Hallelujah! I Finally Found The Proof :bouncing:

[Stanz]

Yeah, my DH's Dad just had his foot and part of his leg amputated because of Diabetes. He's also deaf because his Dad, an MD, believed that he was being altruistic if he used whatever untested meds he was prescribing to his patients on his own kids - basically used them as human guinea pigs. My FIL is now an "un"walking textbook case of medical malpractice IMO and still thinks that the docs can fix him, even though he's done nothing all his life to help himself despite being medically trained himself. That he is even alive is a miracle. He's got COPD, Diabetes, is almost entirely deaf, has endless allergies, lung cancer, emphysema, well I could go on and on. He's in his mid 70's and still believes doctors know what they're doing.

His only sibling, also an MD, killed himself when he was 58. Sorry, guess I'm in a pissy mood today, focusing on negatives, unfortunately it's just so easy to go there at times and now his wife, my beautiful and lovely MIL - who should have left him 40 years ago - is left to deal with the aftermath of this latest development. Jesus, when will people realize they need to take charge of their own health? She is little better than he is, she just had her thyroid removed because she had non-cancerous cysts. I know I'm being judgmental about others health issues, but having an organ removed at 75 and having to rely on drugs for the rest of your life, just makes no sense to me.

[Gabes-Apg]

Connie
it takes courage, and trust of ourselves to 'take charge of our health'
not everyone has that level of courage and not always do they find that trust within themselves.

sorry it has been another full on couple of weeks for you, big hugs hope next week is a better week!


take care

[Polly]

Interesting, Tex!

One of our long-time members here (Alice) never had any D with her MC. But I don't know if she had constipation.

Polly

[TooManyHats]

Now these are great studies. I intend to print them out and take them along with me to my next appt.

How awful to have colon removed and then find out what disease you have.. can't reverse that operation easily and the doctor probably made a bundle on it! Wonder why they didn't do biopsies before removing the colon.... probably not as profitable...
grannyh

I believe that granny got it right. Treating with diet does not help a doctor's bottom line. The amount of reimbursement a doctor gets for an office visit just isn't worth it to them. Compound that with the amount of time it takes to sort out food intolerances and what patients like us would do is wind up costing the doctor more to treat us rather than us making a profit for them. It's sad, but true....medicine is a business. I see it everyday. Press Gainy scores (the evaluation form you get after a hospital visit) are very heavily stressed. Why develop theories and treatments that aren't profitable? And who would even fund research like that? Big Pharma? Don't count on it!

[Zizzle]

Imagine my shock when I opened a recent GI newsletter from WebMD (aka. Big Pharma), and the first article was about tips for starting a GF diet!! I wonder if drug makers are realizing that IBD sufferers will only see improvement on their meds if they ALSO address their food intolerances. Possible??

[MBombardier]

My GI told me that he had patients with MC who had experienced some success by going on the Adkins diet. I wondered why he hadn't spent more time figuring out why that was, but I realized that since he is not doing research right now he's more oriented toward immediate patient care like colonoscopies and prescribing pills.

I had a GP tell me one time that I was getting older and that I just had to realize that things would be starting to happen in my health that I would just have to put up with. More than ever, we have to take control of our own health and figure out what works for us. Doctors (many of them) are overwhelmed, especially now that the baby boomers are hitting middle age. And I've heard (correct me if I'm wrong) that there is a doctor shortage that will be getting worse, especially with some leaving practice because of the high medical malpractice insurance they are forced to pay.

[tex]

Possible??

Could be. People often attribute success to the wrong possibility. For example, we have had a fair number of members adopt the GF, CF, SF diet, and after a couple of months, decide to add some sort of supplement to their diet. When they went into remission, a week or so later, they naturally assumed that it was the supplement that brought them remission, when in fact, the time had arrived for the diet to take effect.

Tex

[ant]

Interesting discussion....

IMHO, if only doctors could be incentivised by the the amount of measurable health and wellness there diagnosis and recommendations produce instead of the revenue they can generation from procedures and prescriptions, we would all be better off, including (gasp!) insurance companies - less/less costly claims.

Defining and building into policy such Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - jargon that highly paid consultants like to use - that put patients health as the ultimate outcome to be rewarded..... Now that would be real Healthcare Reform in Hong Kong (and I am sure other places too).

Best, Ant