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Should we do as we are told?

sanguine said:
As for statistics, how much do you need to know to resolve the dilemma of 'GP says eat more carbs', result BGs go up; and pragmatic verifiable and repeatable direct experience of many on here which shows the exact opposite?
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Often that kind of advice is specifically to eat glucose e.g. "starchy foods".
Possibly to avoid the glucose free carbohydrates (fructose, galactose and galactan) along with those fairly low in glucose (surcose and lactose).

Even a non diabetic could end up with an elevated Hba1C eating a diet which is 2/3 glucose.
 
Totto said:
In what circumstances should we ignore our Drs and other HCPs advice? If ever? Or should we always do as we are told?

I don't think so.

What do you think?

They may be experts in the medical field, but we are experts on ourselves.
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probably we should try to follow the doctors,only in case we notice some weird symptoms we could refer the doctor.
 
I think 'advice' is just that. They dont order you to do anything, just advise it . .
 
ZBZ said:
I think 'advice' is just that. They dont order you to do anything, just advise it . .
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Well said!. One of my least favourite phrases, found in various health books, is "if your doctor permits". Doctors don't "permit": they give us the benefit of their professional opinion, and it is for us to decide how to act in the light of their advice.

Kate
 
I wish my Dr would stop giving me advice- he means well and is pretty supportive but I feel stressed out by his suggestions a lot of the time. Today he told me my BP is still up which I knew, but this time instead of just going in to be checked or doled out a pill, I have to monitor myself for 6 weeks to rule out just white coat syndrome( which I do suffer with) and anxiety( which I am also receiving " advice" for). I just feel that sometimes they are so busy making sure they cover all bases advice wise that they don't see that it is overload for some patients. Taking my own BP is guaranteed to freak me out and put BP up, terrify me into not moving or exercising for fear of a stroke and just add to all the other things I'd rather not think about 24/7 with my health anxiety. I do think we should listen and then make own minds up, but I'd rather there was less to listen to!
 
I've seen greedy doctors, even bad doctors but I have also seen good doctors, who have taken extra time to talk with me and even researched something for me, which i never expected. However I don't think it is a matter of "ignore". I think like someone else on the thread earlier said, you got to do your own research. If you are not happy with what you hear then seek another opinion. I prefer to be fully responsible for my own health and never take another's opinion without question, not even a doctors.
 
I think my doctor means well but is bound by the ridiculous diabetes association guidelines. I listen to his advise but have not followed any of it to date. 60% of my calories through carbohydrates is an absurd directive. I was also told to go on Statins due to high cholesterol , i refused and got my cholesterol back to nominal levels within 3 months.

I would find it harder to go against the doctors advice without the information available on the internet and in particular this forum.
 
I've never seen my doctor about my diabetes, so if there was any advice I wouldn't know about it.
 
Totto said:
In what circumstances should we ignore our Drs and other HCPs advice? If ever? Or should we always do as we are told?

I don't think so.

What do you think?

They may be experts in the medical field, but we are experts on ourselves.
Click to expand...
when you have the right team of doctors that are on the ball know what they are talking about and diagnose correctly and know that what they treat you with is going to work for you not harm you, and you trust them and is content with those doctors, that is the direction you go in and follow your instincts to, if your not with the right team of doctors they do not understand your needs, fail to help you or just do not give the full package you expect, they are the ones you walk from and seek second or third opinion, our instincts tells us a lot especially when we know something is wrong,it means do not ignore the signs, push those who are not listening to you to listen or seek those out that will listen and help you, lifes to short to be misdiagnosed or left to long for a diagnosis, action needs to be happening from the medical teams,trust in your self when you know somethings wrong, you know most times your right,hope it helps you.
 
In what circumstances should we ignore our Drs and other HCPs advice? If ever? Or should we always do as we are told?

No hard and fast rule and it depends on the doctor. My previous GP told me that under no circumstances was I to decrease the amount of carb in my diet and the hospital dietician even told me to eat more bread and potatoes. When I told my doctor that I was not losing weight despite following a calorie reduced diet and increasing my exercise level, he just said "Rome wasn't built in a day". I had a feeling that they'd built a fair bit in the 4 years I'd been trying to lose weight. He is now my previous doctor, my present doctor just warned me to watch my BG levels when I said that was cutting my carb intake and has, at least, made an effort to get to the bottom of my weight issues, unsuccessfully, but she tried.
I do feel that I've had to find out more about my problems than my GP can tell me and I keep reminding myself that the G stands for general, she's no expert on anything really.
 
**** init init
 
I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes while in hospital for asthma.

It was clear from my blood that I was hyperglycemic, and the consultant could see that my h1bac test requested by a Urologist two months earlier confirmed the diagnosis.

I wasn't due to see the Urologist for another three months.

I think we need to be aware that for Health Care Professionals it is easy for them to have the facts and they can slip through the net. Hospital reports can be copied to the GP, but then filed with no action taken.

We need to be aware of what the GP or hospital are doing and follow up if we hear nothing. I'm the world's worst, I'm sure.

Also, in my NHS district, because of the volume of Type 2 diabetics, there is no hospital clinic, and we are treated at GP level. Also, it is felt that type 2s don't need to test, so a monitor and consumables is not available on prescription.

This is contrary to what I've read from diabetes.co.uk, and also the dietician. I've been told I can eat what I like, but I need to know the effect on my blood sugar. You can't do that without testing. Also, while I was bringing my sugar levels down in the early weeks, I was taking false hypos, because my body had become used to such high levels. Again, had I been able to monitor myself I would have known and understood this.

Therefore I listen to my hcp, but I challenge or discuss if I feel I'm being fobbed off or not given enough information.

I'm on metformin and forxiga, but the GP tells me I can't hypo on these drugs. If I don't eat regularly enough, surely a hypo would still be possible? I'm not stupid enough to risk it, but that strikes me as bad information.
 
We are a group consisting of 4 students from Tampines Junior College in Singapore and are conducting a research for our ‘A’ level Project Work coursework which is based on diabetes.
We have made a survey to find out more about how we can improve the process of administering insulin.
We would be extremely grateful if you could help us in our research by partaking in the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/130idUjic_MqGezSq1nKvBWAC1Zl-8NlT19ZrA1_J9AE/viewform

Thank you
 
Hi guys.
Really you should post this in the Research forum, or make a new thread, but you should not "hijack" an existing thread. And probably you should first ask permission from the site administrators.
Good luck with your research.
 
I have had many instances throughout my life of a HCP meaning well, suggesting a course of action, giving advice, but not following up as promised and seeing an action through. This is mainly down to heavy workloads.

I would rather do research and suggest to HCP what I think is best for me. I want to be in control.
 
I think our own healthcare is a balance between ourselves and our HCP's.
I would never completely ignore any advice I was given though by a doctor, they have, after all, trained for many years and studied medicine at a level that most of us would not reach.

I know that mistakes are sometimes made, and, yes, there are good doctors as well as bad, which is the case in all aspects of life really.

To be honest, I actually feel sorry for our GP's nowadays. They are, more or less, told what to do, how to think, how to treat, by our wonderful government, on top of that, they are now put under enormous pressure to meet this target, that target and the other target!!

You cannot measure healthcare properly using targets. GP's should be able to treat their patients in the way that they believe will bring the best outcome for their patient without having to constantly think about the cost and targets.

It's easy for us, on an individual level, to say that we're not getting enough advice, care and the rest of it, but let's look at the whole picture, that doctor has got thousands of patients all with different conditions and so they have to spend most of their time trying to balance everything out, making sure that they don't go above their budgets and pressurised to meet endless targets.

I'm in my 50's now so I remember well what "family doctors" were like, and, yes, I would go back to those days tomorrow, but times move on, the population is ever growing, people are living much longer now, there are many, many medical conditions and many, many patients with them.

I'm not saying that we should all bow down and agree with everything that we're told by our HCP's, but I would personally never ignore what I was being advised, I might say that I'll think about it, as I often have in the past, but really, what's the use of seeing a HCP if we're just going to ignore what we're being advised?

Having said all that about our HCP's, we all do have to take some responsibility regarding our own health, it needs to be a 2 way thing. We are so lucky now that we have the internet, we can research and educate ourselves to a certain degree. Indeed websites like Diabetes UK are worth their weight in gold, as are many other health related websites, I've only just joined you here, but I've already learned so much that I never knew about all aspects of diabetes, we can both give and receive advice, support and understanding at a level that our HCP's just haven't got the time to do nowadays, and in all honesty, I like that we can do that, there's nothing better really than speaking to people who have the same condition, I find it very beneficial to me.

So to round up, it is a two way street, receiving medical advice about diabetes from our HCP's, and doing our own research, I think the two work nicely together.
 
mo1905 said:
No, we shouldn't always do as we are told but we should certainly listen to them and make an advised decision. What we certainly should NEVER do is ignore all medical advice but accept the advice of a complete stranger on a forum eh ;-)
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That is excellent advice. I agree with this, we are all different and what suits someone may not suit someone else.
 
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