Friday, March 03, 2006

Stomach Update

I suppose you might want to know how I'm doing and all. Or not. But I will tell you anyway. I really don't know. I went to see a gastrointerologist yesterday and he seemed very optimistic. My lifestyle is a rather healthy one and gives little reason for worry. His main hypothesis centered on a weird stress reaction that can cause spasms in the stomach and then be very painful for a number of days. Optimistic doctors make me worry less.

Haha, he also told me to eat salad every day and to avoid fried foods. I can do that. You know that somebody is for real when they don't prescribe all kinds of painkillers. It's funny, it's usually foreign doctors who start out suggesting dietary changes and care about real healthy living. Americans like to get pumped full of drugs and most American doctors pander to that. Personally I hate putting weird stuff into my system. On a side note, I was prescribed a drug for preventing nausea when I was in the emergency room last week. When I read the side effects on the container it said "nausea." What's the point of using something to get rid of nausea when it actually causes more nausea? I thought that was pretty funny. Back to the rant about American doctors, I wonder if they're afraid to tell people to live healthier or something. They also always want to do the more evil tests that include sticking little cameras down your throat or something that sounds painful. And then there's the number one cure-all for women: birth control pills. For some reason those get prescribed for any number of reasons. I also hate it when they ask you if you could possibly be pregnant three or four times over. It's like, duh, I think I'd be the one to know this. They always think you're stupid and do not give you all the information even when you ask them very direct, specific questions. I hate that. I asked the ER doctor if she did a blood test to see if I had pancreatitis and she said she had. Then yesterday the gastrointerologist called the hospital with the phone on speaker-phone and asked them while I was sitting there listening. They had not checked for pancreatitis. Why the hell did they lie to me? I really hate hospitals and doctors and being treated like I'm stupid or something! Okay, okay, I'll stop now.

I still have to go back in for another test. It's nothing invasive, which also makes me happy.

4 comments:

Andy said...

There is a big part of the pharmaceutical industry that is just pure evil. The execs always say the high cost of drugs is because of "research and development," but analysis shows that R&D is usually about 15-20% of a drug company's budget; around 50% goes to MARKETING, which generally means creating a demand for drugs which people don't really need. Western medicine also almost always focuses on alleviating symptoms rather than addressing root causes, and that's partly because they haven't yet embraced the holistic view that spiritual health and physical health are pretty much the same thing. I learned all this battling acid reflux. None of the drugs out there "cure" acid reflux; in fact, they impair your digestive system and make the actual disorder worse -- you just don't feel as bad because the acid pumps in your stomach have been turned off so there's no longer any "heartburn." But now you're not digesting food properly, and you still haven't addressed the spiritual disalignment that led to the problem in the first place. Tamp down one set of symptoms and another will take their place until you learn to make the necessary changes in your life...and none of them involve a pill.

Esther said...

That's very perceptive. I never thought of that. The doctor yesterday also asked me about my stress levels and stuff. Important stuff that would effect one's day to day life in possibly physical ways. FYI, he's not American (Lebanese or something like that). Yeah, Western medicine needs help.

Xana Ender said...

They have to run every test imaginable, because if they don't and you have something they haven't checked for even if there was only a 0.0000000000004 chance of you having it you can sue them and win. yay for the lawsuit lottery

Esther said...

That's a good point, Alex. But they lied to me about the tests they had done. I mean, what if I do have pancreatitis and my stomach is eating my pancreas? That's a painful condition with a lot of major complications that can occur because of it. I asked them if they had done that test and was told yes, but it was a lie. If doctors are so worried about being sued then why lie to people?