Not all doctors are pushing meds.

Well i had a suprise this morning during my visit to the docs.

I've had a cold pretty bad for about three weeks now, started off with gastroentritis and seems to have settled around my chest/lungs area. Struggling to get rid of it so i thought i'd get advice from the doc.

The doctor was a young lady in her late twenties, checked me over and asked what i'd been taking for it. I though to myself, "Here it comes, a recommendation for a flu vaccine or other meds".

I told her the cough meds i'd been taking and she said that there was no eveidence whatsoever that cough medicines worked. At £5 a bottle these days she said i'd be better off spending the money elsewhere.

I mentioned hot lemon drinks that i'd been taking too. Her reply was that they cost a fortune and i'd be better off just buying paracetemol at a few pence a packet. I could always drink some hot water with lemon in it, but it wouldn't be the price of the shop bought stuff.

When i mentioned i was not too happy about having a flu jab, she almost scoffed at the idea, saying "Theres definately no need for that".

She wasn't neglegant about the way she conducted the check up, she was very thorough and asked me to come back in a week to see how things were.

I just thought it was nice to see a doctor that wasn't pushing everything under the sun.

CX.

I had a conversation with a doctor at a time when I had been pondering the question of what modern medicine can 'cure'. 'Oh nothing at all' came his blithe reply, 'We merely fascilitate the body/mind's capacity to heal itself...and control symptoms.' Another discussion with a medic informed me that penicillan was still considered to be the biggest medical breakthrough of the past 100 years. So I put this point to my blithe young doctor. He disagreed stating instead that the vaccination merited the honour...he then had second thoughts and reminded himself that vaccinations had given us mutated diseases as had the antibiotics.

The same doc advised prevention is much better than cure and gave me an excellent tip for dealing with colds. On the first day that you become aware you are coming down with a cold or throat infection chop up a raw onion and eat that (preferably before going to bed). Wake up in the morning and the acid in the onion has killed the infection. It only works within the first 24 hours...but it does work.