'After careful review of our financial expenditure and NICE guidance, Greenwich CCG is proposing that certain procedures are only funded by the NHS on an exceptional basis.
TED is also known as bulging eyes. Most patients have mild TED, with symptoms limited to dry eye and mild diplopia. These are easily treated with eye drops and ointments. Conservative therapy has traditionally been recommended for these patients, although there is emerging evidence for early medical treatment. Corticosteroids is the most commonly used medical therapy in active moderate-to-severe TED.' Please will Thyroid UK consult with Greenwich ?
On top of the T3 supply 'consultation' with NHSCC this new bashing is the final straw. We're on our own, thyroidies. Can no-one champion our cause and be heard ?
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Rapunzel
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Having had "mild diplopia" transiently for reasons nothing to do with TED, it is not something I'd want to live with, possibly forever. It could be enough to lose you your job, your driving licence, your ability to using the internet effectively (probably struggle through but making it unpleasant and difficult), reading fluently, etc.
There may be approaches that reduce its impact (pinhole "glasses", patch over one eye), but still not satisfactory.
Something that's surprised me since being ill is that losing your job is not seen as a big deal by medics. I'd always believed the Marxist analysis that a lot of public healthcare was developed to keep the workers working. But turns out that is not true at all
Something that's surprised me since being ill is that losing your job is not seen as a big deal by medics.
That's because this is mostly a woman's complaint (((Rod))) and many medics would prefer us barefoot pregnant and in the kitchen than working. The barstewards
Rapunzel You have a point - controlling the work force, bit like my son said about the removal of T3 and NDT - maybe they know giving t4 only doesn't work for most - population control! Are we not heading for a situation where we are going to be 'top heavy' they can't afford us all to make 'old age'.
I have had 'dry eyes', but not double vision, so I've never associated it with my hypoT, but when I think about it flared up around the same time as initial goitres?
I do wonder if it was more a male oriented condition how much better treatment there would be?
Every time I tell a doctor that I would want to get back to work they look at me like I had said something very funny. I assume many patients don't want to work so they think one that wants to work is weirdo
Hehe, I've had a similar experience. It wasn't till I actually did lose my job that I realised what the strange looks meant - she knew I had no hope of continuing to work. But I wish she could have explicitly said that. I also wish she would write it on my benefit forms!
I find doctors say a lot either as an almost silent mutter, or with their eyebrows. It's much harder to pin then down to use their words and say it properly!
Sort of a bit off topic , but over here in finland doctors and nurses are taught how to meet a patient. They added a new course to medical school. Funny thing is that the teacher is an actor!!!
Apparently it seems to work very well and that course is popular.
That's not funny, that's perfectly normal. Who better to teach people how to behave in different circumstances. A lot of companies in France use actors for the same reason.
But, all actors are teachers, it's the nature of their job. And all teachers are actors - the good ones, anyway.
It's an actors job to know, and be able to portray, all human emotions and reactions. Otherwise, they wouldn't be much of an actor. They can put themselves into all sorts of situations and role-play. Teaching doctors and nurses how to welcome a patient and put them at their ease, wouldn't be that difficult for an actor.
I agree, but you would think they had knowledge of human nature in medical school. So it sounds not so logical that emotions and feelings are taught at acting school the way it would help doctors and nurses.
Sorry, I just don't follow you at all, on this one. You know what Shakespeare said? All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players...
The trouble with most doctors and nurses is that they are shut up in their little ivory hospital towers, and socialise with each other - even marry each other - and don't have much contact with real people outside - they usually had a pretty exclusive education, anyway - and they are not really interested in people as people, but as body parts - some of which talk. And they don't really know how to deal with the talking bits.
I try to say that you would assume that they would have some knowledge of human nature in medical school as doctors are not only taught how to treat physical illness but mental too.
So you could make quick assumption that they would actually understand things.
Last thing you would think is that even though actors are master of acting they could provide any useful skills to doctors and nurses as they are just actors and not really specialists of human nature , just specialists of mimicking different emotions.
I just find it funny, not ridiculous, just funny. Or amusing. Hard to find correct words.
Amusing the way that doctors have to admit how little they know! So I am not doubting this method.
I have taken some acting classes at business school , even though I natural customer servant and enjoy being with people when I am healthy I got useful skills how to deal with angry customers and not take the bad stuff home with me after work.
Where I used to work they also had actors to play the patient, and in the exam it was the actor-patient who gave them a grade! Like to try it with a real patient
They probably think you are imagining all these symptoms and illnesses to get out of work anyway, so by saying you want to go back to work they think you are joking!
Joking? Have you ever tried telling a doctor a joke? They just stare at you blankly. They don't think you're intelligent enough to have a sense of humour!
greygoose Yep - did try once, told the dr, jokingly, that the next person who told me I was 'lifestyle tired' was going to get punched...he didn't find that funny either! Balked as if I meant it!!! Twit! Sorry - got my i and a mixed up there!
That is largely the problem, they treat us as if we should not know anything, including how we actually feel and what we experience! How often have you heard 'that is not thyroid' or 'thyroid doesn't do that'....Grrrrrrrh!
I once went to see an allergy doctor - whatever they're called - and did all the tests. Came back with a long list of things I was allergic to. Felt like a bit of a slap in the face. So, to lighten the mood - my mood, anyway - I said, without really thinking, 'oh! I'm allergic to wool! what a shame, I was thinking of having a sheep farm in my back garden! ha ha ha' He stared at me, horrified, and I got a long, long lecture about what horrible creatures sheep were, filthy nasty beasts and I should stay as far away from the as possible! Okayyyyyyyyy
Funny thing is, a few years later, I did end up with a sheep in my back garden - my ex was looking after it for a friend. Not one of my fonder memories...
Indeed, would a surgeon be in the same queue as the rest of us? I doubt it, Rod. They'd 'know someone who knew someone' and it would all be speedily resoved...
All doctors would have the best possible and more expensive treatment, no cash spared if ill. They would not hesitate for a second and certainly they have no sense of social justice. Such arrogant hypocrites!
I've literally just closed the door from having an interesting chat with a local Councillor, canvassing for local Elections.
He has now been educated on the injustice of treating thyroid disease, how I have to buy my own meds from abroad, how the NHS are overcharged for T3 and are stopping prescribing, how I also have to self treat for Lyme disease, how the medical profession have no accountability, how GPs are incentivised for prescribing AD's etc.
PHEW!! Poor man must have been relieved to get away. Give him his due, he was visibly shocked at some of what I said.
I was about to set wheels in motion to investigate my own sight problems, diplopia being one of them.
It's hard to believe that eyesight is treated so casually by the NHS. I always thought the low priority given to cataract ops back in the 90s, and again now, was due more to ageism, but that's clearly not the whole story. Perhaps it's pleb-vision generally that's considered not to matter much.
Edit: or should that be 'plebiscite'? Sorry, couldn't resist (trying to cheer myself up).
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Sorry, couldn't resist (trying to cheer myself up).
What does it feel like to have thyroid eye disease?
BTF Research Award 2018 to Prof Colin Dayan for: Morbidity And Mortality In Liothyronine Treated Patients: LT3 Outcome Study
