Just this month, I’ve been in and out of clinics for a couple of ailments. I have to admit that I’m not taking pretty good care of myself recently. So much pressure to work and earn. So doctors got to love me since I’ve been handing them hard-earned money to write me prescriptions and I got to hate myself for that.

I had been experiencing some weird sensations in my ear and a trip to an ENT revealed that both of my eardrums were perforated due to a prolonged bout of allergic rhinitis. I’ve been under treatment for a week now. And just last Monday, I had to visit the dentist to perform root canal therapy on me due to an inflamed and infected tooth nerve due to a botched filling job by my old dentist.

Too bad for me, one thing that I don’t have is a health care plan aside from the government mandated Philheath and that you can’t seem to rely on for emergency procedures. I do have access to cheaper and free medical services from the UP infirmary but my past experiences have made me wary of defaulting to that privilege. The thing is, quality health care never comes cheap. Indeed, I have spent quite a lot on consultation fees and medicine these past weeks.

It makes me think about the whole health care industry and the ways they make money out of an unhealthy public. I’ve been giving my experiences a lot of thought and I can’t discount the fact that health care is a business leading me to think that money is inevitably the primary motivation for doctors to treat patients. No offense to those few good doctors out there but I’ve had some bad experiences to lead me to think this way.

Prevention should be better than cure but that didn’t work out that well for me. My last visit to my old dentist was simply to have a filled tooth repaired and routine prophylaxis and checkup. However, my old dentist recommended to fill three more teeth aside from the one I initially intended to have fixed. I asked her why she was recommending such procedures when I never experienced anything with those teeth. She just said that it was needed to address an onset of caries. Since she was the authority, I conceded to her expert opinion. She just said that if ever they start to hurt, I should go back and consider root canal therapy.

Not long after, one of the new teeth that was newly filled gave me some problems with heat sensitivity. It hurt when I drank hot and cold liquids. When I asked why the sensitivity, I was told it was just normal for filled teeth to experience such sensitivity. Little did I know that it would come to a head when I suffered from extreme pain last Sunday that robbed me off a night’s sleep.

Only after the visit to another dentist who was willing to make an appointment with me on Monday morning (my old dentist doesn’t hold clinics on Mondays) did I know that the filled tooth was drilled too deeply and irritated the nerve. I had to undergo an emergency root canal therapy. That procedure, despite being done by a skilled dentist and lots of lidocaine, when done on an inflamed tooth is one painful motherf*cker.

In hindsight, I now put to question the last instruction by my old dentist. It seemed to prophetic that the teeth with which I never had previous problems would be considered for root canal therapy. Did my old dentist deliberated drill the tooth too deeply so that it would cause me problems so that she can perform a much more expensive procedure in the near future? Maybe I’m just a conspiracy nut or maybe I just have trust issues but it was a botched job. Now, I’m paranoid that the other teeth she worked on will eventually hurt too.

This makes me wary of other medical procedures as well. Treatment plans for different ailments vary. Some doctors would go for the sureshot albeit most expensive treatments (e.g. surgery, strongest and most expensive medication) which some doctors point out as the “pineperahan ang pasyente” style. I do understand the logic of going for the incremental treatment plan basic treatments (oftentimes cheapest) first in hopes of addressing the issue then before resorting to more complicated measures. But what if the doctor knows that the simple treatment won’t work. Isn’t that a style of “pamemera” as well?

I’m not accusing all doctors of such practices but I’m pretty sure that some operate this way. It’s the return customer that fuels the longevity of business and for doctors, patients are their customers. I remember reading how some doctors complain about not making a million a year (their reason to go abroad) practicing medicine here in the country but come on. We do live in a country where a laborer’s minimum wage is equivalent a doctor’s consultation fee for ten minutes of “examination” and a prescription. Talk about earning potential.

Check out these other posts:

1. This shut me up good
2. Trying to catch a fourth wind
3. Why I hate Brian