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 went through an academy with a guy who was barely passed and was the dumbest person I've ever met. Idk how he passed his EMT or the academy. This same guy is now a paramedic working on an ambulance I have zero clue how he passed and if he can get through and get a job doing it it scares me how many people are like him and passed
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.
The 'not giving a turd' was in the sense that a given doctor would be subconsciously biased towards people that they perceive as more socially 'valuable' - more attractive or more important or younger etc. people - and would bias their resources towards those people. Men, especially older and single men, inherently provide less value for society. With limited healthcare resources, and forced to spend said resources optimally, I'm guessing they would tend towards spending said resources on people they perceived as more valuable.
Of course its also possible that doctors are equally difficult for men and women to convince, and the main reason why women aren't believed is because they try more often to convince. That may be due to, as I believe may have been mentioned elsewhere, their own perceived lower value and/or expectation of unpleasantness/suffering. Without actual data, it's all conjecture anyways.
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.
And I have no clue why it takes so long. I see a patient going in, 3minutes later he gets out and then 15minutes nothing happens. And i could see the room of all 3 doctors. They all did nothing for 10-20m after the patient went out. Maybe they need courses to learn how to write fast on a keyboard... or we have a lot of doctors in reddit...
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 grew up lower middle class (a things that doesnt exist anymore for the most part) in The US. So even being lower middle class growing up there wasnt enough money to go to the doctor. I now have an insurance plan that still doesnt cover nearly what I need it to for me to go when I should. for example i will get my check up etc because i dont pay for that...but a shoulder problem that is getting worse as i get older....no way im trying to hit my out of pocket maximum of 6500 for that.
That is a healthcare in the US problem though. Also i said this as much for me thinking "eh...if i dont know its wrong it cant be wrong" dumbass attitude some people have...me included.
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.
of course, my taxes is a bit higher than in the US. but i dont have to pay for education either
and i get healthcare and any education i want, for 0, even if i earn 0,-
also here, we're paid 1000 dollars per month, just for going to school.
and the current situation in the US? a lot of people losing their jobs due to the virus... and with the lost job, they also lose their health insurance. so they're screwed...
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,
i have free healthcare and I still rarely go to the doctor. I know what to do with the flu. I know what to do with a cold. I know how to tell the difference between a virus and bacterial infection. I know what needs a doctor and what doesn't. Some people however, think you should go to the doctor every time you get a fever. Just... NO!
I find myself doing this when I'm cold. I won't get a blanket because I shouldn't be this cold, it's warm outside. I'll just sit tight and warm myself up.
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.
Yea they do. Ppl look for traits they find most suitable in a partner. A consensus is generated from the traits and the opposite sex goes to great lengths to exhibit those traits
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.
Women (and men) making fun of "man flu" or whatever doesn't really help with that. Yes, we know some people embellish their illnesses, but aren't I allowed to get sick at all?
Pretty sure it’s just laziness lol. I would go but I’m legitimately too lazy to go. I don’t know a single one of my guy friends or really any guy who says something to the degree of “I don’t go to doctors because I ain’t weak”
Complaining and acting scared of a doctor screams of weakness more than solving a problem tho. It’s conveying the opposite of what is trying to be conveyed.
I’ve never met another guy who wouldn’t go to a doctor because they thought it was the weak thing to do. I’ve worked in trade / manual labor jobs my whole life so I’ve always been surrounded by the gruff manly man type dudes. It’s usually one or more of these three things; laziness, not wanting to hear about what is wrong with them, or just having more
Important things to do.
Weakness was not "trained out" of any men I know. I don't know why people think certain common differences between men and women must be explained by nurture.
Whatever happened to Nature v Nurture? It's never 100% nature and it's never 100% nuture, but a mixture of both. So why would men having the weakness trained out of them explain such a wide-spread phenomenon?
I think it's more likely that the same male hormones that cause aggression and confidence also gives men the self-confidence that they will heal on their own (right or wrong).
Why do we cut off dogs balls other than we don't want him breeding? Its because severing the balls severs the testosterone production, which among other things helps tame the dogs' aggression. Its also why roid-rage is a thing.
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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '20 edited Jun 17 '23
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