Translation: “I’m out of my depth here. I don’t know how to help. I would refer you to the right person but I don’t even have a good, professional referral network.”
If your lucky. Often it’s just “I’m too overworked and busy to take you seriously”.
Or “I don’t believe you / think you are exaggerating”.
I still remember the time I was like 17, hiking, and got bit by a tick just over my belt buckle, and a rash started to develop and the doctor was like “it’s a byproduct of an allergy to your belt” and prescribed me steroids. I basically begged for a Lyme disease test. If I didn’t get that test and those meds at the time (after testing positive for lyme), life would be way more fucked up right now
Lucky the tests worked for you as they are notoriously inaccurate!
For me it's more like 'im out of my depth here. I don't know how to help. I would refer you to the right person, since there is a good, professional referral system in place in this country. But that would require me to admit I'm out of my depth, which I will never do'.
If your Dutch they will tell you to take paracetamol for 2 weeks and make a new appointment if you still have the same problem.
Dutch medicine is the worst, man. They will Google symptoms in front of you and just treat those, no thinking of the bigger picture.
I go abroad to visit doctors now.
meanwhile i have multiple friends who moved from America to the Netherlands to get their medical issues actually treated
From my experience in Germany, getting a proper diagnosis is often the hard part; I think that may actually be easier in the USA, US doctors have clear economic incentive to diagnose you with something and either way a diagnosis is usually much cheaper than the treatment.
Plus, even if I knew my issues would be treated in another country, I'd have great difficulty migrating there - it's a very specific subset of ill people who are desperate enough to migrate to a different country but still able enough, and wealthy enough, to actually go through with it.
You might think but I bet the diagnosis in America is more expensive then the treatment somewhere else...
From the perspective of health insurances, it depends; pills can be pretty cheap, but surgery is usually expensive. I don't think psychotherapy comes cheap, either.
Unless you're close to death they won't put any effort into diagnosis but once you actually get diagnosed the treatment in the Netherlands is pretty good.
The healthcare system suffers from years of budget cuts, bad working conditions and our education system being gradually demolished.
Hahahha experienced that in Austria too
Here in Germany they won’t even recommend the paracetamol, they’ll just tell you to drink tea and rest.
Wait until you see what "insurance" costs.
I have a tongue issues which five different doctors have decided is geographic tongue, and told me it will go away “in a couple of weeks”. The last two times I heavily prefaced adding “Before I get into it, it’s OK to say you don’t know, but don’t tell me it will go away in a couple of weeks because it’s been over ten years.” Both times as soon as they saw my tongue they cut me off with a “it will go away in a couple of weeks” and refused to discuss it further.
My ex's doctor refused to refer her to a specialist because he didn't think she had the condition they specialized in. Until I went along one time and just asked "what makes you rule it out?"
At that point, he admitted knowing nothing about the condition and said he'd do some research. Which he did do and promptly referred her to the specialist because it matched her weird symptoms very well and she's since been diagnosed with two variants of it (one from each parent).
And the sad part is that doctor was her better newer doctor after getting rid of one whose advice would have killed her because he didn't realize the birth control he wanted her to finish the course of was causing her organs to shut down because he didn't bother with the follow up blood tests he was supposed to do or take her severe symptoms seriously.
😭…
average medical appointment.
You know what? There's this thing called AI...and it somehow cares more than an actual human.
The fuck we need meatbags for anymore?
And medical diagnosis is one of the areas very well suited to automation, the only thing is answering some of the binary questions in the flowchart involve giving and interpreting complex tests. But a machine could decide what tests need to be done and would probably do a better job than a lot of doctors out there as long as they don't add a bunch of conclusions like "patient is probably just looking for opiates" or "pain can't be that bad if the patient is still able to function and talk about it" or "it's never rare condition".
Then the human doctors can be left to do the interesting work or find a new career if all they wanted to do is say whatever words will make the patient go away (and pay their bill).
People died because of their apathy. Deserved!
What you're describing doesn't even require AI. Skip that unreliability and just code a flow chart questionnaire.
Yeah, it wouldn't need to be an llm or nn. But a flow chart questionnaire that can dynamically add new nodes can be considered a form of machine learning.
That's usually related to vitamin deficiencies, have you been screened for that at all? Doctors tend to skip over vitamin deficiencies
I’ll ask the next one!
Did you ever get your B vitamins checked, or did you ever start supplementing B vitamins for your tongue?
I looked up what vitamins could apply, I’ve been trying them one at a time. So far no go, but I’m past due to switch to the B6 supplement, so thanks for the reminder!
Okay, sounds good, best of luck to you. Some vitamins work together, particularly B vitamins work off each other. So you likely have a deficiency in multiple. They sort of wait for the other vitamins to arrive or else they get excreted. They skip the dance if they don't have a date, so to speak.
There's a lot of debate on megadosing B vitamins, including daily vs weekly doses, but generally it is recommended to take a B vitamin complex with whatever B vitamin you are megadosing (don't ever megadose B6!! and tbh I'd recommend that one for sure is taken in a complex so it stays in balance). I regularly megadose B1, biotin, and B12 in addition to the B complex I take, and don't have any allergy issues from it unless I'm also low on vitamin e. Sometimes a side effect of B vitamin megadoses can be increased allergies.
Absorbing B vitamins can be helped with liposomal formulations or methylated vitamins in the case of methylfolate and methylB12 (methylcobalamin).
Sometimes a B vitamin deficiency, especially B1 and B3, can indicate a magnesium deficiency as the two go hand in hand. It can also indicate a general fat soluble vitamin deficiency, as the liver needs fat soluble vitamins to be able to store B vitamins - so taking betacarotene, vitamin e, vitamin k, and vitamin d together can help with storage. These can be obtained naturally through liver, but liver has a type of vitamin A that is not betacarotene but retinol, and retinol can cause health issues in excess so I don't recommend it really for someone who is already vitamin deficient and delicate. However, there is liver jerky (Epic brand) you can buy online or from health stores, it can give hypervitaminosis A from the retinol though, so I again recommend starting with vitamin e, k, d, and betacarotene in lieu of retinol.
While taking 1 vitamin at a time feels like a good way to know for sure which vitamin is the singular culprit, unfortunately it is usually a group of vitamins that work synergistically with each other that become gradually depleted.
Not that you asked or that I for sure know this will help you. I just have celiac and personally have to supplement constantly due to scar tissue in my intestines, so I study vitamins a lot and regularly help people with their deficiencies because I've had so many myself. The way I know how my celiac is doing, is by knowing signs of vitamin deficiencies. I'd be freaking tf out if I had geographic tongue because it means I'm having a bad celiac flare and may need injectable vitamins etc. Geographic tongue is a hallmark vitamin deficiency sign I look for, for that reason. Again, good luck to you, may it all work out!
I'm sorry, are you saying they haven't brought it up before? Maybe do some of your own research and try supplementing the vitamins listed or eating foods with thise vitamins in them. My word, it's like a classic symptom of B3 deficiency among others, I'm so sorry no one has told you. It's literally the first thing they are supposed to give you, are vitamins, to treat that and see how it responds.
And after 5 months of having your head weighed down by a giant axe: Of course you're in pain! Your posture is all wrong!
They're also going to do a pregnancy test if they suspect you have a vagina.
"Clearly you're overweight, have you tried exercise?"
I finally got a diagnosis and it's so freeing.
Yes it's terminal, but it's so sooooo good to know what's happening.
If you’re fat they would claim that it is a consequence of your weight and should diet and exercise.
Only for the office to call you and reschedule the follow up appointment
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