Playing Doctor

I have this inherent distrust of doctors and pharmaceuticals.

It wasn't always this way, it was drilled in through bad experiences and far too many commercials for unnecessary "medicine" for manufactured illness. Now, every time I enter a doctor's office, even if it's not for me, I immediately flash to countless visits where I would wait in agony for a shot that was a short lasting band-aid on a big scar.

They are all fairly similar, those doctor's offices. They're all beige, fastidious little rooms with bland watercolor paintings. They all smell the same.

I know there are doctors out there that are good, that care for their patients, that care about helping people and making them well. But doctors seem to have been forced to bend to that sort of American "fast food" mentality - just fix it now! And if you can do it in pill form, all the better.

There seems to be very little interest in getting to the root of the problem, of attempting to cure someone on a more holistic approach. But Americans don't have the time for this, isn't there a pill that will fix it? Hey fatass with the Cheeto crumbs lodged in the corners of your mouth! You probably wouldn't need your heartburn/acid reflux medicine if you wouldn't eat like a fucking pig and got out of your car once in awhile to walk your ass around the block.

Oh and yes, there are pills that will fix anything for you, even problems you didn't realize you had. Turn on the television, you can't go ten minutes without a commercial for some brightly colored pill with a Latin-lite type name. And the litany of symptoms that they begin to list off begin to seem like a daily paper horoscope; just generic enough that any hypochondriac out there will realize they have that symptom.

Restless Leg Syndrome? 12 million people suffer from this? Are you fucking kidding me?

Pharmaceutical companies have pimped out our doctors to becoming nothing more than drug pushers. There's big, big money to be had in avoiding actually fixing a problem and causing side effects that more pills can take care of for you. I've heard too many stories about psychologists (psychiatrists?) prescribing mood stabilizers and anti-depressants faster than a fax to your insurance company, but don't seem terribly skilled in a regiment to get you off those pills.

It's even gotten so bad with me, that I fear taking over the counter medicines, I fear all of those unpronounceable chemicals that take up a side of the box. And yes, there's the herbal route, but then people fall into that sort of weird brainwashing of, "it's all natural so it’s good".

I realize that it's something I'm going to have to get over, this fear of doctors. At some point there's going to be some sort of ailment that all the juice and bed rest in the world won't fix. I just hope to god it's not Erectile Dysfunction.


No!vember song of the day: Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine by The White Stripes