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Wow! You get much better service from doctors when you don't smoke.

MD_Boater

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
I had some sort of virus for over a week. I thought it was a mild cold or the flu until I had 4 sleepless nights, and 5 days of feeling like crud, but no coughing, sneezing, or runny nose. On day #5, I finally took my temperature, and it was 101.3. On day 6, the fever broke, and I felt much better. I awoke on day #7 with what looked like the measles or chicken pox. I had both as a child, but I am over 50 now, so I was thinking it might be the shingles or something like that. I have 15 people working for me in a small space, so I needed to find out if I was contagious before going back to work on Monday.

I went to the doctor, told him what was wrong, and guess what? He actually started looking at what I came in for without using half of the appointment to blame smoking for my ingrown toenail. Near the end of the appointment, he was filling in the report on the computer, and he said, "I see that you quit smoking over 2 years ago, I'm glad that you have not picked it up again. You're lungs sound clear. Much better than I remember.". That was the entire conversation regarding smoking. 3 seconds at the end. You know, it kinda pisses me off that I have paid so much money over the years to doctors for lecturing me instead of treating me. And the lectures were all BS. 5 years ago, they lectured me for weeks that I was feeling bad because I smoked. They lectured me right up until they cut me open and took out my dead, shriveled gall bladder. When I told them I felt great at the post op visit, he said that it wasn't possible because I smoked.

I'm glad he switched that shit off before I had to get a new doctor.

Oh, and the rash cleared in 2 days. The doc said that viral infections sometimes cause a rash on the way out.
 

Teresa P

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Oh yeah, if you smoke, you're trash, and nothing can possibly be wrong with you that isn't directly linked to smoking. You're also trash if you're uninsured. ;)
 

robot zombie

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
I think that for some doctors, it's matter of principle. They're more willing to treat patients who appear to be actively invested in their own health and well being.

I can see how they might think an ingrown toenail would be the least of your problems if you're a smoker. They may look at you and think to themselves that it's not productive to worry about a toenail when you're doing something akin to playing roulette with your lifespan.

Sure, it's unethical, but would anybody be surprised? Think of how many patients they must try unsuccessfully to treat each month. I can somewhat understand their lack of empathy for people with poor lifestyle habits. Why give more attention to the person who's purposely doing something that sabotages their health when they have other patients who live healthier lifestyles suffering? I don't respect it - I think that the only ethical thing to do is devote equal attention to all patients and fix what u can, when you can, but I get it. People can be pretty shitty when they're burned out. Doctors can be opinionated pricks, too... ...and there's nothing worse than an educated, opinionated prick.

I mean, in a way, they're trying to help you, albeit in a totally backwards way. They swear to uphold the principles of non-maleficence when they take the Hippocratic oath, which means that they're supposed to weigh the consequences of intervention against the consequences of waiting it out. It may just so happen that your doctor decided not to intervene for different reasons and simply took that opportunity to lecture you on your smoking, for what they could reasonably see as being to your own benefit. It's a petty way to go about educating and motivating a patient, but it makes sense. Perhaps they simply made a judgement call on the necessity of treating you based on your symptoms alone and simply wanted you to also try to take better care of yourself. All treatments present risks.

They also cost the doctor time and you money. There are plenty of circumstances under which I can see a doctor reasonably denying treatment, though it's hard to argue that this doesn't always result in due diligence on the part of the doctor conducting the investigation. They will sometimes make assumptions based on their knowledge and experience that are later discovered to be completely off the mark in order to save themselves time and you a bit of money. Some don't have the luxury of devoting the time needed to conduct adequately thorough investigations into every patient's symptoms. Sometimes they just call a rabbit a hare and move on to the next one in a very long line of people with potentially serious illnesses.

That's my takeaway based on a few experiences I've had as a known non-smoking, healthy-eating, regularly-exercising individual. That may just be because I try to take the person out of the equation before assigning blame, though. I'm trying very hard to uphold my own goddamned faith in humanity, here.

On a semi-unrelated note, you will probably know if you have shingles. I can tell you from experience that it is excruciating. Imagine having a bundle of coils firing and prodding on the side of your chest and abdomen.
 
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MD_Boater

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
I'm still pissed off about it. They could hand me a damned brochure about the smoking. If I come in for a gash on my arm, don't spend ANY time talking about smoking. Just stop my damn arm from bleeding on the floor.

You do make some good points, but even if they are doing it for the reasons you mention, they are still out of line. That is like my mechanic charging me for 2 hours work, and spending an hour and a half lecturing me that because I don't shine my tires, my engine doesn't deserve to be fixed. If a patient come in and asks a doctor to look at X, then the doctor should treat the patient for X. They should only charge the patient for treating X. If the patient comes in dying from smoking, treat them for smoking. Its really that simple. When I am paying a doctor to treat X, I expect his or her complete focus on treating X. I'm 50 freaking years old. There is not one fucking thing that any doctor can tell me about smoking that I didn't know 30 years ago when I started smoking (okay... so I was a dumb ass - that's my psychiatrist's problem - and my wife's). And I'm really glad that I didn't get shingles... Yuck.

The REAL reason that they do it is peer pressure. If they don't lecture their patients about smoking, they stop getting invited to the alphabet group parties, and are shunned by their political friends. We're scoring a quadruple here folks. We're screwing big tobacco, big pharma, big government, and big lobby all at once with vaping. Tobacco is losing sales, pharma is losing sales (not to mention the R&D money for things like Chantix, patches, etc. that they pissed away), government is losing tax dollars, and the lobbyists (ACA, ALA, AHA, etc.) aren't going to be needed, and will lose their government grants.

I still say that they should support vaping until such time as they find someone, anyone, who was harmed by vaping. When they do, we will all know his or her name. Every passing day implies more and more that vaping is safe. We're in year 8 (or 9 or 10) that people have been vaping. There IS plenty of evidence that vaping is safe - the complete lack of people made sick, or damaged by it.
 

MrScaryZ

VU Donator
Platinum Contributor
Member For 5 Years
I had some sort of virus for over a week. I thought it was a mild cold or the flu until I had 4 sleepless nights, and 5 days of feeling like crud, but no coughing, sneezing, or runny nose. On day #5, I finally took my temperature, and it was 101.3. On day 6, the fever broke, and I felt much better. I awoke on day #7 with what looked like the measles or chicken pox. I had both as a child, but I am over 50 now, so I was thinking it might be the shingles or something like that. I have 15 people working for me in a small space, so I needed to find out if I was contagious before going back to work on Monday.

I went to the doctor, told him what was wrong, and guess what? He actually started looking at what I came in for without using half of the appointment to blame smoking for my ingrown toenail. Near the end of the appointment, he was filling in the report on the computer, and he said, "I see that you quit smoking over 2 years ago, I'm glad that you have not picked it up again. You're lungs sound clear. Much better than I remember.". That was the entire conversation regarding smoking. 3 seconds at the end. You know, it kinda pisses me off that I have paid so much money over the years to doctors for lecturing me instead of treating me. And the lectures were all BS. 5 years ago, they lectured me for weeks that I was feeling bad because I smoked. They lectured me right up until they cut me open and took out my dead, shriveled gall bladder. When I told them I felt great at the post op visit, he said that it wasn't possible because I smoked.

I'm glad he switched that shit off before I had to get a new doctor.

Oh, and the rash cleared in 2 days. The doc said that viral infections sometimes cause a rash on the way out.
My Doctors which is more than one could care less what you do .. Its a business !
 

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