A typical example of useless diagnostics.
All you know, that at radiation risk iodine prophylaxis is required. Additional Iodine consumption is necessary to prevent the accumulation of radioactive iodine that can cause thyroid cancer. However it is impossible to die of thyroid cancer, it doesn’t progress and doesn’t evolve. A person can live with this disease long full life. Unfortunately, sometimes it becomes difficult for the doctor to explain to his patient that this pathology doesn’t require intervention, and it’s much more useful to refuse treatment at all. Very often patients insist on surgery and do not realize that tumor removal bears different risks, not to mention other methods of cancer treatment, which are rather hazardous on its own.
This case proves that medical over-examination and unnecessary intervention can do harm. Let’s look at some examples.
Under-examination and over-examination are our two enemies.
Very often the lack of medical diagnostics is very harmful to human health. Early-discovered pathology can be more easily treated. Many people are irresponsible to their health, they do not pay attention to the warning signs of our body, and when the pathology is found out, it becomes too late to take any steps. So, panicked patients are trying to search for treatment abroad in an attempt to find the most skillful doctors and efficient methods of treatment. However, in severe cases, the only method of treatment is palliative medicine.
Sometimes we have the opposite situation when people are too concerned about their health: they undergo too much testing, take medicine for no reason, insist on unnecessary treatment and so on. Such behavior is very hazardous to our health as well. For example, antibiotics, that are taken just in case, ruin our immune system. And as for over-examination, many analyses are not as useful as they may seem. Primarily, it refers to radioactive analyses.
Medical testing, if not frequently performed, is not harmful. However, regular screening may cause some complications, for radiation, may accumulate and lead to… cancer.
Our body regularly absorbs and copes with small radiation doses. Nevertheless, one CAT scan amounts to 1500 days of daily radiation.
What do French specialists think?
French doctors are hostile to self-medication, as it has a harmful impact on our health. Very often patients have a one-sided view of this or that treatment, not taking into account such moments as compatibility of drugs, side effect and a mode of action as a whole. As a result, the immune system of the patient, who takes antibiotics for no reason, can not defeat the disease, when it is really necessary, as there is resistance to the drug.
You should trust your body and understand that in most cases you don’t require any treatment in the fight against infection, microbes, and others. There is a measure in all things, and medicine is no different.
What is to be done?
The best thing that you can do is to follow a healthy lifestyle, do sports, eat healthy food, avoid bad habits, walk in the fresh air. It is naive to think, that the absence of a healthy lifestyle can be compensated with taking active additives and drugs. Actually, if you do not know the mode of action of a drug, you do double damage to your health.
Many parents, who regularly overprotect their children and dress them in too warm clothes, do not realize, that they compromise their children’s health. They think fondly, that they just care for them.
Our immune system is rather strong, and overprotection as well as over-examination leads to regular health problems. And if your child is constantly ill, there is something to think about…
