< rant>
I just finished reading yet another post that said, "I didn’t know what my [fill in name of test result here] was for years and just now learned that it’s objectionably [fill in “high” or “low” here]. This isn’t the first such comment I’ve seen here, or the fifth, or the tenth.
Grrrrrr.
Folks, doctors aren’t only there to prescribe treatments. They are also there to provide information. But they don’t always necessarily volunteer the information you need to make informed choices. Either they’re too busy, or too tired, or they get interrupted, or . . . zillions of possible reasons. The upshot is that you aren’t always told what you need to know.
We are ultimately in charge of our own health.* We may be prescribed a medication, but we have to do the taking of it. We may be told we need x or y treatment or modality, but we have to make sure it actually gets done. We need to know what’s going on with us.
Don’t know your A1c? It’s up to you to find out!
Don’t know your c-peptide level? Find out!
Don’t know what type you are? Find out!**
Current medical science offers an abundance of knowledge and techniques for longer and better living. But you have to know what you need before you can get what you need. It’s up to each of us to make sure we know what we need to know. So do it. Determine what you need to know, then insist on getting the answers.
< /rant>
*Every doctor on the planet will say “the patient is ultimately responsible for their own health decisions”—except when they don’t agree with the doctor. But never mind, that’s a different rant for another time.
**NOT as obvious as it sounds. Many, many people are misdiagnosed as T2 when they are actually T1 because the doctor didn’t order the definitive tests to find out and the patient didn’t ask (most likely didn’t know to ask) for them. Think that’s a rare occurrence not worth worrying about? See THIS.