The heading should not delude anyone to think that modern medicine is poison and should be avoided. One should try and live, if possible, avoiding the ravages of modern medicine, but under certain circumstances it could be life saving, more so in an emergency situation.Modern medicine has many quick fixes that might tide over a crisis. Although our aim should be to live without medical help, using the hints given in this article, one should be aware of the situations when one has to, per force, go to a doctor and take his/her advice.

It is always better to have a good family doctor that knows the family very well. Such a doctor would be able to diagnose diseases more easily, as he would have known the environment of his patient better than a new specialist, however good the latter be. In addition, it is safer to go first to your family doctor as he/she would be able to direct you to the correct specialist, if the need arose. Many a time going directly to a specialist could be detrimental both for one’s health and the purse in the fee-for-service system. Medi-business is such that at times the specialist is liable to get the patient investigated “completely” to be on the safer side to allay his own anxiety of not making any mistakes. In the bargain he could enhance the patient-anxiety, the kingpin of illnesses. This does not speak of the prohibitive cost of the present day investigations.

A good family physician, in whom you have confidence, could allay anxiety most of the time and heal most of your common illnesses, which form the bulk of medical care problems. One should be extra careful in choosing the family doctor. The Canadian Medical Association has given the following guidelines to choose your family doctor:

· He/she should be interested in your welfare.

· He/she should advice you regarding your activities and food habits.

· He/she should ask you about your alcohol and tobacco habits.

· He/she should be aware of your means for specialist care, when needed.

· He/she should have the “time” to “listen” to you.

· He/she should take care of your preventive vaccinations etcetera.

· During an epidemic he should help you get all the assistance.

· In short, he should be a friend, philosopher, and guide.

Choose one like that and rest content that you are in goodhands. For any medical help, except in an emergency situation away from home, you should first consult your family physician for assistance. He/she should send you to a specialist only when he/she thinks it is necessary. That way you are insuring against unnecessary investigations that might lead to unnecessary interventions.

One has to realize that the hi-tech modern medicine is not devoid of its inherent dangers. I have been able to count so far seven thousand medical articles published in the leading western journals of the dangers of modern medical interventions. More are coming out almost daily. A couple of hospitals in the US have been force closed by the police for over doing costly interventions in the gullible patient population. With this background one has to know how and when to consult a doctor or when to go to the hospital. This article just does that.

One could try and live sensibly to avoid most of the avoidable diseases. That said, I must hasten to add that even if one were to live very carefully one could still get a disease. In short, disease is an accident, even though General Insurance companies in India refuse to believe that. Even with very regular check ups, using all the known modern methods of screening, there is no guarantee that one would have a healthy life. Future of any human being is impossible to predict with the present scientific knowledge. Doctors, of course, have been predicting the unpredictable, just like many other soothsayers in society! Present state of knowledge goes a step further. An editorial in the prestigious British Medical Journal proclaims that regular screening of the healthy population might seriously damage their health!

Man lives on hope. Happiness is living dangerously. If one wants everything on this planet to be one hundred per cent safe life would be miserable, if not impossible. Anxiety increases directly proportionate to the extent of safety one wishes to have regarding health. Some long term studies of people who have been very regularly checked up and treated compared to their peers who did not have that facility did show higher death rate due to heart disease and cancer in the regularly checked up group. Although this has been explained away as one of those unusual results, I have a gut feeling that this might be due to the enhanced anxiety associated with all those screening procedures that take away a large chunk of one’s productive life and happiness. The following AmerIndian song tells it all.

I eat when I am hungry,

I drink when I am thirsty,

If heavens don’t fall down,

I shall certainly live till I die.

WHEN TO SEE YOUR DOCTOR?

If one has a good family doctor, one does not have to worry about executive check ups. With the slightest deviation in health it is better to ask your doctor for advice. It is better to be a hypochondriac and go to your doctor than to waste money getting yourself checked up regularly. When the family physician is good he is the best insurance for a healthy life. If you are a heavy alcoholic or a smoker you have to have regular check up, as you would not be able to detect minor variations in your daily life. The threshold for minor symptoms would be very high in smokers and alcoholics; the latter might even work like mild tranquilizers masking early symptoms of disease.

One has to see the family doctor under the following circumstances without losing precious time.

·Any abnormal bleeding from any source.

·Headaches that last for a more than a day.

·Headache with blurred vision and/or vomiting.

·Intense sudden headache.

·Vertigo of any type.

·Breathing difficulty.

·Any abnormal lump in the body, painful or otherwise.

·Sudden visual changes.

·Diarrhoea that does not stop with usual precautions.

·Bloody diarrhoea.

·Fever with breathing difficulty.

·Fever with chest pain on breathing.

·Any pain in the chest with tightness in the chest.

·Sore throat that does not ease in a week’s time.

·Any ulcer that does not heal in the usual time.

·All pregnant girls must see their doctors regularly.

·Children for their immunizations.

·Animal, snake or severe insect bites.

·Sudden loss of vision, speech or use of a part of the body.

·Unusual loss of appetite lasting for more than a week.

·Unusual loss or gain of weight.

·Sexual problems.

· Pain, anywhere, that lasts for more than a few hours.

·Accidents.

·Skin lesions that do not heal within two weeks.

·Sudden change in the quantity or quality of urine.

·Cough that lasts for more than a week,especially with large spit.

Now is the time to relax. Follow all the suggestions given above and you have a fair chance that you would live well till you die. Never try to live here forever; you will not succeed.