Before I get into the concerning stats I read this morning that I want to share with you, I want to tell you a little bit about my story.
I have had good doctors and I have had bad doctors. More bad than good, unfortunately. As a child I was struggling to breathe for the first 2 years of my life. Every pediatrician my mother took me to said that children don't develop allergies and asthma until 3. Finally, after months of watching her baby suffer, she found one that agreed with her - yep! Allergies, asthma.
As a teenager, I started my period around 13. From the very beginning they were horrible boys, scroll down if you get uggy about women-things. My cramps were so painful I couldn't function. I couldn't concentrate in class, I couldn't even sit down...all I could do is lay curled up in a fetal position. Often they would be so bad I would vomit or pass out. Passing out, though, was the best remedy for them. If I could pass out, somehow my body would "reset" and the pain would disappear.
After over a decade of being on birth control pills (and all of the life-altering personality changes that goes with them, including suicide attempts and depression) I discovered, quite by accident, what was actually happening. The doctors diagnosed me with endometriosis - which is almost impossible to confirm because it requires exploratory surgery that no insurance company will approve. In fact, one year I had started a new job and was so embarrassed because my boss found me passed out on the bathroom floor nearly naked (laying against cold tile helped ease the symptoms) so I called my doctor. Her recommendation was to prescribe me oxycodine. No wonder our drug problem in the US is so bad. I told her 'thanks, but no thanks, the point is to be able to FUNCTION at work, not be stoned off my gourd'.
So quite by accident I found the real reason behind my pain - in most people under duress or pain, their body raises their blood pressure, releases adrenaline and gets them ready for fight or flight. However, in 10% of the population, the opposite occurs. Essentially, my body was shutting down and going into shock once a month. The solution? Coffee. If I could artificially increase my blood pressure and heart rate, the pain because completely bearable.
Side note - coffee is a medicinal herb. It's an herbal tea made out of the roasted beans of the coffee trees whose main medicinal constituent is caffeine.
Going back to my teenage years, I was in a farm accident that broke a few ribs, lacerated my spleen, and completely ruined my lumbar. Years after years of abuse later and my back had given up. I was in chronic pain in college. I lost nearly all of my friends because all I could think about, all I could talk about, was how badly my back hurt. Again, after seeing dozens of doctors, I had done physical therapy (multiple times), chiropractic (multiple times), ultrasound therapy (multiple times), epidural steroid injections (multiple times), and, at 22, was on such heavy narcotic painkillers with no other options I was suicidal. I was a cripple at 22, who couldn't function unless on heavy-duty drugs. What kind of life was left for me?
Long story short, I found a cure for that too - yoga. When my hamstrings and glutes are tight from sitting down for too long, it creates extra stress on my lumbar, causing it to curve and cause me pain and sciatica.
So for two different ailments, I blew through dozens of doctors and years of pain - only to be told that heavy-duty, mind-altering and life-ending narcotics were the only solutions - to find perfectly safe, healthy, actual treatments for my ailments. The health system had failed me completely.
That being said, I have two stories as well of doctors who saved me: I had separated from my first husband when my back started REALLY acting up again. However, I didn't make the connection. A great doctor saw immediately that the stress from my divorce was causing me to be physically tense and aggravate my already bad back.
The birth of my son was also as amazing an experience as I could have ever hoped for. The epidural was amazing - I didn't feel a thing. The midwives also brought me tools to help me focus on what I was doing (I won't go into gory detail), we were laughing and joking around the entire labor, and at the end of it, my 9 lb line-backer of a baby tore me from stem to stern. I would have been one of those "died in childbirth" cases had it been even 100 years ago. I'm forever grateful to the nurses and midwives that that day went as beautifully as it did.
So now for the scary statistics you came here for:
Adverse drug reactions are the 4th leading cause of death in the United States. ADR's include serious drug side effects, product use errors, product quality problems and therapeutic failures. This does NOT include deaths caused by physician or pharmacy error. There are more deaths every year from ADR's than from pulmonary disease, diabetes, pneumonia, accidents and automobile deaths. Source
Hospitals produce 1/5 of the US waste stream's mercury (a neurotoxin now found in a lot of fish) which is released into the air during medical waste incineration or dumped into waterways. Source
Estrogen from the urine of women are birth control pills which ends up back in our waterways and other pollutants is finding its way into our fresh water fish. About 85% of the male smallmouth bass collected in national wildlife refuges in Northeastern US had eggs growing in their testes. Source
- Tens of BILLIONS of dollars are spent every year on pharmaceutical marketing. Source
Fun fact = your doctor is also probably receiving kick backs from these pharmaceutical companies. Check out this website and do a search for your doctor to see: https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/
Antibiotic misuse and overuse is creating a global epidemic that creates superbugs and is creating a global shortage in antibiotics. Source More on that later.
Of the countries assessed by National Institutes of Health in 2013, the US had the highest or near-highest prevalence of infant mortality, heart and lung disease, and other issues, placing the US at the bottom of the list for life expectancy. Source
Pharmaceutical companies spent $277 MILLION last year in lobbying alone to create legislation that benefits them. Source
While there are many more disturbing statistics that paint a gruesome picture of the health care industry in the US, we have to fully understand where we are to get a picture of where we need to go.
I won't sit here and preach to you what I think we need to do to fix it. Instead, I want to hear from you. What are you experiences with health care in the US? All bad? All good? Mostly good but we have some room to grow? Or have you completely written off modern medicine?
My health care experiences have been mostly good although there's been an odd handful I wasn't happy with. For example, when I finally caved in and got my depression diagnosis, my doctor went straight to antidepressants as the cure and while I think they helped snap my brain out of it, they also caused me to gain weight like crazy and when I went back to her asking how to wean off of them (because I was feeling better, and now the negative side effects began outweighing the initial positive outcome) she insisted I should never stop taking them! Another doctor later agreed with me that I could get off them and switch over to St. John's Wort instead. It hasn't been 100% effective but is close enough.
I won't even started on the homebirth vs hospital birth thing...let's just say I was NOT happy with the hospital experience at all; in fact that's what sank me into PPD in the first place. Ugh.
Otherwise, it's been a good experience overall.
I think that's the most important lesson I've learned - keep going finding a new doctor until you get one that talks your same language. I could explain exactly what it FELT like was happening in my back, but all of the MRIs and x-rays came back negative. Until that one chiropractor looked at my MRI and said 'well this is what it is.' I started crying because he was explaining exactly what it FELT like - but the radiologists are looking for bulging or herniated discs or breaks or very severe stuff. I had a curve in my spine which was causing degenerative discs. Subtle enough they didn't see it, but big enough to cause me chronic pain. So yes - some docs are worth it, some aren't.
And I'm sorry to hear about your birth experience. I hear about too many women who have horrible hospital birth experiences. It's really a shame our modern medicine is so barbaric when it comes to childbirth. :(
Wow what a story. I've heard some abhorrent tales about the U.S. healthcare system and am always quite baffled. I'm saddened to say that here in the Netherlands healthcare got privatized a few years ago and my opinion is it isn't an improvement.
I still think modern medicine is better then most stuff prescribed by homeopathic witch-doctors but I do think o dose of healthy skepticism is helpful in every situation. I also believe a lot of people underestimate the power of a good diet and plenty of exercise, the latter of which I get to little.
I'm hopeful that the accelerated pace of technology will provide us with the means to live longer and healthier in the years to come.
I wish you good health and a long and happy life!
Thank you @aka-alias. I'm studying herbalism myself because I do believe there is a LOT of medicinal properties in plants - some which science has identified and some that it has not. HOWEVER, I will also agree that 90% of diseases and illnesses and even chronic pain disorders can be mitigated, if not cured, with diet and exercise. Humans were meant to walk all day, chasing the antelope, and forage on what we could find - mainly plants, roots and nuts. Our sedentary lifestyles and processed, sugar and salt filled diets are killing us. But that's a rant for a different day!
I'm not sure privatization is the right idea for the US, mainly because our government has already proven to be slow, full of waste, inefficient, and corrupt. In theory it would be great, but I can see it being a nightmare in practice. Maybe I'm too cynical.
Thank's for your reply. I agree with all you state in it.
I tend to cook my own food and not go for pre-made foodstuffs as I find them to sweet/salty and bland in taste.
I guess privatization might be more risky in a country like the US that is a lot larger and has a lot more people living in it compared to the Netherlands.
Oh, what i forgot to add in my first reply. I like your generous application of sauce in your post! Thank you for that!
Happy to! I think stats have more of an impact when they're cited. Otherwise it's just "something I read on the internet".
Just like in any profession, there are good doctors and bad doctors. Doctors are better when they have a drive to heal people, worse when they become doctors because dad or mom was a doctor, or they just want to make a lot of money.
The health industry, AKA the 'Medical Industrial Complex' is all about profits today it seems. Science has sold out to the highest bidder, in as much as medical research facilities are taking kickbacks to fudge results of testing toward the positive in new drug studies. People will say "that's silly - 'they' just wouldn't do that", but I have read plenty of well-researched articles by sincere and professional independent journalists who beg to differ.
Just look at all the prescription drug commercials on while watching mainstream news at night. Somebody's making a killing.
I agree completely. Just like the big ag industry, they're putting profits before people. I feel like an industry that's so directly related to the overall wellbeing and success of a peoples or society should be FORCED to put people first.
I used to work at an equine hospital (taking care of horses) when there was an influx of colic cases from one specific barn. Turns out they had all been dewormed with one VERY popular brand of dewormer. After treating the horses, calling the company, and getting lawyers involved. This very popular brand of dewormer (created and sold by Merial) had a bad batch. The big pharma lawyers got involved and basically told the owners of the horses that they would pay their horses' medical bills if they would keep their mouths shut about this bad batch. The only reason we could identify it was caused by this dewormer is because over 20 horses went down at the same time. But imagine the 100's of individual horses that colicked and possibly died from this bad-batch dewormer whose owners have no idea it was caused by the dewormer. Left a very bad taste in my mouth for the pharmaceutical companies.
Sorry you've had all that trouble - I can relate to back pain - I suffer terribly from it since I was very young and had a motorbike accident.
My story is much like yours. Being misdiagnosed for 10 years for something a $1 blood test could have found. I diagnosed myself and changed doctors till I found one that would test me for diabetes. 9 bouts of Pneumonia should have been enough reason to test, but...
I agree with you on herbal medicine. I've been studying and learning for 35 years now. There is a place for both herbs and prescription drugs. But knowing I have had 4 MAJOR reactions to medications, I try to work with a doctor to try herbs first.
Diet, exercise and weight are no guarantee to prevent illness. Genetics and the chemicals we breath plays a big part too. Everyone should do a little research on the number of athletes with either type 1 or 2 diabetes or the exercise guru's who have had heart attacks.
In my mind, saying herbs (or prescriptions)is the only way is akin to trying to say all "whatever color" people are ______. Everyone is different, there are no guarantees and we have ZERO idea of exactly what all the chemicals we have been eating most of our lives does to our bodies.
I am going through doing without the first diabetes medication that actually worked for me. Why? My insurance changed prescription drug companies at the new year. Suddenly I needed to be pre-certified for a drug I had been taking for months.
Tomorrow I have an appointment with a new doctor, because my old doctor hasn't managed to complete the process for pre-certification in two months, lol.
I don't know what the answers are. I am not affiliated with any political party because I don't trust any of them. I will soon run out of money to keep paying for the $650 a month insurance that my husbands company had to provide me after he died. But I live in a Republican states that little offer ZERO help to people in my age group. I guess I will go live under a bridge somewhere if a miracle doesn't happen.
I wish you luck and urge you to hang in there. Miracles tend to come at the last moment.