[polyfractal]

Frankly, a lot of this is the patient's fault too. The vast majority of people _do not_ want to change their lifestyle. They don't want to quit smoking, drinking, eating fried food and leading a sedentary life. They don't want to lose weight or start cardio, go hiking/biking/swimming/walking, limit their caloric intake or eat more vegetables and fiber.

What they want is the doctor to provide a pill to fix whatever the immediate issue is, so they can get back to their life. When providers push back on this and try to suggest lifestyle changes, many patients get _angry_. Like, yelling, shouting, complaining to administrators that the provider isn't "listening to them" or "not taking their problems seriously". People want to be fixed, not fix themselves.

There's plenty of blame to go around, but a healthy share falls on patients themselves.

Source: SO is a medical provider. My faith in humanity falls daily and I can't believe the crap providers have to put up with. It's like a service job dealing with irritated people all day long, except these people read a blurb on WebMD and think they are an expert.

[sametmax]

> The vast majority of people _do not_ want to change their lifestyle.

Yes, but it's also very hard to do. I took me 30 years to actually have a nervous and hormonal system that was not fucked up.

Before that, I tried for decades to restrain myself and exercise, and it was just not sustainable. I had to read so much, go through so many experiments, meet and talk to so many people to find all the stuff I needed to actually fix myself. And the work is far from over, I have yet a lot to do.

I was kind of expecting medical professionals to pick up on what I needed, and actually helped me on the way. 2 did a little, out of probably 30. And I met them only because my close ones were atypical, and know original people.

Our health culture is failing big time here.

[kossTKR]

What did you do that was key in your experience? I myself have tried various things that are essential, but all works as part of a puzzle.

Stream-of-consciousness about these (sorry a bit off topic):

1) Detach yourself from "culture" and try to meditate, do breathwork, some people get into this zone better while doing stuff like Tai Chi, Yoga or Chi Gong. Go slower!

2) Exercise but find something that your body responds well to and don't over do it (many people exercise mindlessly)

3) Be social, you are a mammal and need to be touched and feel other peoples breath, warmth and voice close to you - it's a part of tribal nature, and balances your sympathetic nervous system

4) Get out in the sun and stroll around without purpose sometimes just walking, thinking, exploring the city/forest - again we are wanderers in our genetic heretage (you often think better when walking without purpose - french people call it Flâneur)

5) Create more than you consume: write, work, plan, set goals. Without a plan you are walking aimlessly and will run out of resources, feel left out and wither.

6) Eat and drink well. (fast sometimes, less junk food, more vegetables, enough protein for activity level, more organ meats if meats at all)

7) Be brutally honest towards yourself, but acknowledge that self image is malleable and mysterious like the rest of the universe. So always have an echo of awe in the back of your mind. This reality is amazingly absurdly weird, wonderful, mysterious, dreamlike, filled with obscure esoteric symbols of knowledge and history and tradition and truth in an all encompassing and infinite web all around you and your consciousness.

8) Read challenging fiction, do math, play and instrument. (or some one of these, it has to be difficult)

Understand this key is a chain where all parts are equally important like:

Learn to imagine so you can make a plan or have a vision. Imagination is a precursor to planning, and meditation and unplugging is a precursor to to this imagination. If your mind is clouded the first plan is to eat well, rest, and slowly introduce exercise until your mind is in a state of clarity, and you can actually feel "something" in your gut (ie intuition or your second brain), then you feel what you "want" in you gut, and create your plan with your non-clouded mind.

[MRD85]

I recall having really bad fevers. I'd taken some Panadol and gone to the doctors at work. When they measured my temperature it was at a low point and in the normal range. They ignored my description of how bad I felt and sent me home with a "if you're still sick tomorrow come back". I went home and continued to get worse and worse. I felt like absolute death. The next day I made it back to the doctors and when they took my temperature it was nearly 41 degrees. Turns out I had a blood infection and I had to be hospitalised and placed on IV antibiotics.

They based their initial "he's ok" on a single temperature check after I'd taken Panadol. I get it, when a doctor hears hooves they think horses. It's just frustrating.

[quibono]

While I empathise with what you went through I don't think it's fully honest to expect the doctor to always start off suspecting serious disease when most of the time it's something banal. There's also the issue of patient-doctor trust, where he might have had a few poeple in the past make their symptoms out to be bigger then they really were. It's all about acting on the data available and while I guess he should have behaved differently he basically had 2 pieces of information: your description of how you felt and a normal temperature reading. What would you have done in his place?

[nevertoolate]

If a doctor prescribes medication without any further advice they are not even trying to find a real solution. It is quite hard to know if a person wouldn't try if never given advice from a trusted source.

[sametmax]

Plus advice alone is not enough. You need regular follow up. Good doctors are like coaches.