Posted on 03/18/2015 6:14:28 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax
The term “overdiagnosis” came into vogue in 2011, with the publication of best seller Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health, by MDs H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz, and Steve Woloshin. As lead author Welch explains in his introduction: “While the term sounds like it means simply ‘excessive diagnosis,’ it actually has a more precise meaning. Overdiagnosis occurs when individuals are diagnosed with conditions that will never cause symptoms or death.”
Overdiagnosis matters because the health care system has no mechanism in place for distinguishing between a legitimate diagnosis and an overdiagnosis. As such, an overdiagnosed patient will likely get treated, but by definition can derive no benefit from the treatment. Since nearly all medical therapies carry some potential of harm, this patient can only be harmed.
Here is an oft-quoted passage from the book: “[I] believe that, ironically, pursuing health requires not paying too much attention to it. Dwelling on the disease we may develop in the future could become a real source of anxiety. It could lead us to seek too much medical care—which of course could lead to overdiagnosis.”
Prevalent examples of overdiagnosis include the lowering of risk-threshold levels for such conditions as hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Closely related are the comically overblown claims made for cholesterol reduction. How many millions of people are needlessly taking drugs for these phantom conditions and are enduring the side effects? Worse, how many of these side effects—notorious for statins—are explained away as...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
If you don’t want to be sick stay away from a Doctor. If you go he will find something wrong with you... count on it. You paid him to do it and he is duty bound to give you what you pay for. He may make sure you keep coming back for more.
If you are really sick you’ll probably know it.
Most sick people get well and the ones that don’t are going to die anyway.
Hurt people, that is another thing. They can often be helped. Ortho is the happy specialty for a good reason. They can usually fix people.
There are times when medical intervention is needed. A week ago I had my first non-OB physical in 10 years. I scheduled it only because I felt so horrible all winter-my heart was racing and often felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest. It kept me up at night and my hands were often shaking. I’ve been constantly snacking and eating and still slowly losing weight. During a week in which I ate only 3 large meals a day, I was losing a pound a day.
Turns out I am hyperthyroid. Taking a beta blocker for the past week has made me feel sort of normal again. I have a test today to determine if it is a temporary condition or Graves disease. Having read up on treatments, I have already decided that if it is Graves, I will not follow the typical protocol.
It helps to know what our symptoms mean and then we can do our own research to determine the best course of action. If I ignored this problem I would feel miserable and be a good candidate for a stroke.
I was reprimanded by my doctor because I didn’t know the name of an asthma inhaler. It’s red was all I could tell him.
I simply don’t care.
I was forced to do a sleep study last night. Yea, real easy to sleep in a hard bed with about 15 wires connected to you and an infra red camera above the bed.
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