Just me or is it the doctors...?

D

DarkWater

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...Ring...ring..... .. "Hello?" ..(whisper voice)...7 days........ ..

Well that's how long my colds last at minimum these days, anyway here's my dilemma I don't really understand.

Say for instance you find yourself having a cold/flu or whatever and you have to go the doctor. Well I my case I usually hate the idea since I can barely sit/stand/lie down at home due to the cough/sinus/stuffiness etc. and now I have to go park at the GP's office. Strangely enough as soon as you walk through those doors you already start feeling a bit better. Nothing happened it's just maybe the smell or the general idea that you're actually at the doctor. I honestly don't now. Then after the doctor gives you your prescription (and rips you of R200-R300 odd) you start feeling even more healthy (excluding the financial part). Then finally when you go to the pharmacy and collect your meds you can feel your illness already improving before even taking the meds. Murphy's Law?

This time I tried to avoid the doctor for longer only to discover that I was just fooling myself. So if you don't go...you feel the same or worse but if you do go you feel better before even taking any meds..you might need even need the meds...Sigh :confused:

oh well.....atleast this chick climbing through my TV looks healthy...err...not
 
DarKWateR said:
...Ring...ring..... .. "Hello?" ..(whisper voice)...7 days........ ..

Well that's how long my colds last at minimum these days, anyway here's my dilemma I don't really understand.

Say for instance you find yourself having a cold/flu or whatever and you have to go the doctor. Well I my case I usually hate the idea since I can barely sit/stand/lie down at home due to the cough/sinus/stuffiness etc. and now I have to go park at the GP's office. Strangely enough as soon as you walk through those doors you already start feeling a bit better. Nothing happened it's just maybe the smell or the general idea that you're actually at the doctor. I honestly don't now. Then after the doctor gives you your prescription (and rips you of R200-R300 odd) you start feeling even more healthy (excluding the financial part). Then finally when you go to the pharmacy and collect your meds you can feel your illness already improving before even taking the meds. Murphy's Law?

This time I tried to avoid the doctor for longer only to discover that I was just fooling myself. So if you don't go...you feel the same or worse but if you do go you feel better before even taking any meds..you might need even need the meds...Sigh :confused:

oh well.....atleast this chick climbing through my TV looks healthy...err...not
Click to expand...

Tough luck. It would have been AWESOME had she been hot - kinda kinky... :)
 
Placebo effect probably. I experienced exactly the same feeling yesterday. I got up in the morning my sinuses totally blocked up then took one of those anti-congestive pills that did nothing during the previous day, but lo and behold when I was waiting to see a doctor my sinuses cleared up totally. "Morning doc. I was very sick just now - really. No, I'm not only looking for attention..."
 
I read about some studies that found that taking NOTHING was just effective as taking medication for colds. Colds & flu are either bacterial or viral but more likely the latter and the only way to tell is through swabbing and expensive & time-consuming tests. So obviously doctors don't bother and just take a chance that it might be bacterial and give you antibiotics. So lame. In the process they enlist you in the super dodgy and ultimately self-defeating experiment in breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
There's not much you can do about viral except treat it symptomatically: support your immune system: vitamin C, echinacea purpurea extract, lots of water, lemon juice in hot water, definitely nothing with sugar.
Otherwise best thing to do (but hard for most of us) is to fast, i.e. not eat. There's an old saying which you might have heard as: feed a cold and starve a fever. Well that's actually a corruption or misinterpretation of the original wisdom: IF you feed a cold then you will have to starve a fever. (i.e. if you eat while suffering from a cold it's more likely to lead to further complications, even influenza).

In my view bacteria are not the cause of disease. Bacteria are like flies: they don't cause rotting and decay. Instead, they come to mop up the decay. Think about that scene in Gladiator where someone uses maggots to clean a wound. When cells die (through viral action, toxicity or imbalanced diet) they burst open and release their sugars - which the bacteria come to feed on.
 
spacemuis said:
In the process they enlist you in the super dodgy and ultimately self-defeating experiment in breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on this one! Doctors who prescribe antibiotics at the drop of a hat, and the patient guilty of happily accepting them, are screwing it for everyone! Even those of us who refuse to take them unless it is a matter of life and death will also get affected by this super bacteria that is getting unwittingly cultivated! I hear of people getting and taking antibiotics for the smallest little problems. The human body is designed to fight infections... let it do some of this fighting before rushing off for your fix of drugs. The fight will only make you stronger.
 
The low down:

There are +/- 200 cold viruses - no treatment will change length of illness. You should not get the same one again.

A cold can give you bronchitis,pharyngitis laryngitis ,tonsilitis, middle ear infection, sinusitis - you may need antibiotics if bacterial infection ensues -clues are green/brown phlegm , pus , white or yellow stuff.

influenza(flu) changes every year - more dangerous - clues are muscle aches and hot/cold sensation. treatment available now if given early and prevention available -vaccine-(only 60% protection
because it can change in a few months as mentioned earlier) or prophylaxis while taking tablets. complications as per cold + more serious possibilities.

antibiotics are prescribed too frequently. most nb thing - finish the course so all bacteria are killed and can't develop resistance.- otherwise if you need that antibiotic again it may not work on you.
 
not getting a virus you have fixed up by some sort of drug will stop you from getting something worse

so while the medication may not help the current case, believe me its helping in the long run

i didnt go to the doctor for flu 2 yeears and got the worst case of bronchitis i have ever had

i was down for nearly 1 week and felt worse than i have ever felt in my entire life, had i just gone to the doc when i was first sick that would not have happened
 
I'm prone to the winter diseases due to a bad allergic drip down my throat. All the nasty critters seem to concentrate there.

Anyway, when the flu shot become available, I'm one of the first in the queue (March or early April).
This works for me.

The one year I was "late" in taking the shot, and had a bad bronchitis.

Prevention is much better than getting the dreaded disease of flu :)
 
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