Sunday, March 21, 2010

I've decided doctors are not worth the money

I have done a sort of experiment (it wasn't one at the time) and have decided that doctors really are not worth the money paid in insurance to retain their services. If the government decides that we are all forced to pay money to insurance companies, despite being 45 years old, I will purchase the absolute minimum for a catastrophic plan, if that.

I have overuse injuries from my time on the trail. I scoured the Internet and figured out what sort of injuries they were. Not being a doctor, I figured only the doctor could really tell me. When I went to the doctor, he told me the injuries were exactly what I thought they were: Sesamoiditis and tendonits. And like 99% of the things I have gone to the doctor for, there was nothing he could do. The prescription for everything that happens to me is something along the lines of rest, or time with a little ibuprofen or some other over-the-counter medication.

Once in a while I am offered a prescription. I think I'm going to join the legions who drive to Mexico and buy medications there. The only prescriptions of any use are antibiotics. Anything stronger than that usually comes with side effects. Thanks to taking a depression medication I am left with life-long tinnitis. You know what works better than depression medication? Not working at shitty jobs where people treat you like crap. I should have taken the depression medication long enough to quit the shitty job and then stop before my ears were ruined.

I have absolutely zero faith in the prescription drug industry anymore. They make lifestyle meds for chronic illnesses and then after people have taken them for about a decade, we learn that besides the constipation and dry-mouth, the sever muscle weakness and liver failure, a large portion of people are left with debilitating heart defects or are dying. No thank you!

Our medical industry is not worth paying for and I resent that I will soon be forced to pay for it. With the Internet it seems I can diagnose myself and find a simple treatment for 99% of what ails me. If we could just go to the pharmacy and buy what we needed like they do in Mexico or Nepal, I could maintain good health without the expense and the bother of doctors and insurance companies. I certainly wouldn't have had to take blood tests and get X-rays to be given a diagnosis I already figured out, be offered a treatment of rest, ice and ibuprofen, and now be stuck paying for it all.

Let the doctors put me back together if a car runs me over or take me apart if some internal organ has a big problem. Otherwise, leave me alone.

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