Just saw the news item this morning about doctors suffering Long Covid. When COVID happened I must say I thought ‘they’ (doctors) must be prepared for anything due to their choice of job. (Perhaps a little uncharitably due to my anger about my own situation at the time). They are presumably exposed to many illnesses day to day. Well it turns out that those doctors who were prepared to put themselves on the frontline are finding themselves in a very similar situation to many of us suffering from thyroid issues. Many have lost income as well as health, some unable to go back to work etc etc. My immediate thought was that we and our government owe these people to do the best we can to provide them with support. They did their bit. They should have been better protected then and they should be protected now - if nothing else we have made an huge investment in their education and training and we are already short of doctors and other important medical staff.
Many of us with thyroid problems have had to give up our jobs, lost our careers, lost income, lost our health, lost our ability to contribute on every level. We totally understand this personal dilemma. If doctors are now being treated with similar disdain, for experiencing much of what we do day to day, it’s ridiculous and outrageous.
This situation really does highlight something about our society that is at becoming more and more ‘wrong headed’.
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The incentive structures between Big Government, Big Pharma, Big Tech and doctors are all rigged / skewed towards finding Big New Drug “breakthrough” solutions to problems / dilemnas, new and old.
Whether it’s doctors and nurses not getting the help they need - or, let’s face it, not finding other doctors who believe them and take their illnesses at face value - or other civilians who also feel alone and ill, the solutions are the same: change the record, start listening to what patients say, look back in history to solutions that worked before, don’t assign stress / low mood / mental health as a cause unless patients agree, look at patterns of symptoms, observe patients’ vital signs and energy over a long period, aim for small wins and never leave patients in the dustbin of the not-believed / too difficult.
The incentive structures between Big Government, Big Pharma, Big Tech and doctors are all rigged / skewed towards finding Big New Drug “breakthrough” solutions to problems / dilemnas, new and old.
I would agree - but another way "they" want to make money is by repurposing existing drugs. I read just a few days ago that statins are probably going to be repurposed as "cancer preventers" which, personally, I don't believe at all.
Re-purposing. Yes we have seen this before, Thalidomide for one. Interferon I think was another. Viagra. No doubt if one was a success it’s likely there could be another. Something similar ‘baked’ with T3, allowing vast sums to be made by entrepreneurs (polite version) spotting a lucrative opportunity.
Aim for small wins. I could not agree more. That’s where the difference happens. It’s all very well “New drug breakthrough” but really we have watched this stuff happen time and time again (eg statins) and another biggie in bringing about ill health I am willing to bet on, Ozempic. Do not treat people as if they are one herd. At least give us that respect. Even ‘Rise and Recline’ can tell the difference! Oh goodness too much telly watching.
I doubt if few bookies would take your bet on Ozempic! A brief check of numerous sliiming pills over many years confirms that they are generally withdrawn due to adverse effects etc including cancer nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N...
Yes. I got caught out with some form of ‘speed’ when I was about 16 years old after my Mother took me to the doctor about ‘weight gain’ and asked about my ‘glands’ (Scottish for thyroid issues). That would be about 1969. Hashi flares forever after, until my thyroid gave up the ghost finally. I have always had confused thinking (since) about true energy levels. Anyway it mucked about with my system no end. I would never touch any of similar stuff ever again. My contacts with the NHS have never been entirely successful. My thinking is I was already suffering from thyroid issues, this worsened things considerably. To think my old Mother was right after all.
And yet I have a friend (female) who ensured it was always her husband who took their children to the GP, after realising on several occasions that GPs didn’t listen to her descriptions and wishes. They did to her husband. I’d like to see an experiment that attempts to look at the same thing, over a larger population, because that was definitely my experience, too, with tiny babies, toddlers and now children.
At every turn I agree. My sister reminded me of a mutual friend the other day who privately consistently confided he hated being a GP. We (not him) agreed that he considered being a GP was beneath him. He wanted to be a surgeon but just could not pass the exams/do the work. I feel similar about endos. They can’t crack it in a ‘sexier’ discipline, so endocrinology is where they get stuck. Now I also feel concerned about ‘men on a mission’ (can’t comment on women as there still seems so few female endos). They are ruining endocrinology for those of us who need it. They are using their ‘power’ to downgrade GPS etc. However I wonder how many GPs fall into this category? It’s always women who suffer and if some poor bloke falls into the category of diseases where women dominate, woe betide their chances of decent treatment.
Sadly I think that not believing women is pervasive in the culture.
We just have to think back to the 80s to remember that Margaret Thatcher and Sue Lawley trained themselves to have different accents, in order to be considered serious people, or just people.
And as a mother if you are upset about your child’s health you are shrill or hysterical, if you take time to open up you are a time waster, if you are worried about your child you are a worrier / over-worried, if your child needs to see doctors a lot you must be making something up. These boxes don’t apply in the same way to men.
What’s brought this home to me even more is the difference in attitude I’ve seen towards me between private doctors I’ve need to see for my kids and those in the NHS. There is a persistent wish / trend in the NHs to see problems in children as all in the mothers’ heads. Which makes it hard when your child is a baby and can’t speak for themselves. I only went over to the private sector when I found GPs completely unable to believe what I was saying if they didn’t also see and hear the exact behaviour and words I was conveying to them, when the child was in their room. For some reasons private doctors don’t feel compelled to treat each meeting as a cross examination of the mother. Different story completely, again, when you are a parent in PICU, because here you - parents and doctors - are a team and likewise on post-surgical units and in respiratory health.
You’d think that the role playing medical students have to do in exams would knock these medieval attitudes out of junior doctors before they are let loose on the world.
Role playing is one thing but working in the NHS is quite another. It remains remarkably old fashioned in the worst possible ways. It’s like a business, successful or otherwise. It depends on the ability of the person at the top. Endocrinology in my area for example is ruled over by a remarkably ignorant guy. He ‘performs’ to a wide audience but he is a bully behind closed doors. I am finding this at GP level too. The guy who is in charge of the ‘eye department’ seems remarkably different. His department buzzes and is actually staffed by a lot of Nurse Practitioners. All willing to help and highly motivated. The Gynae department similar from what I have experienced. The calibre of the leader (as in all areas of life) is of utmost importance. Being respectful starts ant the top. Our endocrinology department just does not measure up. A department so depends on its leader. So many have got there (still) by the ‘old rules’, they had to work all the hours that God sends, obey their consultants, be abused by them etc etc. Too busy obeying the rules to think for themselves. I think endocrinology for a lot of hypothyroidism could be handled by bright Nurse Practitioners, if endos would only update their own views. That sense of it being easy to treat just does not wear any more with the narrow views expressed in the NHS. Until things change e.g. that total disrespect for women (in particular) we are definitely getting a ‘steerage’ class treatment. We are inconsequential to too many deadheads. There are signs of change (or at least there were) but it all seems to have gone rapidly downhill again.
I agree that our care would improve a lot if doctors reverted to traditional hypothyroid care of the patient, which is to say prized the well-being and the health of the patient over their TSH number. And delegation of us all over to NPs might assist with this transition.
Endos find hypo patients boring. I don’t know why this is, but it’s just a fact. They think we can be solved and told to go away with the magic TSH number being all they need to do that.
My thyroid condition was picked up by an NP who I was chatting to in my sons’ infant weighing / health session. I told her I was constantly tired, cold and forgetful and she - unlike a string of GPs - listened. That’s what we need.
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