So, I'm learning to become a doctor, right?
And I happen to read many "Ask a Doctor" segments in the papers. One of the last brightly shining stars was a woman asking a doctor why she should cease taking Aspirin a week before her operation (she did not specify the type of operation, though I'm hoping it was her stomach).
Then she went on to virtually brag that she took two Aspirins per day for the last 10 years because of headaches. She said she works in a bank and the lack of fresh air makes her head hurt. To relieve the pain she was taking these immense amounts of pain-killers. Now, if there are other brave pain-killer-takers out there I would like to say the following - just don't, OK? Aspirin and some older pain-killers have systemic effects, which means that on top of relieving the pain, they also have effects on other systems in the body. Aspirin for example, targets thromboyctes and thus prevents adherence of one thrombocyte to another which effectively prevents blood from clotting. This is why Aspirin is prescribed to people who survived a myocardial infarction.
Aspirin should be taken with food to prevent gastrointestinal bleeding. I doubt the woman did that. I also doubt that she needed all the Aspirin. And I'm pretty certain that her blood doesn't clot anymore.
If you're in pain, try to bear it. Some pain is bearable. (Why is it that people immediately take pain-killers when something stinges them?) Being in pain is also, and believe me, healthy, because it prevents you from overworking or overstraining yourself and thus giving the body the time to heal. If you're in chronic pain or severe pain, do not prescribe your own medications. Consult the pharmacist or go to your doctor (especially with chronic pain). Ask for painkillers with minimal systemic effects. And stick to the amount of pills prescribed. If doctor says one pill per 8 hours, don't take 2 pills. There's a reason it takes 12+ years to train a doctor; your doctor is far better able to understand your body than you are. If you're not content with your doctor, change! You have all the right to get professional advice from a person who listens to you, takes your thoughts into consideration and whom you can trust. Don't stick with a doctor you don't like just because you've been going there since you were 7 years old.
And if you have headaches? 1. Drink water. Drink pure water from the tap and always carry around your bottle with water. Drink about 1,5 liter of water per day. Soft-drinks and fruit juices do not count as water. Only water from the tap and mineral water count as that. Herbal tea can count as water, but only if you don't add sugar. Many people cannot distinguish between hunger and thirst, so instead of drinking they eat, but eating doesn't do much to relieve thirst. You need your water. Don't exaggerate, though. If you have normal kidneys you don't need much more than 2 litres of water per day. (A little more if you engage in physical activity, though.)
If that doesn't help, go for a walk on fresh air. Try taking a short nap (about half an hour). Make sure you rest well at night. Try to figure out if there's anything about your surroundings at work or home that makes you feel bad. Sometimes pieces of furniture have a very strong and distinct smell and people with better noses can be bothered by that. If you cannot figure out the reason, go see your doctor. Demand that you be taken seriously.
Just don't be your own doctor and eat pain-killers like your life depended upon it.
12 Comments:
It sounds to me that you are going to be a good doctor.
Your post also feels truly terrible, but I still won't take a pain-killer!
I know some people who have their drawer (or more than one) filled with medicines. What are they doing with all those pills, apart from gulping them, I don't know. But it really worries me.
I think the man of today is increasingly dependent on medicine, and is becoming totally medicalizated (is that the right term?) - dependent on medical institutions, drugs, and so on, only not on himself.
I believe a human body to be self-healing. This idea has limits, I see, cancer for example sometimes doesn't "choose", heavier body injures can't be healed by themselves, you need doctors, you need antibiotics. I know this, for I've seriously injured my fibula bone recently, yet I haven't broken it, but if I'd been treating the injury completely on myself, my sister doctor told me, my bone would have had great troubles healing correctly.
Water is the answer to many problems. Fruit also is doing wonders to me, apples I love the most, dearest, loveliest apples!
Fruit does miracles on an empty stomach. Why is that, I again do not know. (What's the term for Slovene word: tešč?)
I believe a human body to be self-healing. It can definitely heal a cold, headache, and such things. But you have to give it a chance.
You might be right. However, the doctor is there to guide the process of healing and to make sure the injury/illness doesn't develop further.
I agree, that's similar to what I implied with my fibula injury.
I am perfectly happy in the hands of a doctor, I am hot to be guided. But I don't stop to think with my head at the same time.
Gulping pills for every possible triffle sounds like "not thinking" to me.
You make a really good point. I think that when you are feeling a little bit unwell, it's your body trying to tell you what's wrong. If you constantly take pills to mask what's wrong, how will you know the real cause? You won't ever be able to treat it if you ignore it.
Yes, exactly, Susan. A very conscious summary. Again proving that brevity is not my strong point. :)
I bet your hands are brief and concise (not really adjectives to describe hands, I know :).
So, now we know that you are going to be a good doctor. Do you also already have a wish as what kind of a doctor you would like to be?
A good one, yes ...
Also: an internist, pediatrician, surgeon?
I am fond of many doctors.
I bet everybody in her family is proud of Iza Ciglenečki, our pop-star doctor. Do you know her? She is the one Slovene doctor in the MSF - Medecins Sans Frontiers organization. She's so lovely! She says she is continuously enjoying that feeling of "true goodness" - that her knowledge really makes a difference. She adds that it's very hard to feel so in a technologically developed country. There was a nice presentation article about her some time ago in Sobotna priloga and there is an interview in the last Nedelo.
Susan, perhaps it's not so far from the truth to say that some treat their illnesses indefinitely with pills. That's one way to treat them.
But there are: side-effects, cost, and I don't know what else, to this. I remember now of one interesting side-effect of taking anti depressive and similar kind of drugs that calm one down. I read, and I've also observed, that these drugs calm one so much, that he is unable to do some extraordinary things like: run a marathon, or write a Ph.D. thesis, what he could've probably achieved prior to taking those drugs.
I'm interested in neurology (neurophysiology, actually), child psychiatry, kinesiology combined with physical therapy for dancers, embryology and molecular genetics.
I still have plenty of time to decide what I want to specialise in.
I'm fairly certain that if I don't get married and have children, I'll join MSF. They are my idols. :)
This is one of the best blog posts I ever read. Great! "Pain can be healthy." Gee, I never thought about it in this way so far...
If there was a way to rate posts, I'd give you a five stars cum laude.
To please the crowds,
is the imperative,
for people not only live,
but let live, too.
So, Miss Nadheza,
this is the consent
of the crowds,
blog medicine.
And also this should be said.
Things like this book - Jean Carper: Food Your Miracle Medicine - have been opening my eyes.
I believe that leading a healthy way of life is in big part due to one's enlightenment. For I am convinced that if one was given two options, he would choose the better one. I am sure that everybody wants to be good and do good. But if he doesn't have more options, he will go for whatever he has.
The world today seems a bit puzzling to me: First it looks like one has multiple options, much more than before; but on closer inspection it's really more of the exact opposite, or so I think.
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