So you took your symptoms to the doctor and came home with a diagnosis. That’s the first step to getting better. Or is it?
Symptoms are often misinterpreted and tests can also fail to give correct feedback. Misdiagnosis is not uncommon. It happens in emergency rooms, cancer centers and in every aspect of medicine.
The even bigger issue is that many conditions are overlooked by the medical community in lieu of what could be called “designer diseases” with new pharmaceutical support by “designer drugs”. This is where problems often begin.
Take the complaints of a Lyme’s Disease patient and compare them to those of a fibromyalgia patient. You might easily confuse them with their similarities. You might also find the same symptoms for signs of menopause, neuropathy, chronic fatigue, lupus, arthritis and many, many more conditions. The question is, which one do you really have?
As I see it, many of the problems of misdiagnosis, are because most doctors follow what pharmaceutical providers tell them. A product that manages pain and discomfort of a condition is developed by Big Pharma and is professionally marketed to increase the “need.” The pharmaceutical representative schools the doctor as to who should be provided these medications and gives as much “encouragement” in favors and gifts as is legally allowed to promote use.
Then you show up with your complaints. The doctor has new samples for you to try which were given to them by the “oh so friendly” pharmaceutical salesperson. Suddenly, you become a victim of the most current disease.
If finding a cure is your goal you will have to ask some questions before accepting a diagnosis or medications:
• Ask if the medication being offered cures your disease or just mitigates symptoms and ask how long will it be prescribed.
• Ask what the side effects of the medication are and how it affects the other organs that must support its presence in the body. Request the detailed written information from package inserts.
• Ask if your symptoms are similar to any other diseases or conditions. Then check for yourself on line.
• Ask if your doctor is willing to research any other possible diagnosis before medicating you.
• Ask for tests that will prove your diagnosis, or at least rule out other possibilities, before assuming you have a condition.
A misdiagnosis leaves you in a position to only manage your symptoms and never cure the situation. Medicating the wrong condition or multiple symptoms incorrectly can take your body into new areas of pain and discomfort or serious illness and death.
Just because there is a pill for it does not mean you actually have the condition you are being offered as a diagnosis. Do some research and arm yourself with questions and facts. Being accurately diagnosed is the difference between being managed or cured.