Unnecessary surgeries

[Vanquisher]

*(I'll bet none of you would've guessed I actually have a small mouth! )

Hehehehe me too. I have to have pediatric x-ray thingies at the dentist and small mouth everything. They always have to change to a smaller size! Then I always get comments - "Your mouth is very small."

Yeah, but I can still talk a mile a minute!!

Much to dh's dismay, I have a small mouth, it doesn't open very wide, and I gag easily. TMI!!

My brother and three bils had theirs removed because it is required by our church prior to entering the missionfield.

Do you mind if I ask why that is??

I had my wisdom teeth out 2 years ago and boy, do I wish I had it done in college when my dentist starting suggesting it. To his credit, he wasn't pushy. My mouth is not big enough for wisdom teeth, either. I had all 4 half-way in -- they were difficult to brush/clean, difficult to have cleaned by the hygenist (gag). I ended up getting cavities that would be...drumroll...difficult or uncomfortable to fill. And because I stupidly waited too long between xrays and cleanings (with dental insurance, doh! ), they were deep.

So, instead of a filling, I had them all taken out. I am SO glad I had all done at once because there is no way I would have gone back to finish the job. Believe me, I justified this surgery as being un-necessary for as long as I could.

DH is lucky and can easily keep all of his in his...big mouth. (He really isn't a bigmouth though).

As with all most of the surgeries on this list, there can be situations where the surgeries are a good idea.

As far as VBAC, a friend of mine whose baby was breech delivered via c-section. Her doctor strongly suggested that any future deliveries by c-section -- not because of anything unique to my friend but because those are the new recommendations. I would think that if her doctor did not recommend that, it would be not providing the standard of care. A friend who delivered VBAC about 3 years ago got the go-ahead but had to sign a waver acknowledging the risks involved. Maybe all of this has changed very recently.

I had a cs for breech with Tim in 2000.

I went vbac with Henry in 2004. The doc asked and I said, well, that was the plan.

I wandered around for about an hour without any meds, then got nubain and the bed. Then I got an epidural just in case I would need a cs.

I wound up with an episiotomy and the OB said that I was fine to do another vbac if I decided to have another child. I had to sign stuff too.

[Meenah]

Annie,
Your response is perfect. I have avoided this debate but must add ditto to your response. As a graduate student in healthcare I find this topic very interesting. Last semester I had a course about politics and policy making in healthcare. I Spent a great amount of time writing my representatives. Everyone should use their computers and research your representatives (local and in Washington) and how they vote on issues and which bills they introduce or co-sponsor. It is eye opening.
Luanne

[Gwendolyn]

Thank you for your insightful reading Annie.

I skimmed this article to read the list and was left wondering why'd this guy write this? Like I said in an earlier post, I thought it was common knowledge, that although csection saves lives, the number of elective sections are on teh rise (I considered it).

But after a further reading you are so on top of it!! There was a clear agenda in teh article. Typical fear mongering bull s**t, but you are right, the kind that can be dangerous.

[spotty_dog]

I guess I see this list as playing to the middle of the road, between the "I know more about my illness than my doctor does because I read the Internets" and the "My doctor is G*d and I would never presume to question him/her" crowds. The patient needs to remember that he/she always has the right to give informed consent and to refuse treatment if they really want to. Maybe the next time you're offered a prostatectomy you'll say, "Well, CR reported that this procedure is often done unnecessarily. Will you explain why it's necessary in my case, and what my other options are?" I dunno.

[Sheherezade]

Just chiming back in.....DH hasn't had many "My doctor is G*d" patients until he moved away from the NE. Here there are more, but it is definitely an attitude on the decline. I'm sure your spouse will see that as he moves along. DH was pretty shocked the first time a patient came into his clinic (during residency) with a stack of medline downloads to discuss. Now, he's pretty used to that. Another reason to read....and have the articles at your disposal. Now he gets frustrated when patients turn down treatments like chemo and radiation in favor of fish oils from Latin America. Later, they have worse disease, and he's spent all this time trying to convince them that he isn't trying to "trick" them into hurting themselves by reccommending chemotherapy. It's frustrating. I'm glad patients are more informed - but the distrust element isn't helpful for their care.

[Rapunzel]

Yeah, it's one thing to be informed and another thing entirely to believe salespeople's propaganda that doctors are in on some consipiracy and you should buy their product instead of doing "traditional" treatment. I've met SO MANY people like that.