NPR has a story today about back pain:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/07/30/206910829/doctors-increasingly-ignore-evidence-in-treating-back-pain
and I was thrilled to see that it reaffirms everything I've been told by my back specialists. Having had to endure more than a year of non-medical people telling me that I should have had x-rays or scans or all those expensive procedures that Americans are all now experts on because of watching television, I can understand why doctors have been increasingly performing unnecessary procedures. Patients believe they need them, and there is nothing that seems so prevalent in today's world than armchair experts. People who barely passed (or didn't) science classes in high school are suddenly experts on climate change, people who can't even balance their checkbooks are experts on the stock market, economy, or both, and now everyone who has ever seen a medical show on television is a doctor. And shockingly, the medical armchair experts are completely and utterly wrong........as they always are.
1 comment:
My experience with doctors and back pain has run the gamut from really, really bad ("Here is a prescription for muscle relaxers but they probably won't help") to so-so ("Well, what do you want to do?"). PT has helped, chiro treatments and exercises have helped, yoga has helped (and sometimes hurt), deep tissue massage has helped, less sitting has helped, Earth shoes have helped, and a new mattress has helped. My current yoga instructor helped when she told me to stop tucking in my tailbone. It's up to us patients to put it all together. Hope *your* back continues to improve.
Post a Comment