[polygonum]

On 10/06/2013 13:20, Mike Barnes wrote:
polygonum :
On 10/06/2013 11:54, Huge wrote:
My GP is perfectly happy if I turn up with a good idea what's wrong with
me. I suspect things may be different when people turn up with disrupted
chakras or discoloured auras.

I have seen several people posting that they have been expressly told
by their doctor(s) NOT to search anywhere. Makes you wonder who the NHS
websites are aimed at?

Obviously doctors vary and what you describe is certainly not NHS
policy. SWMBO is a GP and one of her favourite consultation moves is to
ask the patient what they think the problem is. And she Googles stuff in
the surgery with the patient watching.

Given the lack of information patients demonstrate having just been
diagnosed, for example, with a thyroid disorder, internet is essential.
Much of the time they have no idea what words were used in the
consultation (many of them being unfamiliar to the majority of us), let
alone their real meanings.

I agree - it cannot be NHS policy. It is, though, too frequent.

If they said "Be cautious about what you read in the Daily Mail", I
would understand their point!

--
Rod

[tony sayer]

I don't have any truck with the condition of hypertension existing, Tony.
Where I do have a bit of a problem is with the degree of health risk that
seems to have been attached to it in recent years, and the lack of concensus
on what constitutes 'high' blood pressure.

Last Christmas, I had an episode of cellulitis in my leg, which necessitated
seven weeks of treatment with oral antibiotics, and weekly visits to the
surgery to check progress. Inevitably, one of the visits corresponded to a
day off of my usual doctor, so I got to see a young and very 'modern' Indian
doctor who was standing in. He impressed me, I have to say, and one of the
things he did was to take my blood pressure, using a proper manual sphigmo'
rather than an auto.


I've had quite a few odd variations with electric ones and more often
than the once have had to get them to use the mech one's;!...

My usual doctor had not actually checked my blood
pressure on any of the four or five previous visits to date for my leg,
despite it being a declared a long-term issue on my record. He was perfectly
satisfied with the reading he got, and said that it would actually be even
slightly lower, when my body wasn't still fighting the leg infection.

The next week, I saw my usual doctor again, and this time, she actually did
take my pressure, again using the manual sphigmo'. The reading was about 2
points different on the systolic, and about the same on the diastolic as it
had been the previous week when the other doctor had said it was fine.

Well thats not -that- great a variation ..

However, this doctor immediately started going on about it being too high.
She asked me when my next prescription was due. I told her two weeks, so she
said that from the next day, she wanted me to start taking two pills a day,
and that she would do me a new prescription there and then for pills of
double the concentration.

Bit un-called for. This thing should be decided over a longer time
measurement span..


I was horrified at this and asked for the justification in DOUBLING the
dose. Other than her opinion that my blood pressure was "too high", she had
none. I respectfully declined, and told her that I would not even consider
messing with my blood pressure medication, whilst she was still working on
clearing up another condition with vicious doses of antibiotics. I put it to
her that as someone who also makes a living by diagnosis, I had a cardinal
rule that only one thing should be changed at a time in order to understand
the effects of that change. I told her that this rule had served me well for
over forty years in my career, and that I was going to apply it here as
well.

Very wise too, after all servicing and diagnosing most stuff isn't that
different..


She grudgingly accepted the logic of my argument, and said that if I felt
that I didn't want to go into it further at this point, then I could leave
it alone.

So I did ...

Arfa


Well they are human after all and the young ones it seems have stuff to
learn. I usually find it a bit reassuring if the person I'm seeing is a
bit on the grey side, 'tho not too stuck in his her ways...

--
Tony Sayer

[Arfa Daily]

She grudgingly accepted the logic of my argument, and said that if I felt
that I didn't want to go into it further at this point, then I could leave
it alone.

So I did ...

Arfa


Well they are human after all and the young ones it seems have stuff to
learn. I usually find it a bit reassuring if the person I'm seeing is a
bit on the grey side, 'tho not too stuck in his her ways...

--


This doctor is the practice owner, and I would say well into her forties. I
don't distrust her basic competence, and she's a pleasant enough sort, but
she does have a tendency to be a bit 'vague' and to go off on a tangent
sometimes. This was one such occasion. The problem that I saw with throwing
the blood pressure medication into the mix, was that when I went down with
the cellulitis - not realising or understanding what was happening to me -
the initial symptoms were like severe flu. Apparently, this is what you get
as the infection takes hold in just two hours. I had been going back weekly
to have the progress of the infection checked, and I was still not satisfied
that it had fully cleared up. She was almost at the point of not wanting to
give me another week's antibiotics, and I was a bit concerned (having read
such on the 'net !) that the infection would return if it had not been fully
eliminated. Given that I had a lot of problems finding a blood pressure
medication that I tolerated ok in the first place, the last thing that I
wanted to do was to double its level, and perhaps suffer unknown side
effects, whilst at the same time trying to monitor myself for symptoms of
the infection returning, which in the short term is a far more serious
problem.

Arfa