Tuesday 1 October 2013

Painting Over The Walls To Hide The Cracks

Shane used a brilliant phrase in his post last month entitled "What If Everything You Thought You Knew Was A Lie?" describing how Doctors tend to paint over the cracks rather than fixing the problem to get to the root of the cause.



From my own personal experiences I come up against this all too often. Earlier this year when I decided to stop using topical steroid creams and immunosuppressants, I was met with a tonne of aberration from my dermatologist. Even now, after switching derms I still have a stand-off battle when I tell her I'm still not using the steroids, it's almost with spite and malice that she retorts; "Oh of course you're not." as she then rolls her eyes to the back of her head. What she seems to be failing to understand is that I'm not steroid-phobic. I genuinely feel that the treatments I have been given over this 4 and a half year period have done me more harm than good. I'm now worse than I ever was and I can only think to put it down to the prescribed medications after finding nothing other than cats and dust mites that I am severely allergic to (which only happened after my period of stress - I was never that allergic).

When I told my former dermatologist of my findings regarding Red Skin Syndrome and Topical Steroid Addiction he seemed happy enough to want to find out more at my next appointment, but I now realise he only agreed to read them to keep me sweet. The next appointment came and he didn't even bother to look at Dr Rapaport's papers. He told me they bore no credibility. Yet even when I argued that he should take a look at my own blog and read up on the blogs of fellow sufferers who had come out the other side cured he told me that he didn't like all this "technology business" and didn't use computers.

Erm what? You're a doctor living in the 21st century. It's basically your right to use a computer to find out what's going on in the current world!

That is when I decided to switch to seeing another derm, who again seemed to be on my side in the beginning, but as you can see from my previous entries, she turned out to be just as sour. What is their problem? Sure I can understand that it must be somewhat frustrating to be told these creams that you've been telling your patient to apply liberally are in fact the cause of the problem, but to outright dismiss the idea when all other treatments have been exhausted? I think it would at least be worth a try, no?

I realise that this isn't all the fault of doctors however, as Shane stated in his post, there are some scary convictions relating to dermatologists particularly regarding why they chose the specialism; not because they have an interest in the subject but because of the healthy pay packet and more time off. That kind of heralds part of the reasoning as to why they seem to stick so vigilantly to their treatments of topical steroids and immunosuppressants. If you're not bothered about your patients with recurring eczema that only gets worse why not just chuck something stronger at it instead of addressing the cause of the problem. It makes me angry.

Sure, there are some derms out there who do care about their patients and not just from a medical perspective, they do genuinely care for their well-beings (look at Rapaport, Fukuya, and all other red skinners who have been provided with love and care)... however I don't think I've found one for myself yet.

I'm not disputing the jobs of the doctors as it must be really frustrating to see your patient failing to respond effectively to treatment, but at the end of the day us patients do rely on them to give us some form of hope. Afterall, they are the one that have done the years of medical research and have the experience of treating other patients with similar conditions.

On top of all this there's the whole idea of the pharmaceutical companies making their mega bucks by distributing their medications which are initially approved by the FDA, but later are found to cause deaths and other life-threatening illnesses that weren't listed on the insert. This is then decidedly covered up as they would lose a lot of money and it creates more media hype and stigma against them. To the average Joe, that's you and I, we have no right to know what we put in/ on our bodies. As long as the big guns are raking in money then the world can go round.

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It truly makes you wonder if anyone has your best interests at heart in wanting to get better or is life just one big scam? Ooooh deep!

Also as an aside: don't you find it ironic that the inserts for many of these prescribed medications state that side effects can consist of skin rashes, itching, hives, allergic reaction, dry skin, edema and so on and so forth? Just a tad ironic that they won't give credit to steroid induced eczema yet the symptoms are often listed as side effects. How would you know if it was a side effect if you're already using these treatments to cure the said symptoms listed...?


6 comments :

  1. I know exactly where you're coming from. I'm actually afraid to go to my doctor because I know he's going to force these creams on me. To them it's easy and there's no other way. I've stopped going all together, nothing they can give me is going to help, so why bother? I can tackle this by myself. After all I know my skin best.

    Hopefully you're dermoatologist will come around and work with you soon x

    petitpromise.blogspot,co.uk ♥

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    1. Thanks for your comment :) Aye, I've now come to the conclusion that I only want help from them if I have an infection, otherwise stay the hell away from me with all your nonsense drugs that have made me more ill! There are of course some I'm still having to take because of infections I've had but hopefully when I'm off these we can start a clean slate. x

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  2. It's the classic "text book" argument. We live in an age where professionals won't deviate from the text books they learnt their profession from. They question nothing, they research nothing further from what they have been taught and it is SO ignorant. I'm not meaning to blow my own trumpet, but studying Psychology we're taught from the start to question EVERYTHING. If you take something you read as gospel truth then you won't get anywhere, unless there is genuinely no research to say otherwise. Which is why it baffles me that this attitude isn't adopted by medical professionals. Okay, if something has been tried and tested and works in practically all cases, you can see their reasons for being reluctant to change, but it's when there are so many people being affected by their reluctance to try other methods because they believe the treatment is set in stone as working for everyone that it becomes so frustrating! I'm in the process of finding a new GP because I've been given the same treatment for 2 conditions for over 12 months and neither of them have ever worked.

    Head, please be introduced to brick wall :P

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    1. I completely agree with that Charley! Studying Conservation of historic objects you're taught to constantly research new and innovative methods into treatments to ensure that they will last for the future/ be irreversible... If I can look at a stupid old dusty piece of crap in this way, why can't doctors apply this to humans? It's beyond ridiculous!

      I think the best way I've seen to combat conditions is to use natural methods. Too much crap is being put into our bodies and that's why it isn't working. Some of the old "back in the day" methods are actually far, far better than all of this synthetic crap that's being produced. Obviously it wouldn't be the same for every condition but I now see how it can be so for the skin.

      & yes, this post is all about brick walls :p x

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  3. It seems like eczema isn't important enough of an issue for doctors to look for alternative solutions or even care! I'm sure they're are great medical professionals out there. But if physicians are enslaved to the pharmaceutical industry and ignore the needs of patients, then I pretty much lost all hope in going to the doctor for remedies. Time after time, I've been repeatedly told there is no cure and topical steroids is the only way. It's so frustrating! Anyways, topical steroids don't really work for me anymore. Great post! May faith be with you!

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  4. I can agree with this post...of course there's no money in curing an ailment... They don't care cuz its no skin off THEIR backs!! I don't take any kind of medication and oppose it anyway. I used to utter triamcinolone when i was younger but that crap eats your skin, as if eczema wasn't doing a good enough job!! I use my good ol Aquaphor & oatmeal lotion... Works better than anything Elgar i used. Oh yes, dove unscented sensitive skin soap as well. I hope one day it goes away but until then, its nice to know I'm not crazy and alone with eczema like i always have felt. <3 <3

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