My own pointless doctor visits

The other day, I looked up my old my medical records using an online “patient portal.” I wanted to see how it worked. Because I normally resist seeking medical attention, I didn’t have many records. (I don’t do annual checkups, so that eliminates a lot.) But it got me to thinking about the value of those occasions that I did seek medical attention: vertigo; alarming heart palpitations; pain in groin and huge bump on elbow after falling onto pavement from chair I was standing on; infection in finger that kept getting larger and lasted a couple of months; knee and hip pain.

In all these cases, the problems either resolved on their own or because of my own ministrations. Nevertheless, I was glad I sought medical attention, mostly to find out what caused the problem: glad to learn that vertigo is caused by out-of-place crystals in the inner ear, which I now know how to fix; glad to know my heart is fine—some people just get palpitations (they stopped, by the way); glad to learn that my bones are strong (nothing broken); glad to know my immune system handled the finger infection; glad to find out what was causing my knee problems, allowing me to work on them in my own way.

My sister tells me that her doctor visits were rarely helpful: “Most of my medical visits—especially specialists—have not yielded anything real. I've had two kidney tests with radiation and injections; a lung biopsy; carotid artery ultrasound; three-day heart tests and some I've forgotten. None told me anything except that I had no problems.”

Try it yourself! Make a list of your doctor visits and see what you come up with!

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.