the point of medicine

[Svartalf]

Medicine is there to make you live longer, and preferably enable you to live a fuller life, free of any number of bothers and disabilities that come with illness.
or does it?

I'm due for a colonoscopy. Not that I'm known to be ill, but since both of my parents died of colon cancer, and they dug a couple polyps out of my gut 3 years ago, they want me to get checked.

Now, my gut is not easy to explore, so they want me to do it under general anaesthetics so they won't have to deal with me being a pain, and they prescribed a preparation that is double what ordinary people have to go through.

So I have to look forward to a week of eating uninteresting bland food (no vegs or anything with fiber, and nothing that could give coloring, starting with spices), 3 days of massive doses of laxatives (and the attendant diarrhoea and time on the Throne), and a full day and night at the hospital with next to nothing to eat or drink, even though I'm pretty sure I'll be out of surgery by lunchtime.

Now, what's the point of staving off diesease and death if the very examinations that help do that causer you to go through hell and deprive you of one of the few pleasures you have on earth for nonnegligible periods? As well die now as live without enjoyment.

[Robert_S]

A week of dietary blandness to keep you from getting advanced asscancer?

Imagine if you had to pay for it too.

[MrJonno]

Strange I had one of those and I was given medicine to make me spend 24 hours on the toilet and had it under a local sedation . Both the effects of the medicine and the examination was unpleasant but nothing more than that.

There are rare cases whether the price of medicine (in suffering) is greater than the benefits but we are tallking terminal diseases or serious handicaps

[devogue]

Medicine is there to make you live longer, and preferably enable you to live a fuller life, free of any number of bothers and disabilities that come with illness.
or does it?

I'm due for a colonoscopy. Not that I'm known to be ill, but since both of my parents died of colon cancer, and they dug a couple polyps out of my gut 3 years ago, they want me to get checked.

Now, my gut is not easy to explore, so they want me to do it under general anaesthetics so they won't have to deal with me being a pain, and they prescribed a preparation that is double what ordinary people have to go through.

So I have to look forward to a week of eating uninteresting bland food (no vegs or anything with fiber, and nothing that could give coloring, starting with spices), 3 days of massive doses of laxatives (and the attendant diarrhoea and time on the Throne), and a full day and night at the hospital with next to nothing to eat or drink, even though I'm pretty sure I'll be out of surgery by lunchtime.

Now, what's the point of staving off diesease and death if the very examinations that help do that causer you to go through hell and deprive you of one of the few pleasures you have on earth for nonnegligible periods? As well die now as live without enjoyment.

I had pipes shoved down my throat in to my stomach, endless examinations, then I was cut open, had my sternum broke, my heart and lungs stopped and an artificial valve inserted. It wasn't very nice at all, but I suppose the point is there is now only a tiny chance that I will drop dead in front of my children any time soon, whereas before it was a racing certainty.

[Tigger]

WTF? I had that with a day of fasting, the laxatives and the customary 24 hours on the bog and no sedatives. Why do they say you need all that, if you don't mind my asking?

[Svartalf]

Previous examinations seem to have been a bit troublesome... they say my gut is 'slow' and retains more stuff than it should, which in turn makes checking for problems a PITN.
If it were just a day of fasting and bog sitting, I wouldn't be traumatized just thinking forward to it.

[Tigger]

Previous examinations seem to have been a bit troublesome... they say my gut is 'slow' and retains more stuff than it should, which in turn makes checking for problems a PITN.
If it were just a day of fasting and bog sitting, I wouldn't be traumatized just thinking forward to it.

Oh dear. Good luck with it.