The way people online constantly say ‘talk to your doctor’ like it’s a panacea is a lot like how medieval peasants weren’t able to read scripture and they just had to trust their clergy’s interpretations
Sick of it. Usually it’s not even like if I’m trying to find out if I have fucking cancer, I’m saying oh i feel sad in the evenings. why in the NAME of GOD would i want to then, for that, find the guy’s number, call, leave a message cause it’s midnight, wait for them to call back, schedule something 2 weeks later, worry the whole time, and try to remember and rephrase in formal clinical terminology exactly what’s happening and get formal cold clinical advice for it from a guy I see twice a year. Just tell me! Give me colloquial advice and home remedies! good god!
There could be so many miracle tips or tricks online that really work but nooo people constantly shout ‘talk to your doctor! call your doctor!’ i don’t want to fucking call the doctor, medical environments give me anxiety and all the bureaucracy and insurance and bills don’t help matters either.
some zoomers on tiktok seem to get this and happily share ‘oh this worked for me!’ and usually it’s somewhat helpful and a very nice, casual interaction that doesn’t involve interaction with an authority figure and potential bills. it’s that easy.
‘ooh what about liability’ don’t care. liability has destroyed modern america, gatekeeping knowledge behind a culture of fear. if you’re so scared about liability over a reddit comment, simply don’t say anything! rather than leaving a pointless piece of advice that every single person on the planet knows is the default ‘ideal’ answer, that isn’t necessarily actionable for many who don’t have easy or trivial access to healthcare.
Yes, the doctor went to school and rigorously studied medicine for years. They are not a “wizard” they are simply an expert with expert knowledge.
Random people on the Internet are not, which is why they tell eachother to drink horse dewormer and other stupid shit. It doesn’t matter how much some random layman thinks they know what’s wrong with you, they have no expertise to support that belief.
The idea that people should stop telling others to check with a doctor if they need medical advice is absurd.
It’s worse than that, even another doctor should not be diagnosing or advising people online…they don’t have access to your medical history, current medications, comorbidities, etc and all of that data is VITAL to giving sound medical advice.
Anything beyond “eat a variety of foods - not too much or too little, get enough sleep, and exercise within your comfort limits” without any of that additional information should be considered bad advice and there’s probably even cases where those 3 very general rules would be ill-advised.
True, but also, some local public doctor hardly has time to do a deep dive into that with some 20min appointment instead of having a 30 second look into the brief the nurse you talked to jotted down, hap-hazardly
One can give advice without being too prescriptive, much like the example you gave. Some things are just good all around advice and such that they would practically never be harmful. Even your advice wouldn’t be good for some things. Broken bone? Nope. Diabetic coma, nope.