How to keep healthy

Hello everyone
Thanks to "Le magazine de la santé / http://www.allodocteurs.fr/ " or internet patients know a lot about their diseases sometimes more than their GP. But why are doctors so important ? Doctors are trained to look at symptoms first when they examine you but there is more than that. you are not a desease but a person who wants to be treated or given good advice . Your GP has experience and that 's the difference.
Anyway it is important to find out about every subject thanks to books, internet, television (Also your favorite forum). Medecine is a very interesting one.

Hi Muriel, hi everyone,

I now found my GP: she is close to retirement and understand medecine as I like it.

Several times, with other GPs, when I needed advice regarding a small disease (or say questioning), they began to send me to take an RMI, and/or to a cardiologist, and/or to another specialist so that before I could get a date for my consultations, the symptoms had disappeared and I never had any response nor advice.

> Doctors are trained to look at symptoms first
Maybe they were but they forgot.

> you are not a desease but a person
I don't agree... that's not my feeling. They first deal with the disease ie lots of specialists, exams and medecine.

gerardM a écrit:

> Doctors are trained to look at symptoms first
Maybe they were but they forgot.

> you are not a desease but a person
I don't agree... that's not my feeling. They first deal with the disease ie lots of specialists, exams and medecine.

Hi Gerard everyone
Don't you think that it is better for a GP to hand over to a specialist than treat a desease they don't know, in fact it is very wise.
A desease is not the same for everyone and people somatize. For instance. you have a pain in the back because you are fed up with your job In french (j'en ai plein le dos) psychology is important don't you think ?

Hi Muriel, hi everyone,

I do agree psychology is important.
Doctors must continuously get trained otherwise they don't have to practice, as doctors have a huge power.
I personally consider disease as normal, as a part of life. Of course it can be very serious and need immediate treatment but most disease are alarms given by the body.
Symptoms must not be hidden by medecine.

Yes life expectancy was increased.
However, there are lots of accidents with medecine (Fr "médicaments"); chemical firms grow more and more and even want to master everything such as Monsanto.
France has lots of high scores in medecine (Fr "médicaments"); it would be better to have this scores in economy.

GPs should help people master their health and not prescribe so much medecine.
Doctors took too much power in the last decades... French people became unable to master their own health.

I wonder if "ceinture du Docteur Gibaud" and "Thermolactyl de Damart" still exit.

gerardM a écrit:

chemical firms grow more and more and even want to master everything such as Monsanto.

Hello Gérard, everyone
I agree with you and you have to be careful especially if you have to start a long term treatment
Thank you for "disease" because I thought it was "desease"
I don't think doctors are powerful. Like the parish-Priest and the school master they have become ordinary people (it was not true some decades ago)

Hi Muriel, hi everyone,

I'm rather harsh for doctors.

However, there're doctors I do like, those who deal with patients more than with money, power, and medecine, and colleagues, and carreer.

Someone I like is Patrick Pelloux. He's talented and loves his job. His patients are in bad and urgent conditions and won't be sent to visit 36 specialists to be kind to colleagues. PP makes quick and good diagnosis. When something is poorly organized in French medecine, we hear him shout.
He also works at Charlie Hebdo ; he also write books.
He just published another very interesting book about the last instants of famous people.

Another doctor I like is Irène Frachon. She too is able to yell when something is not normal: I do like!

Again, if I'm so critical of GPs, it's because they should have the most important role among doctors, to help patients, to explain, to advise, etc. and as far as I can see it, they are not good in that field: I hear they rather follow labs, they obey patients in prescribing medecine, etc. What??
We need them!!

Hi Gérard, everyone
As I had told you, I belong to a medical family. My father was a GP in the seventies. At that time he had to do everything and hardly handed over to a specialist. Deliveries were difficult because he had to get up during the night and still start his surgery at 7 in the morning. He was devoted to his patients. At that time doctors were highly regarded and nobody was taking action against their GP like to-day.
What is important between a doctor and his patients is "confidence". When a person has every confidence in his GP, this one (If he is a good well trained doctor of course) will do everything in his power to pull him through (it is more important than money)
What is important is to choose the doctor who suits you

Hi Muriel,

MurielB a écrit:... Deliveries were difficult because he had to get up during the night and still start his surgery at 7 in the morning.

For French people" LOL I'd like to point out that "surgery" is not only the act of surgeons with their bistouries. This term has got other meanings:
- opening the belly (sorry, my own terms)
- GB only - the room in which doctors (and dentists) work
- GB only - consultation time of doctots and also for MPs
- Us only - operating room

He was devoted to his patients. At that time doctors were highly regarded
...
this one (If he is a good well trained doctor of course) will do everything in his power to pull him through (it is more important than money)

The GP deserves money for their devotion.
We need such GPs and we need people we can trust.

gerardM a écrit:


We need such GPs and we need people we can trust.

Thank you very much, Gérard ! Of course I am proud of my father ! The problem is that he had too much work and had no time for his private life !

Hi Muriel,

> he had too much work and had no time for his private life !
That's a bit too much!
When I was younger and had to work, I was spending my day with servers, Personal Computers and users in my company. In the night, I was spending a big part of my night with users throughout the world to help them repair the operationg system of their computers (ie the similar tasks)... I stayued on the Internet till 2 am (to stay with my American colleagues).
I was sleeping for about 4 hours, hardly 5 in the weekends.
That is my passion.

Nowadays, I'm going to bed around 1 am and I sleep for 6 hours, including on weekends.

Health Problem in Food

Hi everyone,

I'm watching "Capital" on M6.
It's about health problems in food : the program is really scary!

I'm quite sure the channel doesn't tell wrong things otherwise they would be immediately attacked by firms.

... I can hear that there is pork in minced beef!!
I learned that it's permitted up to 1% and politicians and persons in charge in Europe are simply surprised the rate is far higher!!

When will Europe adopt American legislation??

I mean, in France, (roughly) something that is not forbidden is permitted!
... this way, manufacturers get round laws and just claim it was not written, hence it was permitted (sure that new technologies and technics cannot be included in old laws).

In the US, manufacturer are responsible for what they do. They must insure their products are safe full point. They can be charged for what they did decades ago.

My husband set up his surgery in 1938. At that time GPs were devoted to their patients and were ready to go and help night and day. GPs had to take the Hippocratic oath : They had to give treatment for free to anybody even when they were too poor to pay. I think that the mentality is completely different.

Hi nenette,

nenette a écrit:My husband set up his surgery in 1938. At that time GP.s were devoted to their patients and were ready to go and help night and day.

1938...
Things changed a lot since that period:
- doctors and nurses
- priests
- schoolmasters and teachers
devoted their lives 24/7
- self-employed workers were in their shops any time at their will and they manufactured the best products they could.

Nowadays, there is salaried status, fixed schedules and a hierarchy, which led to people not knowing what they work for, to programmed obsolescence, and the loss of any conscientiousness

I think that wage earning is more established in France than abroad (US, UK, Germany...)

Hi everyone,

A problem I've been hearing about for décades!

-> Salt: The Forgotten Killer... and FDA's Failure to Protect the Public's Health
Salt, at the levels present in the diets of most people around the world, is probably the single most harmful substance in the food supply. Salt is used liberally in many processed foods and restaurant meals, with some meals containing far more than a day's worth of sodium.
...
Consuming more salt tends to increase blood pressure and the risk of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure, and kidney disease.
...
Recommendations

• Consumers should choose less-salty foods.
  
• Food manufacturers and restaurants should use as little salt as possible in their products.
  
• Government should:
  
  • set gradually declining limits on the salt content of foods that provide the most salt to the average diet
    
  • encourage food manufacturers and restaurants to voluntarily use less salt
    
  • require chain restaurants to put warning notices on their menus, menu boards and brochures for foods and meals that are extra high in sodium.
    
  • improve labeling of packaged foods to highlight those that are high in salt

-> (Feb 2005) 'Forgotten Killer' Salt Kills 150,000 a Year, Says CSPI Report
-> (French by Libé) Etats-Unis: l’alimentation trop salée responsable de 150.000 morts par an

Let's cut down on salt then ! That was easier said than done.

Hi Muriel,

Everyone is not at the head of Fleury-Michon or similar, so they cannot easily give instructions, nor to the cook of the restaurants.

This book is for me...

-> Le meilleur médicament, c'est vous, a book written by Frédéric Saldmann - €17,96 Amazon, Fnac
Peut-on, dans certaines circonstances, se passer de médicaments et utiliser les ressources de notre propre corps pour être en meilleure santé? Notre corps est, sans que nous le sachions, une véritable armoire à pharmacie. Pour nous soigner, il peut faire preuve de capacités extraordinaires, parfois plus efficaces que certains médicaments.
...
Une simple pression des doigts
Réduire la sensation de faim
Prévenir les troubles du sommeil

30% additional calories = 20% less life.

-> YouTube

That's medecine as I think it!

You are right Gérard and everyone is responsible for their own health, I like your book !
Anyway a few simple things could help???
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151640146897722&set=a.10150108003162722.290341.281168802721&type=1&theater

Hi everyone,


A must read.

-> A bit of culture cuts risk of type 2 diabetes
Eating yoghurt can reduce the risk of getting type 2 diabetes by 28%, compared with consuming none, according to a study published on Thursday by Diabetologia.
...

The market for dairy products is big money for companies including Danone, the world’s biggest yoghurt maker, and Nestlé, the producer of Carnation milk products. Changing perceptions about nutritional value may help boost sales.

Good! I'm a shareholder of Danone (I thought they wrote "Danon").

I'm surprised by the word "culture"... I would have said "knowledge" but I'm probably wrong; I should check to see if I can find similar surprises re "culture".

Hi everyone,

An article in the National Geographic:Eyes:

Your eyes are tiny spheres of wonder. A doctor can find warning signs of high blood pressure, diabetes, and a whole range of other systemic health issues, just by examining your eyes ...

Hi Gérard everyone
I have just heard that it is possible to measure the degree of  an anaesthetised  patient 's suffering with  a card called a pupillometer.
This device helps to see how dilated the pupil becomes. This dilatation indicates how much the patient suffers.

Hi Muriel,

Yes I too could Watch this on TV yesterday (Journal de la Santé I guess).