Who here works in medicine?

[Calist]

I hear where you are coming from Jimbo and for the most part I agree. Things like this however....

"And I wouldn't hold your breath on learning much from anyone in the medical field" - jonquiljo

Have, in the past caused serious harm. Not Jonquiljo's statement exactly but similar statements of distrust as well as the assertion that patients need to stop listening to their doctors and begin self treatment. I realize that as a person who crusades against that kind of attitude, my eyes are a bit trained to see those types of statements a bit more than anyone elses is and more often than not I seem to be sniffing out statements like that when other forum users were not even aware they were said.

[Breathe Jimbo]

Hmmm:

"Improvised Hummidifier. Customized mask. Altered tubing."

[Calist]

Hmmm:

"Improvised Hummidifier. Customized mask. Altered tubing."

Thats different, I'm a sleep tech, everything I own was given to me by board certified sleep docs. World of difference.

[Muse-Inc]

...recent post on it including a PDF called "OSA Pathophysiology" that goes VERY deep into sleep apnea. Looks like it is dated 2010...Page 46 explains it perfectly....
"Hypoxia/reoxygenation events increase the production
of angiotensin II peripherally or in astrocytes, resulting in activation of
angiotensin 1A receptors..."

This is why the angiotensin receptor blockers are considered the best class of drugs for the hypoxia-induced hypertension that untreated apnea causes...of course, without treating the apnea, the hypertension remains resistant.

[-SWS]

Completed PhD in sleep research earlier this year. Also worked as a sleep tech.

Thanks again for sharing your research here, Split! Good luck with the trip.

[yeshadette21]

Thank you for the great information guy's, I learn a lot. That was really the importance of knowledge in medical field when working in medicine laboratory. It has a big help for the works in the company if they have knowledge with medical.

[jonquiljo]

Calist, I have not been here very long, and I certainly have not read every post, but I do not get the impression that the people here believe that sleep doctors are less qualified than patients to diagnose. Rather, the consensus appears to be that patients can and often should be very proactive and take charge of their care and treatment. That is something else entirely and at the heart of informed consent. You may or may not be aware that, unless a patient is unconscious or incompetent, all doctors are legally obligated to obtain informed consent. The people here who are very proactive and take charge of their care and treatment appear to take informed consent very seriously.

I'll respond to you, Jimbo, because I am not going to give Calist the time of day. I have seen way too many family members and friends die lately because they listened to their physician and didn't question anything that was told to them or omitted as well. The self-empowered patient is going to stay alive a lot longer than the one that lets them lead you by the nose to your deathbed.

Most of medicine today is driven by money, not health. Call me a cynic, but the concept of self-empowerment is needed more than ever.

[So Well]

.... you believe your friends will still be alive had they not ignored all medical advice? ....

Jon can defend his own posts but I will say he sure as hell did not say what you just accused him of saying.

I have seen way too many family members and friends die lately because they listened to their physician and didn't question anything that was told to them or omitted as well. The self-empowered patient is going to stay alive a lot longer than the one that lets them lead you by the nose to your deathbed.

I hope everyone questions what their doctor is telling them and what the doctor is not telling them and operates as a self-empowered patient. That is a far stretch from "ignoring all medical advice" as you so deceitfully rephrased it.

[JayC]

Many medical professionals and doctors EARN our distrust by how they do and do not interact with us....I didn't and don't start with distrust; neither do I accept because-I-said-so pronouncements. If you cannot attempt an explanation even in big words and concepts, I can't put faith in you reasoning, can I, as you cannot articulate any reasoning!!

My sleep doc has earned my respect, and he treats me as an adult and with basic human respect....he listens to my concerns and experience rather than dismissing them or me. He explains why other elements of the problem are our first focus. He has ordered follow up testing so he can *see* that my therapy is resulting in the improvements we both think are happening.

This is in vast contrast to the doc that told me in the late 1980s ----literally with a shrug of his shoulders---- that for whatever reason I was not getting restorative sleep. Mind you, he did some blood work and maybe some other lab work.......he did NOT send me for a sleep study, or eeg, or anything along those lines........ had that doc done any of those things, I would have only lost HALF THE DECADES that I have lost. Probablly he thought I was young, thin, and female and clearly couldn't have apnea or other sleep disordered breathing!!!!!

WE are the ones living day to day/night to night with whatever things we are medically dealing with........WE know more detail than a textbook read offers.....we are not textbooks and textbook cases are likely not how real life mostly plays out. Medical professionals would do well to grasp all of this......... we would ALL be better off the more this were the case!!

J

[SleepingUgly]

My motto: Never put your fate solely in the hands of people who care less about it than you do.

[Junebug999]

as for Calist....

save yourself from having to deal with him, check out

the link below, and put your critical thinking caps on... Then decide whether you want to have anything to do with this guy..

He started this "who works in medicine "thread to see if he could find people who didnt already have him pegged..

Calist, I believe you are a sick narcissistic puppy, and I have no idea why you have come here....

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=51460&start=120

could not agree more

edited to tone it down -- i was grumpy today and I apologize....but I still think....oh well, not going there

[split_city]

This is in vast contrast to the doc that told me in the late 1980s ----literally with a shrug of his shoulders---- that for whatever reason I was not getting restorative sleep. Mind you, he did some blood work and maybe some other lab work.......he did NOT send me for a sleep study, or eeg, or anything along those lines........ had that doc done any of those things, I would have only lost HALF THE DECADES that I have lost. Probablly he thought I was young, thin, and female and clearly couldn't have apnea or other sleep disordered breathing!!!!!

Jay,

In relation to OSA, I think you are being a bit harsh on doctors here. Very little was known about the condition in the 80's. Heck, the CPAP machine wasn't invented until this decade. I'm not here to have a go at you but I think this needs to be pointed out.

[jnk]

. . . Very little was known about the condition in the 80's. . . .

That is an important point that is too often overlooked, I think.

I like the brief, easy-to-read history of the treatment at this link, which makes a similar point in the fourth paragraph . . .

" . . . it was not until the mid 1980s that CPAP began to be accepted for sleep apnea."

(Bolding mine.)

http://www.scsleepmedicine.com/cpaptherapy.htm

In one sense, I wish I had been diagnosed much earlier than I was. But in another sense, I am glad I wasn't diagnosed until so much progress in the treatment had been made. Who knows how I would have done on the treatment back then!

[JayC]

Good point.......were sleep studies being done?

My issue is the shoulder shrug...and yes he really did that.... and the lack of mentioning what and where I might look for answers or even clues....even if he didn't think insurance would cover.

In late 1980 could something other than blood work and a few labs have given clues about my sleep/sleeping?

He is talking to me about sleep, and he never TESTED anything to do with my sleep.....not even a questionnaire!!

He sent me home with a shrug of the shoulders.....and no direction for further investigation. Did he do his job or did he assume things, and not send me for tests he could have at least suggested?

I have had to work super hard with other docs as well in recent years, so if I come off harsh, ----which I don't see as I have because I enter each relationship with respect, and give more than one chance before I downgrade my opinion of them---- I don't have more time and energy to waste where I am being written off or disrespected because I don't fit the usual boxes.

[jnk]

A shoulder shrug may have been his most honest response:

"The most recent survey of the four-year medical school curriculum reveals an average of less than two hours of formal education directed at sleep, even at Harvard Medical School. The average medical student graduates with little information on either the identification or the treatment of sleep disorders."

http://sleep.med.harvard.edu/what-we-do ... -education