Everyone yearns to understand their medical
problem. In the absence of evidence, they use common sense which turns out to
be a terrible way to get at the truth. It’s a good rule that any common sense
explanation of a medical problem is wrong. Here are others that I hear all the
time.
“I can walk on it, so I know it’s not
broken.”
It turns out that the fibula, one of
two bones in the lower leg, doesn’t bear weight. You walk on your tibia.
“I can move it, so I know it’s not
broken.” You may know, but I’m not so sure.
“I have to let this run its course…”
Seeing smoke pour out of your car’s
exhaust, no one explains that the engine is repairing itself by expelling bad
things. Yet plenty of patients believe vomiting or diarrhea is the body’s
attempt to cleanse itself. In fact, it’s a malfunction. It’s OK to suppress it
although exceptions exist for a few serious diseases.
“Fever is your body’s way of fighting
an infection.”
Google “does fever treatment help”
for an avalanche of praise for fever's healing properties from doctors and
medical sites as well as laymen – a good sign that it’s nonsense.
Here are questions that you might
ask.
1. In what specific infections is
lowering the fever harmful? I can’t think of any.
2. What infections do doctors treat
by giving patients a fever? The answer
is none (doctors tried this about a century ago, but it wasn’t helpful).
3. Every day, across the world, a
hundred million people take medicine for fever. How many end up at the doctor
who explains that they made the problem worse?
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