Do you support minor self diagnosis?
I started cracking my knuckles in fifth grade. My parents asked me why, and I told them it made the pain go away. My parents told me that I was too young for my joints to hurt, and that I would ruin them if I kept cracking them.
By the time was fourteen or fifteen and entering high school, I hadn’t stopped cracking my knuckles. The hurt more, and the relief was more. I was convinced that I had arthritis.
My parents told me that I was too young to have arthritis.
Fast forward thirty seven years when my joints take a dive and I cannot even get out of bed on some days. I take chemo therapy pills twice a week, and I have two injections of chemotherapy ever four months. I have to take two medications every day just to manage the pain the chemotherapy doesn’t cover.
This at least allows me to get out of bed and on most days it allows me to go to school. It doesn’t make the pain go away, and on bad days I want to cry it gets so bad.
The diagnosis? Early Onset Rheumatoid Arthritis.
It went unchecked for twenty five years, my immune system eating away at my joints like a buffet even though I wanted to go to the doctor from day one.
If I had gone to the doctor and I had been wrong - they found nothing - well, we would have been out a few bucks for the doctor’s visit.If I was right - and I was right - I would have been treated for 20 years.
If I had gone to the doctor on my insistence that I had arthritis at fifteen, I would not be in pain today. This would have been treated twenty years go.
Do I support minor self diagnosis?
Yes. Absolutely.
I would rather a minor self diagnose and be wrong than a minor ignore their body and suffer for 20 years like me. No one is harmed by listening to a minor and taking their concerns seriously. But that minor might be harmed for the rest of their life you ignore them.
My choice is always to listen to the minors about their bodies.
This is self-advocacy. Not self-diagnosis. This is an important distinction. Self-advocacy should be encouraged, but not self-diagnosis.
Saying ‘I think I might have [x], so I should go to a doctor and have them test me for [x]’ is absolutely a good idea. Saying ‘I think I might have [x], so I demand the proper treatment as if I have [x] and any doctor who says I don’t have [x] is lying to oppress me’ is fucking stupid and self-destructive.
@slothpiesoph, actually, it is self diagnosis, because they did diagnose themselves with arthritis(or crohns or depression) and wanted to go to the doctor to confirm it and get treatment. That is what self diagnosis actually means, you diagnose yourself with x and try to find someone who either confirms it, or finds out what might be wrong if it isnt x. @sindri42 Do you really think you can get a doctor to give you anything when they are not 100% sure you have it? Also, do you know how many chronically ill people, people with adhd, autism, depression, crohns and other *invisible* diseases have gone decades from doctor to doctor because these people knew something was wrong with them… …while the doctors said it was just imagination, they had to loose weight or were hysteric? Because hell, there are so many stories out there from these people and their odyssees to find a doctor who believes and tests!!! them instead of think them attention seekers, which you seem to have a bad case of. I have heard that shit so often, fucking stupid and self destructive…but in realty it is self-advocating, knowing your body, knowing something is wrong and having to fight doctors to get tests made and a diagnosis. Turns out, I have been sick since kindergarten, and only 30 years later I have found a doctor who doesn’t think me fucking stupid and self destructive for standing up for myself and found out that I was right. Pray that your own words won’t hit you in the back sooner than you ever thought. They will come back to bite you.
@ye-lost-bard
This disagreement may be a difference in opinion. I don't believe a non-medical professional can make a medical diagnosis. I do believe as a patient you can have a deep understanding of your symptoms and advocate for the diagnoses you believe fit the best. However, a medical diagnosis, in my opinion, should come from a medical professional. Patients may end up being correct but I don't believe they can go through a competent and comprehensive diagnostic process without a medical license.
Patients need to leave the diagnosing and treating to their doctors. What they can do is self-advocate. In the example given above, OP could not have known they had arthritis. But what they could know is that their symptoms were indicative of a medical problem that to them seemed to be arthritic in nature. They then could advocate for medical professionals to carry out the medical diagnostic process required.
If you have a problem with not being taken seriously by doctors then that is an issue and one worth fighting for - but the solution is not to assume you can do the job of a doctor. And also I agree wholeheartedly with @sindri42 . You should absolutely be able to ask for medical tests to help diagnosis. But asking for treatments without a proper diagnosis is irresponsible.
Also I understand your frustration in not being taken seriously by doctors. I have and still do face that as I continue to try to get my chronic health issues properly diagnosed and treated. But people advocating for responsible diagnostic and treatment paths are not always calling us attention seekers. Most likely, they are advocating for the safe and responsible practice of the science of medicine. And to deny that and believe you should be allowed treatment because you believe you have something is a denial of science and reality itself.
I've laid out my thoughts here for you since you seemed interested in debate. However this is as far as I am willing to take this conversation. I wish you the best of luck with your medical issues and hopefully more success now that you have found a doctor to take your concerns seriously. I, however, won't continue a discussion with someone that lays the threat of some sort of karmic retribution on people with differing opinions to them.
