Trusting doctors | Imamother

soap suds

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:08 pm

southernbubby wrote:

The few anti-vax people that I know personally don't trust doctors for anything besides life or death emergencies. They will call the ambulance for a heart attack or use insulin for diabetes but they don't use conventional doctors for routine care and some are opposed to conventional cancer treatment. They often give birth at home. Most that I know trust homeopathy and chiropractors even if science is highly skeptical about the effectiveness of some the treatment (chiropractors can relieve some types of back pain).

So they trust them with life and death situations and not for less serious? That begs the question even more.

soap suds

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:14 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

I've heard this argument, but it applies just as much to the crunchy side of healthcare.

You think supplements aren't created by people who make money?

What makes supplements and megadoses of vitamins okay? What makes unproven treatments like chelation okay?

This! Somehow all those concerned with big money-making pharma, somehow have no problem trusting the vitamin companies and believe they have their best interests in mind and are in no way influenced by all the money they're raking in.

amother

Lavender

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:19 pm

I don't "believe" in supplements either. Who said anything about chelation?

As for what I do, I can give an example. My DC had eczema which turned extra itchy with pimples. Went to Doc. Doc diagnosed infection from scratching and prescribed antibiotics. I asked if treatment must be oral and thus systemic or we can keep it local. Doc said looks like infection is still only local but prescribed oral abx to be on the safe side. I took the prescription for "just in case" and instead had my DC soak the infected area in hottish water with some baking soda for 20 minutes twice a day. The pimples oozed out and the infection cleared BH. I didn't need to use the abx. When I mentioned to Doc at some later point what we'd done, she said, well not everyone would have the patience to do that... Keep doing what you're doing because it seems to be working.

Obviously not every issue can be resolved on my own, but once I have a diagnosis, I will first look into home remedies and cures that target the core problem, not only the symptom.

amother

Apricot

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:42 pm

amother [ Mint ] wrote:

The reason is because when a doctor goes to medical school they study all types of medicine. We accept them as experts and therefore rely on them. I don't think there is a single course doctors take studying vaccines. Can the typical pediatrician name 5 ingredients in a vaccine? I doubt it.

A second reason is because even if a doctor is skeptical about vaccines, they would be foolish to admit it. A doctor with a thriving practice who publicly says he questions vaccines, is literally out of business the next day.

This is a favorite line of anti vaxxers. Actually the doctors I work with do know many of the ingredients in vaccines. Please.

amother

Burgundy

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:45 pm

amother [ Lavender ] wrote:

Your baking soda and water did not address the underlying issue of your child's eczema.

southernbubby

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:53 pm

amother [ Lavender ] wrote:

Let's not forget that the vitamin companies aren't the ones who get to mandate their products by law.

Vitamin and supplement manufacturers lobby just like big pharma does. AFAIK, scurvy and rickets are not contagious but for maybe a century, flour and milk has been vitamin fortified for the common good. It's hard to find breakfast cereal that isn't treated with vitamins and vitamins for children are flavored and shaped to make children ask for them. Vitamin K is given routinely to neonates. I realize that there is a difference between natural health vitamins and ones given as pharmaceutical products but at the end of the day, we are all vitamin consumers.

I am also not sure that it's big pharma or vitamin companies that mandate anything.

Last edited by southernbubby on Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:58 pm; edited 1 time in total

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:57 pm

amother [ Lavender ] wrote:

Let's not forget that the vitamin companies aren't the ones who get to mandate their products by law.

Let's also not forget that manufacturers can and do sell vitamins without having tested their products for safety. The same is true for other supplements.

In fact, some supplements like kava have been shown to be downright dangerous, even at recommended doses. Megadoses of niacin, as in energy drinks, can cause liver damage. Taking too much beta carotene, Vitamin A (even at far less than toxic doses), or Vitamin E appears to increase mortality. (See a brief abstract of the JAMA article at https://jamanetwork.com/journa.....8879.)

Supplements are often contaminated. See https://www.livescience.com/63......html

This article (https://www.popsci.com/dangerous-supplement-exposures/) makes the point succinctly.

Quote:

They offer quick and easy solutions in a way that medicine can’t—because medicine is bound by evidence. Supplements aren’t.

Which is why every 24 minutes the U.S. Poison Control Centers get a call about bad reactions to supplements. That's 274,998 exposures from 2000-2012. Those numbers come from a recent study in the Journal of Medical Toxicology, but the idea isn't new: Supplements aren't likely to kill you, but they've never been particularly safe either. And the companies producing them have shockingly little oversight.

More than 20,000 adverse affects from supplements yearly vs. a handful from vaccinations. Why don't the anti-vaxxers turn their attention to supplements?

In contrast, vaccinations are tested and retested for safety and effectiveness. When problems are found, they are reformulated for safety.

And remember: no one is forcing you to get your children vaccinated. You can homeschool them if you want. You can move to New Jersey or Oregon and still get your personal or "religious" exemption. But someone who refuses to vaccinate their kids and instead feeds them untested, unproven supplements is a fool.

amother

Denim

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 1:15 pm

I trust my doc only where I feel she/he is an expert. This does not include any specialty: Only DIAGNOSIS of SIMPLE childhood ills. Not the treatment.
For areas such as ENT, bone structure, etc. I've always gone to specialist as needed.
Just one ex. to illustrate why I don't trust the treatment. DC had pinworms. We tried the prescription pill with no results. We shifted to low carb/low sugar diet and pinworms problem dissipated and finally disappeared. I kept on hearing from ppl that their kids get pinworms after eating lots of sugar. I overheard LITTLE KIDS in my neighborhood saying that after they eat a certain candy they get pinworms (don't ask me why they were talking about it, but whatever.).
I told doc that we saw improvement with the diet.
She gave me the most condescending smile ever and said neh, there's is no relation. Pinworms are caught when children play together closely.
I absolutely love this doc as a person. Until this incident, I always felt that she respected me, she was always concerned about my child, she calls to check up on kids after hours when they aren't well, probably half of my community uses her. She's a truly caring person, but I learned that she can only accept her truths as the truths and cannot open her eyes enough to see that there is a broader picture.
For that reason, I cannot accept her treatment plans as absolute. I know she's just one, but it really chipped away at my trust in docs.

amother

Burgundy

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 1:23 pm

amother [ Lavender ] wrote:

Gee. That was really intuitive of you! I was talking about the antibiotics and the infection. The eczema is another whole story, if you're interested...

All you said was there there were two ways to clear up the infection. Hot water and Baking Soda or Antibiotics. You seem to like avoiding antibiotics when possible. Your doctor has a different approach.

Where does the difference of approach to address the underlying issue (core problem) come into this?

I have eczema. My MD has never attempted to get me to a point where I don't get flare ups beyond telling me to avoid things that give me flareups. Most of the time - the flare-ups resolve on their own.

If I cared to mend my auto-immune system - or whatever the underlying issue is - I'd need to find someone who specializes in that. I'm not motivated to do so. But if I was - the goal would be 'no flare ups' - so treating a flare up would not longer be a question.

amother

Gray

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 1:40 pm

Is it possible that Drs didn’t focus too much on what’s in the MMR till last year? Maybe. But I’d find it highly doubtful that any Dr giving the vaccine these days hasn’t done recent research. They all know what’s in it. Heck, I know what’s in it.

I recently heard the following from an anti vaxxer. ‘What happened suddenly now that this is all such a big deal and people are getting it etc ?’

Um. You. And your friends. They happened.

And stop saying it’s your right to choose. It is only your right to choose IF you move to an island.

I also got this argument. What are you afraid of. It’s a little worse than flu or step. What?!!! No. It is not. And I’m not just talking about getting through it. I’m talking about the horrific potential consequences both now and down the line.

And thank you thank you thank you. I now receive daily calls from the department of health since I was exposed to the measles without knowing. Are you going to pay me back for the hours I’m spending trying to get my childhood immunizations so I can send it to them? For the time I spent get my titers checked. For the time I spent getting a booster. For the $60 in copays. For the anxiety until the 21 days pass without illness.

And much more. If I do get the measles are you willing to take responsibility?!

eschaya

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 4:01 pm

Maybe wrote:

Great question

#1 Doctors DON'T learn much about vaccines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....t=10s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....t=14s

https://physiciansforinformedc.....tion/

#2 Vaccines are their cash cow, verify that with any medical billing company.

Ummm... vaccines generate <2% of all pharmaceutical industry revenue. So if doctors were really in cahoots with the evil Big Pharma to make lots of money off of you, they actually would NOT recommend vaccines. Instead of the few dollars generated from the MMR vaccine, they'd prefer that you get the measles, develop pneumonia, and they'd make hundreds of thousands of dollars off an ICU stay with expensive antibiotics, mechanical ventilation, and everything else involved in paying for actual illness. And similarly for most other vaccine preventable diseases (imagine how much a hospitalization and medications cost for meningitis from Hib, or an ICU stay from tetanus, or long term care of a baby with CRS). Obviously, doctors/HCPs are still recommending vaccines because believe it or not, of the many thousands of dedicated individuals who go into medicine, healthcare, research and bioscience, the vast majority are in it because they care about humanity, not because they want to make money off of vulnerable individuals.
On the other hand, the alternative medicine industry makes many billions of dollars a year, way more than the vaccine industry generates.
Similarly, in the US we have a pay for performance medical model in which physicians and hospitals are given financial incentives when their patients have good outcomes, and are penalized when their patients have poor outcomes. If vaccines truly made people get sick and doctors were strangely still recommending it, doctors and hospitals would lose money. So even if you want to say that there is a part of those in healthcare that is in it to make a decent parnassa... the best way to do so is by keeping their patients healthy. And one of the ways to do that is to make sure they are vaccinated (in addition to smoking cessation, maintaining a healthy body weight, managing chronic diseases,etc).

chmom

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 4:03 pm

amother [ Denim ] wrote:

This is because as scientifically trained doctors we treat our patients with the help of evidence-based medicine, meaning that we only recommended treatments which have been proven to be useful in trials often over and over again. If you now report that your childs pinworms vanished after being on a low-carb diet, that does not consist of a trial but of an anecdote, also the children in the neighbourhood speaking about getting pinworms after eating candy in no way shape or form conforms to a serious medical study and proves nothing concerning low carbohydrate diet and pinworms.
So when you speak about our truth versus your truth us doctors try to adhere to scientific principles and as best possible recommend treatments which can scientifically and statistically be recommended to our best knowledge and Conscience.
I am assuming you wouldn’t appreciate a Doctor, who prescribes treatments based solely on the fact how he or she feels about their usefulness.
This does not mean that there are illnesses sometimes that have different courses of action or that certain patients respond differently to certain medications but all recommended courses of treatment tends to adhere to existing scientific guidelines.

rydys

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 4:19 pm

I will admit that in medical school we learned about the mechanism of action of vaccines, but not about the contents of the solution they are carried in.

During my pediatric residency, however, we had many lectures about vaccines. We learned about the schedule, of course, but also about potential side effects and risk factors. We learned about some of the ingredients in the vaccines and their functions as well as the risks and benefits of them.

However, we also learned about the diseases in detail and the risks and side effects associated with the diseases themselves. We also studied statistics and learned how to read scientific studies. We compared the risks and benefits of the vaccines (within their carriers) vs the risks and benefits of the diseases. We looked at the historical course of the development of vaccines and the mortality rates before and after each vaccine was put out. BTW, most of the learning we did was by doing our own research and giving presentations to the other residents in our group, not just what we were told by our instructors.

I do think that the above research and learning that I did during residency and continue to keep up with as a physician does qualify me to make a decision about vaccines. Although I do believe in vaccines and encourage my patients to give them, there are some that I push harder with than others. This is due to my current research and understanding of the efficacy of the specific vaccine.

One other point--When your child has strep, pneumonia or cellulitis, or your asthmatic child is struggling to breathe, do you question me about the other ingredients in the medication I prescribe and do thorough research into the safety and efficacy of the antibiotic, or do you trust that I understand microbiology and pharmaceutics enough to treat your child appropriately? Why only with vaccines?

notshanarishona

Sun, Jun 16 2019, 4:30 pm

amother [ Burgundy ] wrote:

Your baking soda and water did not address the underlying issue of your child's eczema.

There is no cure for eczema . Some skin infections can be cured by warm soaks and topical ointments and some need antibiotics. Personally I think it's stupid to take a risk as you can end up with cellulitis or other more serious infection and I tend to go with the doctors recommendation.
If a doctor prescribes something, I have no problem with questioning if I need to take it or it's just to help me with symptoms, etc. But if I asked and a doctor told me to take it I would follow his advice .