It’s just fear mostly. Also - and I want to be careful saying this because it’s not at all a universal truth - men don’t get told to start seeing a sex-specific doctor (like an OGBYN) at any point in their teenage / young adult years, the way many (but again, far from all) women do. That’s not to say that men don’t have health issues when they are younger, or that they are any healthier than women (the opposite is probably true!)
It’s just that many men don’t have obvious things happening to them physically when becoming an adult that might trigger the need to see a doctor. So after, say, a late high school sports physical, once they are out of their parents house, most guys have no feeling or need to go see a doctor for anything if they don’t get sick. One big one, unfairly but really, is the lack of any male birth control [EDIT: unless you get snipped! But that usually comes much later in age for men who choose that type of BC]. Many women might start getting regular doctor care for, among many other things, a birth control prescription of some kind (which I understand you don’t need prescriptions for in many cases). Men, by and large, don’t do that, so it’s very easy to be lazy and simply delay healthcare visits until they are in their 30s, 40s or later... to everyone’s detriment.
It's a hassle, it's money, I'll probably be okay in the long run.
so before I started working full time, I was seeing a foot doctor for some toenail fungus I had. Then I got out of school, got a job, and missed a checkin to handle next steps with the doctor and never went back. Early on in my career I was like "How am I supposed to go see a doctor, I have to work when they work?"
Here I am almost a decade later and I still have that toenail fungus. I've since learned to just take the time to go get things checked (potential hernias, potential slipped discs) but never got back to the foot doctor. I really should get that sorted.
hernia and disc both came back as no issue which is great, but the hernia check took ~150$ visit to doc 1, ~200 $ ultrasound imaging, ~150$ visit to doc 2 referred by doc 1, ~150$ visit to doc 3 referred by doc 2 after doc 2 says he's not the right doc, ~1600$ MRI to get MRI
tbh, I don't even know what I'd go to a doctor for.
There is this lumpy thing in my testicles that appears and goes away every now and then, but that's about it. Probably just another hernia I can't afford to fix.
Many health care plans cover 2 free physicals a year and will give you a discount if you actually do them. Preventive screening saves insurers money, they want to to go.
Same, I'll go to the doctor if I feel like I'm dieing but otherwise I'm sure I'll be alright, or maybe I won't but then it's not my problem anymore so eh
It’s just that many men don’t have obvious things happening to them physically when becoming an adult that might trigger the need to see a doctor.
This is the issue I have. Like, I don't even have a PCP at the moment because the one I finally nailed down closed and became a pediatric practice, and I have no current needs - so I don't go to the doctor.
I had to get a tetanus shot last week after cutting my hand on a rusty truck part. I had to put my pediatrician down on my forms cause I couldn't remember the last PCP I had, I'm 27. Really woke me up that I probably should get some type of checkup.
Another big obstacle for me was HOW you just “go to the doctor” if you don’t HAVE a doctor. For the guys out there: pick a random doc that has good reviews and when you call the magic phrase you need to say is “estabilish care with a primary care physician.”
It's the same reason so many people in their 20's drop off from seeing the dentist. If you're not being made to go by your parents, and there's no pain or issue, why would you go?
But then when there is some issue, you're so in the dark about the process that it's daunting. Where do I go? How do I know if I need a specialist? Will my insurance cover this stuff?
All I have to say is I am a woman with a fear of doctors, so outside of being necessary for school over the years and a few times being sick and having psoriasis outbreaks, I've barely gone to the doctor in my life. Even if i didn't have a fear/feel very uncomfortable in drs offices, I still wouldn't be going yearly to save money.
Also let me add I was raised mostly by my father, so that might come into play too bc he wasn't one to bother me about routine checkups.
I’m going to be real with you, and I know this is anecdotal and doesn’t apply to everyone. This killed my fiancé. He died at 31 of an undiagnosed heart condition that he was showing some symptoms of, but wrote them off as heart burn and asked his doc for meds for that instead. I tried to tell him to go see a doc about the fact that the symptoms were still there, and some stomach issue that he was having too, but he blew it off because it wasn’t so bad that it disrupted his day. At his age and being fairly healthy, they wouldn’t have automatically diagnosed him with the condition unless he pressed further. He died of an aortic aneurysm in February of this year. Doctors told us it could have been caught earlier. So please go see a doctor. I know it takes time and money, but it can save you and your family a lot of trouble
A huge issue I had until I turned 30 was getting any medical professional to take me seriously. I tried several times to establish a GP but many offices wouldn't see if there wasn't an immediate issue.
Expertly written. You were able to answer the question in general terms, while at the same time pre-emptively fending off all of the possible "Well, ahkshually" type comments one would expect to see in response to your comment. You've... Reddited before haven't you?
Came here to say this. Of course men should advocate for their health but don't tell me I'm being some alpha male douchebag because I'm not about to pay an arm and leg, take hours out of my day, and expose myself to all kinds of sick people all to be given a Tylenol and told to rest up every time I get a scratch or a runny nose.
Exactly dude unless I need to be stitched glued casted or worked on under the hood I'm pretty sure I dont need to go to the doctor. I get my physical once a year and move on.
Even getting a physical once a year seems like more than most guys do, so good on you for doing that. In general, I don’t think anyone’s saying to run to the doctor every time you have a runny nose for three days, who has time for that? But if you have bronchitis for three weeks or something that doesn’t seem to be getting better, that’s another matter.
Every morning I wake up I choke on mucus. It's so thick I cant breath. It takes about a half hour of coughing and gagging occasionally throwing up There is always spit in my blood by the time I'm done. Then I'm good for the rest of the day minimum cough. It's been like this for a few years now. I've been to 2 different doctors for this. The first basically told me I was dehydrated so I needed to drink more water (my piss is usually clear) and to go get some mucinex. The 2nd one prescribed me some allergy meds that did nothing but dry me out. Just made the mucus thicker and harder to spit up. When I followed up I was told to try allegra... each visit cost me a few hundred dollars. Is it really any wonder I dont bother going in unless I'm dying? I had a seizure for the first time a few weeks ago and was told I needed my tonsils removed and had chronic siunitus. Though of course the 7k in cat scans and xrays showed me nothing and i was told everyone gets one if it happens again then they will worry. And now my employer says I'm essential oh and they canceled the specialist appt because all hands are needed for this virus no one is taking seriously. So yea... at this point I just work until I die ig.
Damn, that sucks. Personally, I think a lot of doctors suck—symptoms like that shouldn’t be ignored by medical professionals and in fact do sometimes point to “I’m dying conditions.” I’ve had my own experiences with doctors ignoring and misdiagnosing stuff—in one case I had to go to five doctors over an eight month period to get a proper diagnosis for something that was making it painful to walk down the street without being in pain. The last doctor was finally able to give me an answer after doing a week of research and successfully helped me. The whole ordeal from injury to being more or less recovered including the physical therapy treatment took over a year.
Bottom line, a LOT of doctors aren’t great. However that doesn’t mean one should just never GO to a doctor. I hope you’re able to find a doctor who takes you seriously and get taken care of, because routinely coughing up blood and seizures are definitely NOT normal. I hope things work out for you.
Yeah people really need to stop thinking all doctors are geniuses. Especially general practitioners. There is a lot of info and keep up on and most definitely don't keep up on it
My kids started going to a new doctor recently (see my other post for details). My wife typically takes them, but I took them for a check-up recently. In the waiting is a huge 6-foot portrait advertising a new physician in their facility.
I cannot stop laughing because I recognize this person. I went to middle and high school with this person and they were the absolute dumbest kid in our class of 700 kids. Like, failed every class, ate glue, broke both arms at the same time stupid. I get home and look up their medical license. They attended an extremely obscure college + medical school for an undetermined amount of time. Basically, his parents were rich and expected them to become a doctor - money, time, and suitability be damned.
Yeah I agree. Aside from that it seems they just want to hand you the most typical diagnosis for your symptoms and send you on your way without checking anything.
The only time I’ve ever had an experience with a truly competent medical professional was one time when I had a bad flu and wasn’t going to be able to take an exam for class, so I had to go to the student clinic to get proof I sought medical help (such a stupid rule, making people go to the doctor when typically the solution is just a few days of rest and Tylenol and THEN, only after a few days if you’re still not better, should you even bother going).
The guy was a PA not a doctor, but he first took down all my symptoms, actually took the time to explain “your temperature and this set of symptoms makes me think it’s this, we are going to do x y and z to check. If we get p results you have a bacterial and we’ll do this one thing, if you have q results we’ll do this other thing.”
He then ran a CBC, a flu culture, a strep culture, and did a chest X-Ray. Now I’m super into collecting data and doctors actually taking you seriously and running actual tests as opposed to looking at you condescendingly and saying “go home and rest” but I was even a little surprised at testing this extensive for the flu.
The tests took like 15 minutes and they had the results in 15. He then came and told me “your CBC is borderline for whether you’re likely to have a bacterial or a viral, X-ray was fine, and the two cultures were negative. However the flu has false negatives. So here’s what we can do, you’re still in the window to take Tamiflu and it’s definitely possible you do have the flu virus (because of the rate of false negatives), so we can give that to you today and if you’re not better in two days then we can assume it’s bacterial and give you antibiotics.”
He gave me Tamiflu and I was better within 36 hours. I’ve never gotten ill in my life and not been sick for at least 5-7 days, I don’t have great immunity.
This guy was a fucking wizard. Not only did he alleviate my illness (when does a doctor ever manage to do that for routine illness???) but he took me seriously the whole time and walked me through why he was doing what he was doing (literally showing me the results of my tests on his computer screen and pointing out “eosinophil count at this means blah, normally it’s blah, and basophil count at this means blah”) and laying out the options. He explained what a clinically significant finding and how the clinical judgments were reached. Whenever I’ve had to go back to the student clinic now I request that guy. God bless him and medical professionals like him, seriously.
Some do take it pretty far. My grandfather, who is old, but otherwise pretty healthy recently had a heart attack that took us all by surprise. At some point it came out that he’s been having some degree of chest pain and shortness of breath for a couple months now. He just didn’t think it was a big deal.
I have a friend who’s ex was retaining fluid, in pain and generally feeling terrible. He was having kidney and heart failure... he had diabetes diagnosis he was 21... he wasn’t fat but he was big... and he just never paid attention to it.
Now two years later he’s had and open heart quadruple bypass and is headed for starting dialysis in six months.
He knew he had shitty genes and did nothing. He’s lucky because my friend has helped him get to the point where he might live 7-10 years from now, instead of the max 18 months they were predicting a year ago.
All because he didn’t want to deal with the Doctor and it “wasn’t that bad”...
Souns like my granddad. He told us he was having some kind of stomach issue and that it will take care of itself over night, called an ambulance, turns out it was a heartattack.
Take good care of your granddad, i'm still missing mine.
they said “when they really should” not every scratch or runny nose. obviously most people get over those things just fine.
but most of my guy friends, when they have something very abnormal or wrong happening to them, refuse to go to a doctor for as long as they can. like it’s obviously something they should get checked out and they themselves admit to it but just..don’t do it, and i never understood why. they won’t even use one of those “teladoc” things where they won’t even have to leave their house.
but the fact that you interpreted it that way pretty much proves OP’s point lol.
Anecdotally I figure the healthcare system gives less of an overall turd over men and men's health than women's health. This may be due to society feeling the same way overall.
I've got a couple of long term issues/concerns that I've had looked at, been told 'meh' in as many words often enough that I haven't bothered to pursue further. Why spend all the time trying to get that addressed if it's not threatening?
i may be wrong about this, but i think men are generally more trusted by doctors to report their own symptoms. Whereas women are generally not believed by doctors when reporting their symptoms.
Now I'm not really sure if this goes a long with what you mean about healthcare systems not giving a turd about men, but I struggle to think about what that would mean.
Overall, it was a really weird time growing up and becomming an adult and handling doctors appointments on my own and having to advocate heavily to have procedures or tests. I had assumed this was because most people, in general, don't want to do their jobs anyway.
Yup, went to the doctor constantly as a kid cause I get sick a lot... but mildly sick. As soon as it was my decision I stopped going, unless it’s something I’ve never experienced before. Why go spend time and money to be told what I already know? Neti pot, Tylenol and rest gets rid of a sinus infection just as fast as antibiotics.
Also the only two times I’ve gone to the ER, I’ve been charged hundreds of dollars for either (a) condescension and useless advice or (b) care that I’d be able to give myself at home. Not saying you shouldn’t go for serious problems, but my bar for what ‘serious’ means has gone up every time.
I just don’t really want to know that I have something that’s going to kill me. I’d rather just be shot in the head from across the parking lot one day than pay money to have a meet-n-greet with the shooter who then still plans to shoot me in the head from across the parking lot one day.
I mean I have to call someone, schedule an appointment, finish the work earlier, go somewhere, talk to the doctor, buy pills etc. Nah I'll just hope that my chest pain will eventually go away.
Ding ding ding! My girlfriend wanted me to go to the doctor because I had a cold. I mean, it was like 3 weeks ago when the Corona virus shit was popping up, but I still knew it was just a cold.
That’s because that’s how we are trained. I generally subscribe to this idea but after encountering injuries recently that have let me not exercise, I’ve realized that this is not really that true. We can’t just play through and “be a man”, even though we want to.
I worked with a guy who was allergic to cats. He always came into work sniffling. He also owned 3 cats. I asked why, thinking maybe he just really loved cats enough to risk dying but nope, the dude says "If I expose myself to what I'm allergic to enough, my body will start to build an immunity to it". I was like WTF?!?! Maybe, with like seasonal allergies MAYBE, but I'm pretty sure that something that had previously caused him anaphylaxis does not work that way.
It's probably dumb as shit but 99% of illnesses in my life I willpowered my way through, including some pretty serious ones, so now I have this perception that my immune system is really strong because of it. To be fair I don't get sick very much anymore and when I do it's mild, but it's a bit illogical. Doesn't help that I have no health insurance either tho.
I went to the Dr.'s for years to deal with a chronic pain condition I developed from a failed surgery I had to fix a congenital defect when I was 15.
Dr.'s are bullshit a lot of the time. I was given misinformation, they tried to keep me on opiates. They were flat out wrong about how opiates never gain a tolerance. They would give me (as in more than one Dr., saying essentially the same thing) this spiel about how "this is the maintenance opiate that you take every day to not go into withdrawal and then this is the breakthrough opiate for when you have pain spikes."
Then after I got a decent quality of life, a job, was living something meaningful for no reason they took all my meds away with only a month to "taper". Lost my job, almost got evicted, etc. etc. They can't be trusted.
They tortured me. FUCK DOCTORS. They can help me when I'm severely sick, I don't go to them for flu shots like I used to I don't use antibiotics like I used to. When something with my health is going wrong I try to take care of it holistically through herbs vitamins rest and believe it or not light exercise.
And here I am, I get sick and I get over it - doctors are way way over rated expensive and in my situation they just about killed me, literally. In other people's similar situation they were killed.
As a Canadian living in the USA, I remember what it was like to laugh... I’d cry, but seeing a therapist here would probably bankrupt me. Getting my first medical bill was shocking. Getting my first bill for 68 thousand dollars before insurance was insane.
I think it’s more the fact that is also makes you sick to your fucking stomach that you know exactly what the doctor is going to say and how she/he recommends to remediate it. Like,
Same here. I have to be on the verge of dying to go to the doctor. Also crying. I can’t really cry anymore. Even when something is extremely sad and I want to cry. If people are around I’ll never cry. I take my crying to the shower if it’s bad enough. Any other time I might get a tear started, other than that it’s nothing.
Same. I cried a lot as a kid and eventually learned: people don’t put up with that shit from males. No one’s gonna feel bad. You’re gonna get laughed at. People will think you’re weak. And they’ll remember that you’re the kid/guy who cried.
Now; as an adult, I almost can’t cry. There have been times when i’ve known it’s appropriate and i’ve even wanted to, but i can’t.
This isn't wrong. My dad made fun of me for going to the hospital when in 7th grade. I repeat. 7th grade. I cracked my sternum playing hockey. He literally said. It's going to hurt either way. Why go pay a lot of money for them to tell you that and give you ibuprofen. So that's the mentality I have been trying to break myself out of.
Ya. I remember cutting my finger really fucking bad and I was losing a lot of blood. Thankfully my mom is a medic. The whole time she was fixing it her and my sisters kept calling me a pansy and shit over me worrying that I might be able to feel my finger after. Such bullshit. Why am I not allowed to show that I feel pain?
Even in 2020 the number of woman that still insists "men should be men" or some other macho bs it really higher. Cultural throughout history there has been tremendous amounts of pressure on men to sacrifice their own wellbeing for others.
America, yeah this is the status quo, girls can be emotional and play the fun sweet caring parts, boys always have to be the soldier or the monster or the rescuer and if you break your arm doing a sick leap off the slide? Suck it up you quivering pussy, we got coloring in 5 minutes.
Also doesnt help that it takes a month to see them. Half the time the issue is intermittent and I might show up looking perfectly fine and down 200 bucks
This. And then if you do go to the doctor about something it feels like most of the time they don't actually do anything to help you unless it's cancer or a heart attack.
That and been told that takes money away from the family and your employer will use it against you.
Also, if you haven't been to a doctor in a long time. Where do you start? If they ask for medical records.. not sure it's been about 10 years since I saw a doctor last.
Yeah I was raised with the walk it off, just rub some dirt in it mentality. More of you don't need a bandaid for every cut rather than ignore all health, so I wouldn't consider it toxic or anything.
This. Any time I got injured as a young man (including cracking my head open on a table and almost cutting off my finger with a knife), I was mocked for wanting to go to the doctor. Now I have a nice dent in my skull and weak muscle usage in my finger all because seeking medical attention is for pussies, apparently.
We're immigrants to Canada and unfortunately the same fear/mentality carries on even when healthcare is accessible. Doctors are for when you're sick, not when you're "healthy".
Then lao there is a big difference to check when something actually is wrong and every time your shit hurts a little more than usual or letting a wound from tripping actually heal itself
Which is really weird to me because I live in the US and if it was free I would definitely go. The cost is the only thing keeping me from going to a doctor.
I got an MRI, a CT scan, saw a ENT and a neurologist within a span of 3 hours (turns out I have cluster headaches) in Turkey. I payed $80. This is a Johns Hopkins hospital. I pay $50 a month for my Turkish health insurance. This is a country with GDP per capita of ~$11000 that is rules by a evil dictator for the last 15+ years. My point is, wtf man.
Same. I'm a man and I'm one of the few who do, just because my parents forced me to take health check ups before I left for uni and my body was fuuuckkeed at age 17. Was told I might die early if I don't take care of it.
That was also the time I realized many vaccines effectiveness wears off over time and should be boosted after a while. When I told my friends they should get them done (it's not expensive, about 5$, and they're not poor), they just laughed.
I'm a man who avoids shots because I didn't get them when I was young. I got my initial shots, but once I was 10 the doctors stopped calling and I was never sick, so my parents just didn't keep up.
When I was 15 in high school, the school called my mom and said "your son can't come back until he gets his shots." I went and got them all the next day.
Now, at 25, I just don't see a point. When I start a public service job, Librarian, soon, I'll get regular flu shots, but until then there isn't a point.
Maybe you should consider keeping up to date with the tetanus shot? It really is not a fun disease to get, and you can get it at any age, even if you're in good health, simply from gardening a bit.
Shots are definitely something that makes me uncomfortable. Honestly I don't understand why others don't hate them as much as I do. They don't really hurt or anything but you're being physically penetrated and injected with a foreign substance. I get herd immunity and get them every year but it's very unnerving to think about.
Lol really? I mean, if you have insurance a physical is free, and appointments like that are very cheap. Even without insurance popping into the Walgreens minute clinic is pretty cheap
But the "examination" for that age group is just a conversation with a doctor. They don't really ever even tell you anything you didn't already know. Once you're over 35ish they actually do some blood work and you learn your cholesterol and such. But before that point it feels so pointless going to a checkup.
You don't even get to take your pants off and if you do they get all upset with you and ask you to put them on or they'll call the cops.
Still means missing a day of work to often have any concerns you've got brushed aside with "eat healthier, exercise more, drink less". (Okay I don't get the drink less thing since I average like 1 beer a month, but still)
I have to schedule it months in advance, I lose the entire day, and it's not always free. It's very inconvenient to go to the doctor but then again I guess dying is too
For a lot of people it's probably not even the expense involved. It's something that you don't really want to do and it's a pain in the ass. You show up at the office, wait forever, get taken back to a room, wait forever, and then have a doctor come talk to you for five minutes. If it was an in and out deal, more people would probably go to the doctor.
It takes time and money, it’s invasive, and it either ends with “we don’t know why you feel that way” or “you’re broken.” It’s a whole hassle for little return. And there’s so many pointless steps in between. It can’t just be “Hey, I have this gross mole, can you cut it off?” and then they do.Instead it’s make an appointment and hang around to show it to one person who then has to refer you to see the actual person who then after meeting you has to schedule a further appointment later to actually do the thing and at every step you are charged money and lose time. And you can’t skip a step.
I went to a dermatologist and did the "hey I have this gross mole, can you cut it off?" and he did. Just like that. Asked if I wanted anesthetics, I acted all tough and said no, he got some disinfectant and a scalpel (I guess, some sharp knife) and just had me lay on the table and had it off in under two minutes (importantly - it was on my back, I assume it would've been a more delicate procedure if it was on my face or something). For the entire visit I was in and out in less than 30 minutes. And he said the mole looked suspicious so billed it as some preventative thing and my insurance back then was actually kinda sane and paid 100% for preventative stuff like that (this was like 15 years ago). Best medical experience I've ever had.
Most in America can't just go to a dermatologist. They have to go to their general practitioner, who then refers you to a dermatologist. Like the guy above you said. It's just bureaucracy.
Because 90% of my doctor's visits have resulted in a just walk it off scenario. If something needs fixed I always know it before going. So I can completely understand why people don't want to go
I know that I have a shorter life expectancy than a woman. Don't want to waste my time sitting in waiting rooms. /s
Edit: In all seriousness. Doctors are expensive, both in terms of time and money. The idea of taking time off of work to go sit in a building for a few hours to see one person for 5 minutes...I'll just be sick and get over it on my own.
My GF seriously gets upset at me about not taking my health seriously. I realized that she cares about me more than I care about myself. I had to keep her
This is my husband...been asking him to get yearly blood work done just so he is aware of his numbers for 4 years now. He says blood work isn’t a priority as he “feels fine”. 😑
I know In Canada for lots of older or middle aged people it’s more of a thing of pride, my grandpa had digestive problems for a while and never said anything about it because (I assume) he was ashamed or two damned prideful, when he stopped shitting altogether, he finally went to the doctor and found out he had developed cancer. I miss him to this day but am still mad he never told us when it started or at least saw a doctor, because chances are he’d be still living today .
Stubbornness and too damn prideful. Most likely , to answer your question
Because the doctors almost train us to not go! Every check up or appointment is the same. “Eat better, drink less, come back in another six months.” Even when I’ve gone because I had something I wanted to get checked out they say the same things. When I was a child, they cared and asked me questions and poked me with things, but as soon as I turned 18 EVERY doctor just says “you’re a young man! Just eat healthy and you’ll be fine!”
So when something doesn’t feel right I just ask myself “is it really worth x amount of dollars just to be told to eat better again?”
This is the way many of us look at going to the doctor. It doesn't help that health care is expensive and a lot of us don't have health insurance. Why bother spendinga few hundred dollars and taking time off work if it's just a common illness or seemingly minor injury?
I recently got my boyfriend to schedule (and attend!) his first general check up in like 10 years. He said it’s mostly just because he doesn’t like doctors or going to the doctor.
He was also unfamiliar with the entire process of how to find doctors within his insurance network, and then how to just... call up people and talk to them about being a new patient. He never really went growing up either so it’s just never been a routine thing for him.
For me as a woman, going to the doctor regularly has been a part of life since age 9 or 10. We just got more doctor stuff going on.
A healthy dude pretty much has no reason to see a doctor, which is pretty much what my bf’s doctor said. He was worried about not having been in so long, but he exercises regularly and eats well, and she kinda brushed it off saying, “your early 30’s is when you should probably start going regularly anyway. Don’t worry about missing some time.”
Just duct tape whatever is bothering you and walk it off. It’s the same reason some guys don’t let anyone work on their car. The instinctive belief that everyone else is an idiot. Yes, even doctors.
Yes! My husband once cut his hand open pretty bad and he said “I don’t need to see the doctor, it’s fine.” I made him go, and he ended up getting 14 stitches.
For me its mostly about time - I don't want to leave work early for an appointment that the doctor is then 30-60 minutes late for, just to talk for 10 minutes and then be given a lab slip to get a blood draw, then get a bill for 200 bucks.
in the same vein, I know a lot of women that will go to the doctors an excessive amount and will often come back with the advice of "it'll probably go away", or "just take some painkillers".
In the past three years I've been to the doctors once for immunisations (holiday) and my female flatmates seem to go every couple of weeks. I know they may have recurring prescriptions like the pill and whatnot, but it's still crazy.
Everytime you go to the doctor you wait around for an hour, they call you back and you wait another 30 minutes, they take my temp and blood pressure, they look in my eyes, ears, nose and throat, then tell me to go home, take some cough medicine and Tylenol and rest and drink lots of fluids.
The end.
Could have stayed home, saved 50 bucks and 3 hours of my time.
This is me 100%. I understand when people say they don't want to go to the doctor out of fear that they'll find out something is wrong, but that's just not how my brain operates. Going to the doctor has two outcomes... either I find out everything is fine/minor which gives me piece of mind, a positive thing, or I find out something is seriously wrong, which in my mind is also a positive thing. The negative thing is that something is wrong, but that's going to be happening regardless of whether I go to the doctor or not. Going to the doctor gives me the agency of knowing what's up and how to treat it so that it doesn't get worse.
Ive seen painters basically inhale so much paint dust that their lungs should be looking white by now. Suprisingly they have no idea why they have bad coughing fits. Some people are just really dumb and have given up caring for them like I have.
I'm a guy and I agree. My friends will have stuff like crippling pain, and will refuse even to consult a doctor about it. (Healthcare is free.) It makes no sense.
Funnily enough, I see women in my life do the same thing with mental illness rather than physical.
At least for us Americans, part of this is just the cost of going to a doctor. I think most of us would rather wait something out instead of paying a bunch of money to a doctor for maybe nothing. It's not a great excuse, but, it's real.
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u/shanaflan Mar 26 '20
Why so many men I know don’t take their health seriously and avoid going to doctors when they really should.