The whole point of going to the doctor is to get an expert opinion, but sometimes....
Last week, I had the joyous experience of coming down with Shingles. I knew that's what it was with a few clicks on my computer, but of course, I had to go in to a doctor's office to get an "official verdict" and get the anti-viral medicine that I needed. Since it was the weekend (of course), I ended up at an urgent care facility. The staff were very nice and the doctor very quickly confirmed my diagnosis. But the part that was weird is that she asked me, "Have you been around someone with chicken pox or Shingles? Do you know who you got it from?" And later, warned me to change my sheets frequently and keep my rash covered so that I wouldn't "give shingles" to anyone else. And when I verified that I needed to stay out of the pool where I usually teach a water aerobics class, she said, "Yes. No pool. That's probably where you got it from."
So what's weird about all that? From all my reading, every source I'd found had been clear that you don't contract shingles from contact with the virus. You get it because the virus is already lying dormant inside of you. From the CDC website:
"Shingles is caused by the varicella zoster virus (VZV), the same virus that causes chickenpox. After a person recovers from chickenpox, the virus stays dormant (inactive) in the body. For reasons that are not fully known, the virus can reactivate years later, causing shingles." ( https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/overview.html)
Furthermore, you can't give Shingles to anyone either. Shingles is contagious, but only in that you could give the virus to someone who has never had chicken pox and they could get chicken pox. Again from the CDC:
"Shingles cannot be passed from one person to another. However, the virus that causes shingles, the varicella zoster virus, can be spread from a person with active shingles to another person who has never had chickenpox. In such cases, the person exposed to the virus might develop chickenpox, but they would not develop shingles." (https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/transmission.html)
It concerns me that the doctor I saw didn't know these simple facts about a very common disease (1 in 3 Americans will have Shingles at some point). I didn't bother correcting her. She gave me my prescriptions and I was anxious to be out of there. But it does leave a person wondering how often they are told completely inaccurate information by their doctors.
It's certainly not the first time it's happened in our family. One time, years ago, I went in with a very swollen cheek and had the doctor diagnose it as an "infected saliva gland." When I followed up a few days later with my actual doctor (I'd seen her partner because she'd been out of town), she was appalled. She told me it was a toothache and that I needed to go see my dentist-- and she shook her head and said, "I don't know what she was thinking! The saliva glands are on the bottom of the jaw. Your infection is obviously on the top!" And she was right, I wound up having a root canal.
My husband went in to see his doctor once with a really bad sore throat. The doctor insisted it was just a cold and told him to go home and take some ibuprofen. He wouldn't listen to him when he insisted that it didn't feel like any cold he'd had or when he pointed out that he only came to a doctor's office about once every 10 years or so--basically only if he was dying. My husband wound up being admitted to the hospital a few days later with a peritonsillar abscess, but you know, it was just a cold.
And I could go on and on. I think we all could. Mistakes happen. I get that. But I get downright irate when I hear medical professionals complain about their patient's googling their condition. I've been told several different times NOT to look things up on the Internet. They act like we are children who can't handle this complex information properly so we need to leave it alone. But the fact of the matter is, with the right information we--who live in our bodies 24/7-- have a much better chance of diagnosing what is wrong with us than a doctor who sees us for five minutes. Rather than trying to keep patients away from information, it would be in everyone's best interest to make as much of it available to us as possible. And then they need to listen to patients when they say, "That just doesn't sound right" or "But that doesn't match _____." We might just save ourselves from a terrible medical error and save them a malpractice hearing.
Last week, I had the joyous experience of coming down with Shingles. I knew that's what it was with a few clicks on my computer, but of course, I had to go in to a doctor's office to get an "official verdict" and get the anti-viral medicine that I needed. Since it was the weekend (of course), I ended up at an urgent care facility. The staff were very nice and the doctor very quickly confirmed my diagnosis. But the part that was weird is that she asked me, "Have you been around someone with chicken pox or Shingles? Do you know who you got it from?" And later, warned me to change my sheets frequently and keep my rash covered so that I wouldn't "give shingles" to anyone else. And when I verified that I needed to stay out of the pool where I usually teach a water aerobics class, she said, "Yes. No pool. That's probably where you got it from."
So what's weird about all that? From all my reading, every source I'd found had been clear that you don't contract shingles from contact with the virus. You get it because the virus is already lying dormant inside of you. From the CDC website:
"Shingles is caused by the varicella zoster virus (VZV), the same virus that causes chickenpox. After a person recovers from chickenpox, the virus stays dormant (inactive) in the body. For reasons that are not fully known, the virus can reactivate years later, causing shingles." ( https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/overview.html)
Furthermore, you can't give Shingles to anyone either. Shingles is contagious, but only in that you could give the virus to someone who has never had chicken pox and they could get chicken pox. Again from the CDC:
"Shingles cannot be passed from one person to another. However, the virus that causes shingles, the varicella zoster virus, can be spread from a person with active shingles to another person who has never had chickenpox. In such cases, the person exposed to the virus might develop chickenpox, but they would not develop shingles." (https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/transmission.html)
It concerns me that the doctor I saw didn't know these simple facts about a very common disease (1 in 3 Americans will have Shingles at some point). I didn't bother correcting her. She gave me my prescriptions and I was anxious to be out of there. But it does leave a person wondering how often they are told completely inaccurate information by their doctors.
It's certainly not the first time it's happened in our family. One time, years ago, I went in with a very swollen cheek and had the doctor diagnose it as an "infected saliva gland." When I followed up a few days later with my actual doctor (I'd seen her partner because she'd been out of town), she was appalled. She told me it was a toothache and that I needed to go see my dentist-- and she shook her head and said, "I don't know what she was thinking! The saliva glands are on the bottom of the jaw. Your infection is obviously on the top!" And she was right, I wound up having a root canal.
My husband went in to see his doctor once with a really bad sore throat. The doctor insisted it was just a cold and told him to go home and take some ibuprofen. He wouldn't listen to him when he insisted that it didn't feel like any cold he'd had or when he pointed out that he only came to a doctor's office about once every 10 years or so--basically only if he was dying. My husband wound up being admitted to the hospital a few days later with a peritonsillar abscess, but you know, it was just a cold.
And I could go on and on. I think we all could. Mistakes happen. I get that. But I get downright irate when I hear medical professionals complain about their patient's googling their condition. I've been told several different times NOT to look things up on the Internet. They act like we are children who can't handle this complex information properly so we need to leave it alone. But the fact of the matter is, with the right information we--who live in our bodies 24/7-- have a much better chance of diagnosing what is wrong with us than a doctor who sees us for five minutes. Rather than trying to keep patients away from information, it would be in everyone's best interest to make as much of it available to us as possible. And then they need to listen to patients when they say, "That just doesn't sound right" or "But that doesn't match _____." We might just save ourselves from a terrible medical error and save them a malpractice hearing.
