Once upon a time, there was a guy named Timmy. Timmy liked to bang his thumb with a hammer every day. Over time, however, Timmy started to get pain in his thumb almost every day. Timmy went to the doctor, and the doctor gave Timmy prescription pain medicine.
Timmy’s thumb pain reduced, but he still continued to bang his thumb with a hammer every day. Eventually, even when Timmy took his pain medicine, the pain still persisted. In fact, the thumb started to show signs of inflammation. Timmy went back to the doctor, who then referred Timmy to a hand specialist. After running some tests, the hand specialist told Timmy some somewhat heavy news: Timmy has chronic thumbitis. “Chronic inflammation” the doctor explained, “is when, for reasons we cannot understand, inflammation persists without resolving.” The doctor assured Timmy that with the help of medications, Timmy can still live a normal life. So the hand specialist prescribed a drug specially designed to combat thumb inflammation called Thumbinex.
Because Timmy’s new medication employed advanced technology, the cost of the drug was very high, up to thousands of dollars per month. Timmy had to wait awhile before receiving approval from his health insurance company to cover the cost of the drug. After weeks of waiting, the coverage of the costs of Timmy’s medicine were approved. Timmy feels lucky that he has healthcare coverage that can cover the cost of such an expensive drug. After taking Thumbinex, Timmy’s symptoms improve, and Timmy is more able to do his usual everyday activities and go out with friends. Thank goodness for modern medicine Timmy and his family members say.
However, the Thumbinex can only do so much. Eventually, Timmy’s thumb develops open wounds at times and gets infected. Timmy and his family are worried now, but the doctors assure the family members that there always is the option of surgery. By surgically removing the thumb, and replacing it with a simple prosthetic thumb, Timmy can be guaranteed to never have that terrible thumb pain ever again, and Timmy would likely not have to take pain medications or Thumbinex anymore. However, Timmy does not like the idea of having his thumb surgically removed. A prosthetic thumb does not have the sense of touch, and it would not be able to function as well as a real thumb.
As Timmy continues to live with this chronic thumb inflammation, the doctors assure Timmy that medical researchers are working on a CURE! They just have not found it yet. Among the medical researchers is hope that one day there will be a wonder drug that will cure chronic thumbitis. Fundraising events even popped up all over the country raising awareness of thumbitis and raising money to look for a cure.
Timmy decides to explore other options. He starts seeing some natural health doctors. Some suggested putting ice on the thumb, and others suggested an anti-inflammatory diet. These measures help, but the problem does not seem to completely go away. Timmy keeps thinking that there is no way that this thumbitis has to last forever. Meanwhile, on yet another trip to the doctor, that doctor explains that this thumbitis has been going on for five years. If it could go away, then it would have by now.
Still, Timmy decides to see some lifestyle medicine doctors. Timmy is surprised by all the questions these lifestyle doctors are asking. After the line of questioning, a lifestyle medicine doctor recommends that Timmy refrain from banging his thumb with a hammer every day, and see how that works. I suppose what I do to my thumb every day would have an affect on my thumb Timmy thought, and he gave it a try. As the days passed, Timmy’s thumb began to feel better.
In his joy, Timmy relays his experience with others who have similar problems. Timmy decided to go to his hand specialist to talk to him about going off of the medications. The dialogue went something like this:
Timmy: I tried this new behavioral change where I stopped hitting my thumb with a hammer every day. I think this change in my behavior has solved the problem.
Doctor: Timmy, the reason you feel so well is that the medication is working! And I am glad that the medication is working so well. It gives us reason to prescribe Thumbinex to more patients like you. Besides, we did tell you about some behavioral changes that you could make. Have you been doing your thumb strengthening exercises?
Timmy: But I could have sworn that the thumb was in bad shape until I stopped hitting it with a hammer every day.
Doctor: I am glad that works for you, Timmy, but in our medical practice, we believe in evidence-based medicine, and there is just not much credible scientific evidence for a link between patient behavior and chronic thumbitis.
Timmy: But I swear that when I stopped hitting my thumb with a hammer every day, the thumb pain and inflammation went away.
Doctor: Well Timmy, your experience is merely anecdotal evidence, and anecdotal evidence is low quality evidence. Around here, we prefer to administer treatments that have gone through rigorous scientific testing, clinical trials and FDA approval.
Timmy is somewhat disappointed that the doctor did not share in his enthusiasm.
Other doctors, however, had become vaguely aware that perhaps what you do to your thumb every day has an effect on your thumb. Yet they were still hesitant about telling their patients about behavioral modifications — specifically refraining from banging your thumb with a hammer every day. “You know those patients”, they said, “they just want the pills. They are too busy to make modifications to their behaviors.”
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The story above is an illustration of how ridiculously messed up our healthcare system has become. Note that even when Timmy had adequate health insurance coverage, and received very expensive treatments, the treatments were still low quality because they did not address where the chronic thumb pain/inflammation came from. Please abandon the notion that more expensive and more technologically advanced means higher quality treatment. It does not.
A bigger problem with the current healthcare system is that it often ignores what we do to our bodies every day. It will abandon basic common sense in favor of “scientific evidence based reasoning”. I believe much of this nonsense goes back to money interests where the healthcare system makes the most money when we are on expensive drugs, when we undergo surgical procedures, and when we have to keep returning to the doctor.
Some people claim that the patients just want to take the pills anyway. I believe that people who make this generalization may as well have a black heart. If the patients only wanted to take the pills, then the diet industry would not be able to make any money. The eating disorder, orthorexia, would not exist. There would not be people everywhere trying out all of these different diets: the carnivore diet, the zone diet, the Atkins diet, the plant-based diet, raw foods diets, the paleo diet, etc. Not many people would show up at the gym. There also would not be so many people frustrated with medical doctors for just prescribing drugs.