with the process of diagnosis and treatment? We will need those well versed in both natural and conventional medicine to bring their respective knowledge – and perhaps best of all, those who understand both perspectives.
Only if our needs cannot be met by a local practitioner do we go out – this is not how things work now in the medical system. Now, often we are seen by distant specialists we do not really need if we are wealthy or well insured, just to be “safe” and we are not sent outwards, to those who can help us, if we are poor or lack insurance. Finding ways to access the practitioner outer rings will be a central project, if we are not to see lifespans decline and unnecessary harm be done to millions of people for whom we could do better.
But the bullseyes aren’t just about where you find your experts, at home or in town, or at a city hospital far away. They are also about how you treat your situation – from before you contract it until late in the game. And the presumption, with a few exceptions, should be local first.
Medicine of course does not begin with the disease – my urinary tract infection had a back history. Its history was of my own practices, the one that led to contracting it. I actually knew better – I’d noticed that I tended to get UTIs when using store tampons or pads for my period, but I was caught away from home without my reusable models, and was in a hurry, without energy to seek out unbleached options. So the history of my illness, like almost all illnesses, is a history of my lifestyle. My strep was also a history of lifestyle – a frantic push to finish my book, too many speaking engagements, exhaustion – all these meant that my children barely noticed their own infections, while I was laid low for weeks.
It probably would have been possible to prevent both of these illnesses, and attention to issues of prevention, of hygeine and safety, are the beginning of medicine. The most local steps then are these ordinary ones – eating well, getting rest, washing hands, all that boring stuff that everyone talks. It also could have included my taking cranberry as a preventative to my UTI – I know it works, I simply was in a hurry and forgot. Slowing myself down is the first ring of medicine.
Now there are times when one does not want to respond to an illness with self-treatment – no one wants to see someone in a life-or-death situation die because of mistreatment. And yet the vast majority of illnesses and injuries will self-resolve on their own. More than half of all doctor’s appointments are for the treatment of conditions that probably need no or minimal treatment. It is important to be able to recognize those times when you should not respond with self or community level treatment – and to be able to consult resources – a neighborhood practitioner, a good book, the internet to identify these. But most of the time, we are dealing with very ordinary things - but things that cost us something in money, time and energy. Knowing when to act and when not to act is another part of the first ring – all of us at some point must self-diagnose, if only to the point of saying ”ok, I think I need to go to the hospital” or “I think I’m going to be ok.”
We also can respond by thinking in terms of our local conditions – how can we stop ourselves from becoming ill, how can we make ourselves less vulnerable, or more able to bear the stresses we face. For example, perhaps we can begin to eat better, or help others do so. Perhaps we can reduce the use of lawn chemicals or other pollutants in our community. Perhaps we can ask ourselves what we need to be healthier and more secure.
When treatment is called for, for most illnesses, I think the first step is natural medicine from things that are locally available, and ideally, directly available. That is, bullseye medicine would say “look, I have a urinary tract infection – what do I have here that can help me with that.” Instead of rushing to the store to buy “bladder health formula” or whatever, I can look in my garden and on my shelves and ask what I have that might meet my needs. The elder and garlic on my shelves, the nettle and dandelion in my yard – perhaps these are tools that can help me.
Now just as some of us eating from the bullseye diet will have little space, and have to go afield for their food, so too will that be in medicine – some of us will have land and woods full of medicinal herbs and the knowledge to use them, others will need to go out, to speak to someone who knows, the local herbalist, the person who has a little knowledge they can pass on. Perhaps too they will have herbs to offer and share. Again, the first place to look is locally - because only when we treat locally do we know if we are using populations of plants wisely, or growing what our community needs.
But what if nothing local serves? What if we need more? Well, that’s when the distant things and perhaps conventional medicine begin to step in – we can say “this is not enough, or this is not the right path” and move on from there. In a few cases, we won’t have time – we’ll have to rush right to one solution or another, but most of the time we do – we know this because even in quite urgent medical situations, often people spend a lot of time hurrying up and waiting. We may think there’s no time to see if the herbs can do something, but the reality is that antibiotics take 48 hours too, that seeing the specialist can take a month. Perhaps we can get over our fear that we must hurry if we accept that all medicine takes time, and while there are acute situations in which there is no time, the vast majority of situations don’t fall in that category. Often our sense of lack of time to allow treatments to work is the fact that we are under so much time pressure – but the truth is that we can’t make ourselves heal any faster than our bodies can heal.
So the next step might be different herbs, used from different places. Many medicinal plants are threatened, and if we were to give primacy to the local and prolific, to turn only to the rare and distant when we need it, we’d have enough. There are things I cannot grow, there are things from far away that can provide good treatment. Or perhaps the next step is to talk to someone else, from another community, or to seek another kind of treatment.
Perhaps now would be the time to consider allopathic drugs. It is awfully hard to go local for pharmaceuticals – even if you live near the local Pfizer research lab, there’s nothing really local about a petroleum synthesized drug to help you maintain an erection or good blood pressure. On the other hand, one can in some cases look to “open source” drugs, those that are no longer under patent, and can be produced by many companies. These are often cheaper, and in some cases, if an extreme disruption of society were to occur, it is possible that local chemists might collaborate with people who are sick to produce these drugs – some drugs have very simple chemical components, others, not so much. Only you and your doctor(s) know if this is a good choice for you, but it is perhaps a useful rule of thumb to at least consider this option, however briefly.
When we need it, we would hope that the full range of medicine would be there for us – even though it is not for many billions of people. But the more of it we can keep available for emergencies, the better off we will be. But keeping the infrastructure of conventional medicine available to us depends in large part on not overusing it – we are already having to admit we can’t afford a universal health care that treats conventional medicine as a given, and gives it out without limit. It should only be sought when we need it – which means it will be a first step for type 1 diabetics and people with multiple life threatening physical traumas, and a last step for kids with ear infections and adults with obesity related hypertension.
Besides practitioners and treatments, there’s another portion of medicine that can be localized – where we are cared for, and how. You need a nurse to give medications to 76 elderly people strapped to their beds in nursing homes, because it would be easy to make a mistake. You only need an ordinary person willing to learn to give their mother her medication at home, in her room in your house.
You need nurses and doctors to provide care for the dying in a high tech hospital where they are strapped to breathing machines and blood pressure monitors and heart monitors. You only need loved ones, community support and perhaps a kind hospice worker a few times a week to care for a dying person in their own bed.
You need a doctor and a labor nurse and a neonatologist to deliver a baby in a hospital for reasons of liability – but you only need a trained midwife and a loving helper to deliver a baby at home most of the time. You need a professional consultant to help a new mother navigate her nursing difficulties if there are no other women who have nursed around her – if there are, you often need only them.
There are a whole host of situations in which the roles played by the medical system can be met by family, by friends, by community – those who are willing to do the work of nursing the sick, caring for the dying and tending new lives. Again, it is possible to begin from the local. There will still be times for the C-section, for the nursing home – but they are not most of the time.
It would be a tragedy if, in the times we need them, the obstetrician, the surgeon, the herbalist, the gerontogist weren’t there – or were there, and out of our reach as we suffer and die. There are times when we have to go all the way out to the outer circles of our bullseye medical system, and those are real needs. We know, however, we cannot afford to use those constantly, and we cannot afford ethically to use the current model, in which those who are affluent or lucky enough to have insurance get more care than they often need, and those who are poor or unlucky cannot access the outer rings.
Instead, we need to start at the local in the 90% of cases when we can do so safely. We need to rely on one another, recognizing the limits of our knowledge, and recognizing what responses are appropriate and what are not, but presuming – beginning from the idea that we can start at the center and go outwards, rather than responding to every crisis by going further and further away.
Shalom,
Sharon
I have never had a bladder infection, but my dog once had a particularly virulent one with much blood in urine. I treated her with the homeopathic remedy Cantharis (Boiron 30C potency), and it worked like magic. I did not have to go to the vet since she was well within 24 hours and never had a problem again. Just in case, I gave her Cantharis for a total of three days, initially every hour and later every 8 to 12 hrs.
Excellent post – I could not agree more. The sooner that the medical profession is on board with these localized, more holistic approaches as early approaches, the better. The we can afford to tstill have them around when we really do need them and for those who really need them.
Also, as a suggestion for a future post, I’d love to hear if there is a good resource for finding out these do-it-yourself treatments that you can try on your own (while applying your common sense, of course).
Since I was raised without health insurance, we only went to the dr. when we REALLY were sick or when we had to get physicals for school. That mentality has carried on for me, and I rarely go. I also rarely take anything, homeopathic or traditional, I guess since my teacher-immunity tends to keep me well. (Except for pink-eye, which I can’t seem to escape!) At my yearly exam (which my insurance covers, so I go), my midwife asked me when my last blood work was done. Um… I stated that I donate blood, does that count? Well lets just say that she and the phlebotomosits were shocked that I didn’t ever remember having bloodwork done before. I guess many people go all the time, but I feel like if I’m not sick, there’s no reason.
My point is that if people only went when they were really and truly sick, we wouldn’t have extraordinary waits in emergency rooms or the waiting room at the dr’s office, and I bet insurance premiums would go down, too.
I like your localized healthcare plan, and I hope we can set something up before our current system comes crashing down.
Yep, had that, same time as you — yep, same sequence of events. I had run out of antibiotics from the last time(s) and so was driven to resort to The System.
I was actually surprised at how much the cranberry juice helped, though.
There are, I think, some things (especially for women) to dislike about Mr. K’s World Made By Hand, but his description of the somewhat primitive yet not necessarily incompetent doctoring and dentistry in the small community after TEOTWAWKI rings true.
A problem with waiting is that the infections are getting harder to catch up with. I’ve been nearly killed by internal strep, thrice — each time because the emergency room interns wouldn’t hit it hard enough on the first two or three visits, resulting in hospitalization and a week or more of surgical intervention and IVs. Getting there in time can be the better plan … but only if they KNOW your history, which is where local really shines.
My point is that if people only went when they were really and truly sick, we wouldn’t have extraordinary waits in emergency rooms or the waiting room at the dr’s office, and I bet insurance premiums would go down, too.
I think a significant part of self-care, though, is knowing when things are minor but should be looked at. Like getting that sore hip to a PT for some helpful stretches rather than waiting until it needs surgery, or checking out an odd lump to make sure it’s benign. But again, not all of these need to be seen by a standard medical doctor.
The really tricky thing looks like it is going to be infectious diseases. It should be obvious that the germs will inevitably win the war against antibiotics, especially when we have to start cutting back on research budgets. At the same time, we have so many people now, and they are all moving to and fro so much, that it is almost impossible to isolate oneself unless one lives a truly REMOTE, solitary life.
Germs have killed a lot of people over the years, and made many more suffer miserably. We’ve had it good over the past half century or so, but that may turn out just to be an exceptional blip in the long run, as we return to more typical patterns.
How ironic. Just this morning I took a friend to the HMO. When I mentioned to the doctor than she should have her blood checked for possible food allergies, he got very defensive and put me down verbally. (Luckily I am in my fifties and I do not take any crap off anyone) I chortled right back at him that I resented his attitude and please answer my question!
Gotta love arrogance in the “I am doctor-I am god” attitude.
This just provides one example of what is wrong with our conventional medicine as it stands today. Long story short-my friend was fine. It has been very very hot here – 97-unheard of-and she had stress from other sources as well, so her BP was way up and her feet had swelled up too. Mostly, she justs need to lose weight, the temp needs to drop down, and she needs to chill out from the stress. Problems solved.
So no real need of a medical doctor in this case, but she wanted to be sure. Our system has for so long told us we are stupid and to trust the experts that we doubt our own eyes and ears. Not that high BP is anything to dismiss-but after we checked it again-it had dropped.
So Sharon, your post is wonderful to address some of these issues. Reforming health care is or should be a top priority of this country.
Another wonderful post. Your bullseye system reminds me of herbalists Susun Weed’s ‘wisewoman’ recommendations, where herbs are the first response, but allopathic medicines are still there as a resource.
As a US-born person living in a country with a ‘socialist’ healthcare system, my most fervent hope is that the Obama govt can work out a way to get a universal health safety net in place before times get even tougher.
Great post
I work in an ICU and I love my work, but I think we should use ICU’s as a precious resource and at times, we care for patients for whom there really is no hope. The energy requirements in an ICU are enormous. A nice visual is this: on a medical floor, there is one electrical outlet per patient. In our ICU we have 17 electrical outlets per patient. Isn’t that incredible?!
I hope that as our situation evolves and as energy and resources become scarcer, we will allow more patients to have a comfortable, humane death surrounded by family, and that family members will not be faced with these impossible choices in a crisis : do we remove the ventilator or not, do we provide advanced cardiac life support or not. Actually, I will be very surprised if we don’t move more quickly to comfort care in the future, simply because of resource constraints, and in many cases, I think that that will be progress.
No matter what choice made, the quickness of cellular distruction and approaching death have to be remembered. Dead is Dead
I just went through something similar with an infection of my left index finger at the nail – I still cannot type with this finger – numbness and nerve damage.
I tried garlic suppliments but it was a real deep infection, so I finally had to go to a local clinic to see a doctor since it is the only way to get antibiotics – no health insurance but I make too much for any discount – 140.00 a pop for the doctor, though he at least let me see a nurse practicioner on the return visit.
Had to do it or it would have been IV antibiotics in the hospital or amputation of the tip of my finger. I would LOVE to find a way to stock up on antibiotics before the Collapse but……
Execellent thoughtful post, Sharon. If we don’t already think this way, we should begin to thinkthis way about seeking medical help.
BTW, for those who suffer from UTIs, cranberry capsules, which you can get at health food stores, worked as well for my mother as when she drank cranberry juice to stave off the UTIs herself. she had to take capsules as part of her meds when she ahd Alzheimers and had others give her meds to her.
cheers to all,
Shamba
Great post!
I would like to see the Health Care Reform include something about localized health care and self-care, but at the moment, it’s only about how to get health insurance for everyone, which, in my opinion, is not the answer to fixing our health care system.
De-medicalizing the beginnings and ends of life- when what you need most are caring, knowledgeable individuals, is a non-brainer. In between then- well, more knowledge is needed. I know I’ve always been paranoid of strep, courtesy of my mother, whose brother developed heart problems from strep (that had probably been left neglected for a long time). Luckily, I seem pretty immune to strep, but when a bite from my cat turned infected, I was quick to turn to immediate care. This resulted in IV antibiotics and a fairly constant yeast infection since then. Could I have turned to more homeopathic methods to treat the cat bite? I don’t know- I think it could have helped to have done some research. In general, I think sleep, exercise (both of which are free), the best nutrition you can manage, and de-medicalizing everything possible are the best strategies.
Herbal and traditional medicines are extremely effective in the first instance for problems that may not require doctor or hospital treatment.
But don’t forget – when using traditional methods, you have to use traditional nursing CARE. You can’t just pop a pill, some drops or some such and keep running on the treadmill.
All the care of ailments using non-biotech methods really need rest, recuperation, special invalid food and someone to nurse the sick person, ensuring that the progression of the symptoms are noticed and thought about.
I am great at nursing people back to health if they consent to spend some real recuperation time doing nothing. Being brave really just lengthens the time you are off colour.
Love your thoughtful, balanced approach to healthcare. So often people view either the medical establishment or alternative medicine as The Ultimate Evil, when as per usual there are benefits and limitations on both sides. Europe and Asia seem to be much better at combining both medical traditions, with homeopathic practitioners in hospitals in Europe, and state sponsored traditional Chinese herbal medicine in China. I am really very happy to think that marvellous modern surgery and life saving drugs are available if I really need them, but normally only see a naturopath, whose mission is to strengthen the whole system through diet changes and gentle tweaking. Our doctor only ever sees us if one of the children gets a bump on the head. She says we are her favourite patients, because she so rarely sees us! I think that our good health stems from our great diet, stress-free life, and of course, lucky genes (thanks mum and dad!).
I would have a more balanced, thoughtful approach to healthcare if the medical profession hadn’t captured it and made it theirs to dispense and barred me from participating.
Just as people have the fundamental right to appear in court on their own behalf, we need to restore recognition of the fundamental right to select treatments and to self-medicate, without needing to pay an MD.
I have hypothyroid, and will always need to take synthetic thyroid. The “System” conspires to make sure that I cannot stockpile these vital pills by barring me from buying without a prescription, and the prescription is controlled by an MD who is controlled by a practice that limits me to a 90-day supply. I expect that, if TS really HTF, I will die of thyroid deficiency, thanks to our “health care” system’s refusal to permit common sense planning for people who need maintenance drugs.
George, this a concern I have, as well. I’m pretty healthy, but last year develped a rapid heartbeat that I need meds for now. I fought it, refused, tried to figure out an alternative remedy, (but CoQ10 will be just as hard to get when the SHTF) and finally gave in. One pill a day, but it works. I try to keep a couple of months ahead, but what then?
Perhaps you could talk to your doctor about putting back an emergency supply and he/she might give you a script to take to a different pharmacy and pay cash for.
Good article, Sharon. Health care will be a big concern in the times to come.
Oh, Sharon! You hit the nail on the head this time!
Back in college, I was the local person to go to…I had the herbs and the books, and the time to care for myself and those around me when they needed it. We had the school Health Center for bigger issues, (and they saved my life when I went to them with a bursting appendix, getting me to the local hospital and into surgery within hours!) but for the smaller, daily, less dangerous issues, we handled it at home. Friends came to me for the second opinion, that validation. I loved it, and felt so healthy and happy. When I needed a second opinion I would often visit my friend’s mother down the road from my other – an RN with strong naturopthic tendencies who often sent me home with dried herbs AND a live plant of the same.
I’m grieving that I’ve been sucked into the outer rings, and can’t seem to get back to local. I’ve lost that sense of community with my neighbors in the suburban neighborhood I’m living in now – my son can’t even find snother child to play outside with; they’re all inside playing video games.
I haven’t even read all the comments yet, I felt so moved to write. I WANT to go back to local health care, I NEED to go back to local. Problem is: where’s my village?? I’m isolated, in a full suburban neighborhood of a large metro area.
I’m another one that rarely goes to the doctor. I have a one that knows me- I’ve been going to her for many years and refuse to switch doctors to keep the insurance happy.
I go for my yearly visit, and only rarely otherwise. I’ve learned to treat as much as possible myself, and let my body tell me what it needs.
I’m also planning on taking courses with the Red Cross, to re-learn the basic medical care and triage I was taught growing up. I need to refresh my memory.
As a Canadian, there are a couple of issues with this post (and some of the comments). The big one is that the American system seems to completely lack preventative health measures. Here in Canada where we have universal health care, we actually spend less per capita not just on health care, but on state provided health care. A big part of that is prevention.
You can go to the doctor for something you don’t understand without having to worry that it will cost a fortune. In fact, we have fairly low rates of frivolous visits – we lack the “Well, I’m paying for it so I will use it” mentality for the most part, and going to the doctor is kind of a pain in the butt (although wait times are very much exaggerated by the media, I have never had to wait more than half an hour and that was for a drop-in clinic in an inner city area). For the most part, we go to the doctor when we are sick enough to need it and don’t bother other than an annual physical otherwise. We do go whenever we are sick enough to need it though, and that means we don’t get a whole lot sicker.
Ironically, before we had medical services cut in the late eighties, we were able to provide a higher standard of care for less money. Every time you cut back on medical services you increase cost. Some of the reasons for this are silly things like dentistry (if you are suffering from a dental infection your body is weak, you end up with other illnesses as a result – the amount of dental coverage has gone down to the point where no adult has it and children lost it at a younger age), optometrists (I delayed getting glasses for many years simply due to cost – I’m sure that probably happens often and some of those people will have migraines as a result, others will have accidents that they could have prevented had they been able to see better), massage therapists (stress will cause a myriad of health problems costing tens of thousands of dollars, most of which could be prevented by a half hour session a month). In each of these cases, the money saved in secondary care is far more than offset by the loss in secondary care.
Now, I believe that alternative medicine, various forms of local care, naturopathy, etc. should be part of the equation, but here they are a much larger part of it than for you Americans (although it does vary a lot by region) because they aren’t in competition with western medicine as much.
In short, universal health care makes a hell of a lot of sense, and I am totally flabbergasted by the American mistrust of it.
You also allow the sale of herbs as Traditional Medicines in Canada, with health claims for self-limiting conditions; incomplete information, but better than here in the US where the manufacturer gives you some BS structure-function claim because the FDA will destroy them if they tell you what it’s really good for.
Two ways to cut down of medical costs:
1. Reduce the cost of office calls by refusing to make return visits just “to be sure the medicine is working”. (Dr, if you didn’t think this medicine was going to fix the problem, then why did you prescribe it, hmm?)
2. Get realistic about end-of-life issues and care. We should support folks who are terminally ill and do not want extreme measures taken to extend their lives just for the family’s sake. Of course, the family doesn’t want to see a loved one die, but the first concern MUST be the quality of life for the pataients….and the eventual cost to the family’s finance and emotional stress.
I read recently that people of faith (church-going) are much more likely to request extreme measures to extend their life — as opposed to aetheists and agnostics. Evidently the people of faith are more nervous about dying than the rest of us ??
Anyway, we have to re-think about how we want to spend our health dollars……..triage, anyone?
Hi Sharon,
I am not sure you have had a comment from a physician, but here is my first reaction: UTI symptoms are something one can wait on (pee in a tub of water if you need to), except if there is also a fever. A fever suggests that not only the bladder, but also the kidneys are involved, which can lead to sepsis (when the infection takes over your whole body), anaphylactic shock and death.
I love the idea of bulls-eye medicine, and I agree that it starts with the individual. I have thought many times that there should be some basic medical education in school – reading, writing, arithmetic, illness danger signs. Since most people don’t have basic medical education, and most doctors are unwilling to do much education in clinic, that leaves the option of having someone you can call if need be, and that will do the thinking, educate you along the way, and come up with nuanced recommendations.
The experience of having cared for hundreds of people with UTI symptoms has given me a set of reasonable cautions that allow me to keep most people safe (without going to extreme measures). Fever with UTI symptoms would lead me to ideally do a full exam, or at least a urinalysis and urine culture. The key would be having an ongoing relationship with a person – and to think through the symptoms in the context of each person.
I know this is an old post, but I recently had two experiences that illustrate what you are talking about. My teen daughter was away with friends at a beach house, when she called me to report the symptoms of an impending UTI. Our insurance would not have covered this “non-emergency” situation in another state, so I would have had to drive to get her for medical treatment. Fortunately, one of the other people in the host family had cranberry capsules. I had her start pushing a lot of water, and take cranberry. We checked in a few times a day via text and cell phone. Within two days, she was symptom-free. Traditional medical treatment would have required me to end her vacation and drive her to get urinalysis and an antibiotic.
The other example was my elderly mother, who developed a dry cough that lasted almost 6 weeks. In week 2, she saw a doctor, who said “bronchitis” and gave her an antibiotic. After a week of that, no change. Then, she had an unrelated medical incident that put her in a hospital for a week. They gave her cough medicine with codeine and a chest x-ray, but shed no light on the trouble. I was worried it would turn into pneumonia. I took her to an appointment with her ENT doctor to check on her hearing loss, and that doctor ended up running a scope down her throat to investigate the cough. We saw (live!) that nothing was being coughed up – it was all coming out of sinuses that looked clear from the nose end. The doctor recommended sinus lavage several times a day – just rinsing the sinuses with warm salt water. We bought a Nasaline irrigator and it worked within a few days. Cleared her sinuses, stopped the post-nasal drip, and the cough is gone.
We got the advice from a traditional doctor, but she was a doctor willing to actually track down the real problem and come up with a simple non-drug solution. The other doctors just seemed interested in ordering tests and pills to cover their butts in case the old lady got sicker.
Now that we know more about nasal irrigation, you can bet I will use it more often in allergy season and during the cold/flu season.
A natural remedy developed specifically to treat bladder issues is what you want. Natural remedies do more than reduce the symptoms: they actually heal the canine UTI cause by quickly restoring the bladder pH, which dissolves crystals and kills bacteria naturally. Best of all, they have no side effects and can be used daily as a preventative measure for aging dogs or dogs that tend to have urinary issues.
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