There's a difference between doctors not helping because they won't or the fact that at the present time there's not a lot that can be done other than symptom relief.
There's also a difference between doctors being outright dismissive and a doctor not considering treatments because they're unproven or not biologically plausible. Like many here, I've certainly run across my share of the former.
I agree. But regardless of why there is a lack of help, a lack of help is a lack of help. It nets the sufferer the same result: no relief. So, when "laypeople" aren't getting help from the pros, that's when they start looking around for themselves. And, usually, when the seekers rather than the entrenched practitioners get active, that's when innovation and great leaps of progress happen. If you look at history, that's the way things usually work (in every area, not just medicine); for example, The Enlightenment happened in large measure because of the overthrow of the entrenched, calcified Catholic power structure by Protestantism. Point being, professionals frequently tend to get comfy within their areas of expertise and quit looking around "outside the box", so to speak. So in reality, the latter kinds of doctors who wait for someone to produce the evidence they need or want are frequently just as unhelpful as the former dismissive types.
Just dismissing the medical profession or blindly following them are equally harmful
I could not agree more. I may seem categorically dismissive of doctors/allopathic medicine, but I'm really not. It has its place. I would not attempt to do surgery on myself, prescribe myself abx, or anything like that. I have frequently wished for more guidance from a truly knowledgeable health professional.
But even the ones who are considered "alternative" and are very knowledgeable about supplements and natural therapies (like my doc, who is a MD but skews alternative) haven't really helped me much in the way of guidance through the sticky, complex mess of my problems. All professionals (not just doctors) tend to have a bag of tricks they like and when the bag's empty but nothing's worked, everything kind of grinds to a halt. In the main, my doctors have helped me by getting me crucial things like I needed like mB12 injections when I've asked to try those, because the things they were suggesting just weren't working, and the lab tests we need to follow my progress or lack thereof, but I can't emphasize enough that the vast majority of progress I've made with my health in the last five years has been due to the knowledge I've gained through a couple of online communities like PR. If it weren't for them, I might be dead. Not from the health problems, but from the attendant depression. I used to consider suicide on a daily basis. The pull was sometimes quite strong. If my health hadn't improved, I might have just gone ahead and done it by now.
I'm not saying life isn't worth living unless we're perfectly healthy, BTW...that was just my take on my own situation. Everyone's wired differently. Sadly, that was my wiring. But it's over now. I no longer have that outlook; fighting and hope are the order of the day.
But personal choices are personal choices
Absolutely! And that's one of my biggest problems with a lot of doctors...many of them want to take our choices away. They don't think we have any business treating ourselves with OTC supplements the way we do here on PR, because they paternalistically think we're not smart enough to not hurt ourselves, etc. There are a lot of benign substances (like injectable mB12) that are controlled by the gatekeepers of medicine that harm far, far fewer people every single day than prescription medications.
And that's what really bothers me the most. Our choices are limited by people who prescribe things that harm us more than the things we might otherwise choose.
People who want to wait for evidence before being treated should absolutely be allowed to do so. But those of us who want to innovate or use existing evidence in unconventional ways should also be allowed to do so, as well, without fear of being tut-tutted into silence by the existing power structure.
, but I do admire your willingness and come read what us lowly laypeople are doing. I just wish I was convinced you see exactly what a great thing this is and how much good is actually being done here.
