Do It Yourself Health: What are the Limits?
A number of factors influence the decision to make health care a “Do It Yourself” project. Many people do not have health insurance, which means a visit to the doctor is rarely an option. The Web has a huge amount of information about medical conditions and their symptoms and treatment. And, many formerly prescription drugs have become over the counter, which makes them easily available.
Taking responsibility for one’s own health can lead to better quality of life and better health care. For example, if you explore a condition with which you have been diagnosed on the Web, you may discover how to take better care of yourself but also treatment options your doctor may not have known about. However, even though the average person has access to a lot of information and effective drugs, there are times to call in the professionals.
Most of us are pretty good at dealing with scrapes and bruises that happen in every day life. We put some antibiotic ointment on it and cover it with a bandage. But when the cut doesn’t heal after a couple of days or when there are signs of infection such as redness and soreness, then it is time to call in the big guns. There are too many serious infections going around to take a chance on continuing to doctor oneself because soon a little problem can become a big problem.
Frequently when a person has been diagnosed with a chronic illness or condition such as diabetes, time between doctor appointments increases as the condition comes under control. Yet, it is important to monitor the condition regularly even though everything has been just fine because you want to be able to catch problems as early as possible.
Then there are the people who have serious symptoms but are afraid to go to the doctor. You have a pain in the stomach. Well, there are plenty of heartburn medicines and other medications for stomach problems, so you start in on those. The problem does not go away. The feeling some of these people have is, “if I go to the doctor, they will find something seriously wrong and I can’t deal with that.” By the time these folks get to the doctor, their thoughts have unfortunately become self-fulfilling prophecy. A stomach ulcer can turn to stomach cancer without treatment. Treat the ulcer (and get rid of any bacteria that are involved, something you can’t do over the counter), and you prevent the cancer.
Finally, some people get tempted to go all out on their do it yourself medical projects by performing surgery on themselves. There are times and places that this is appropriate, such as a man who performed an appendectomy on himself because he was living in Antarctica and had no other option. Yet self-surgery for 99.9999% of the people is a very poor choice. Sometimes people choose self-surgery because of embarrassment about a situation; yet the embarrassment is even greater if you have the original problem plus a botched surgery to deal with. And self-surgery can be fatal.
Taking care of yourself as much as you can is a great idea, but do it in tandem with a qualified doctor. They say that people who represent themselves in court have a fool for a lawyer; the same might be said about unqualified people who are their own doctors.