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Gastroenterology (Expert Forum)
A Healthy Experience?
This forum is for questions regarding Gastroenterology issues such as Acid Reflux (GERD), Barretts Esophagus, Colitis, Colon/Bowel Disorders, Crohn's Disease, Diverticulitis/ Diverticulosis, Digestive Disorders, IBS, Stomach Pain.
A Healthy Experience?
by John Thompson, Dec 06, 1999 12:00AM
A few months ago, my wife (who is 36 years old) had a serious
gallbladder attack. It was a devestating experience for our entire family. She was bedridden for days. After many
tests and expensive procedures (costing over $2,000), we were told that she had a problem with gallstones and that her gallbladder should be removed. In retrospect, when I
review what happened, I feel that we were "milked"
during the diagnosis. (I feel this way because early in the process, my wife talked to a friend, who is a medical transcriptionist, and she said right away that the attack was related to gallstones. But did the doctors tell us anything before all the costly diagnostic procedures were done? No, they did not.)
We were given the name of a surgeon; we went to see him.
When he came into the waiting room and saw that I was there
with my wife, he didn't even introduce himself to me. It was as if he was disturbed that he
would have to lie to a healthy person along with a distressed one. He
told us there were only 3 options to consider:
1) Medicine to dissolve the stones
2) Ultrasound to "blast" the stones apart
3) Surgery to remove the gallbladder
During the "consultation" He mixed up his statistics, first telling us
that only 13 percent of the people would have success using medicine to
dissolve the stones. He told us that the medicine was controversial and
not very effective. When we asked for more detail, he replied that it
only works in 1 out of 13 people (I didn't need the high-level
mathematics I learned in college to know that 1 out of 13 is different
than 13 percent!). He was callous to the fact that accurate statistics
are important to people considering surgery to remove organs from the
body. He told us that trying to dissolve the stones would be very
costly; that it would take years, and that it probably would not work.
He then told us about another method that would "explode" the stones
using ultrasound. He said that this method was also controversial and
that although it was approved in Europe, the procedure was not yet
approved here in the US. He said there were serious health risks
associated with this method, and implied that we would have to fly to
europe or something.
He said that most people opted for surgery to remove the gallbladder,
and that surgery was by far the best way to solve the problem. He said
the surgery was routine and that he did many every week. It was simple
and quick. To add insult to injury, he even bragged that he had gotton
so good with the procedure, that he could remove a gallbladder in just
22 minutes.
At the end of the "consultation" I asked him if there were any ways that
she could modify her diet to help the problem. His reply was:
"Eat all the fatty foods you want, if you don't take out the
gallbladder, you will end up in the emergency room soon and it might be
fatal at that point. Do you want to get on the schedule for next
Wednesday? I can do it then."
We were devestated when we left. For me, the meeting was quite
dramatic, as when I was a child 35 years ago, I used to go on house
calls with my Father, who was a physician (along with both of his
brothers). Back then, doctors would go to the house of an ailing person
to help them. To me, this doctor had the bedside manner of a mosquito.
We felt that her life was in danger if we did not do something, yet she
did not want someone to remove something from her body.
We called about 5 hospitals in different towns and found out that a
gallbladder operation costs between $8,000 and $10,000 and takes about
30 to 45 minutes with laproscopy. It is amazing how much these guys
make for so little work, but this explains the lies.
At that point, little did we know that we could spend less than $10 on a
more effective procedure that would leave everything intact (no, this is
not an advertisement!)
When I told the story to my cousin, he told me about a book that had a
lot of good information about healthy living. He said he thought there
was something in the book about gallstones but he wasn't sure what it
was. We got the book and found out about the apple juice procedure. We
both tried it and it worked for me but not my wife. She tried it again
a few weeks later without success. She then tried the gold coin grass
next for 2 weeks, followed by the apple juice procedure again; this time
using a grapefruit and lemon at the end. This time it worked!. She
intends to continue doing the flushes every few months for awhile.
You might think that this real-life horror story was bad for us, but we
now feel very different about it. We feel that although we have dodged
a bullet, actually something very good has happened to us. "Dr. Chop
Chop" (we now affectionately refer to him this way) actually helped us
in an indirect fashion. Until this incident, we did not eat healthy,
and we were overweight. Since the meeting with Dr. Chop Chop, we have
started eating healthy foods and have both lost significant amounts of
weight (myself 30 pounds so far).
So, although this doctor first appeared to us as a monster, it turns
out that scary Dr. Chop Chop has actually helped us improve our life!
He uses a method that is quite different than what my Father would have
used, but it works and has ultimately helped us become healthier!
gallbladder attack. It was a devestating experience for our entire family. She was bedridden for days. After many
tests and expensive procedures (costing over $2,000), we were told that she had a problem with gallstones and that her gallbladder should be removed. In retrospect, when I
review what happened, I feel that we were "milked"
during the diagnosis. (I feel this way because early in the process, my wife talked to a friend, who is a medical transcriptionist, and she said right away that the attack was related to gallstones. But did the doctors tell us anything before all the costly diagnostic procedures were done? No, they did not.)
We were given the name of a surgeon; we went to see him.
When he came into the waiting room and saw that I was there
with my wife, he didn't even introduce himself to me. It was as if he was disturbed that he
would have to lie to a healthy person along with a distressed one. He
told us there were only 3 options to consider:
1) Medicine to dissolve the stones
2) Ultrasound to "blast" the stones apart
3) Surgery to remove the gallbladder
During the "consultation" He mixed up his statistics, first telling us
that only 13 percent of the people would have success using medicine to
dissolve the stones. He told us that the medicine was controversial and
not very effective. When we asked for more detail, he replied that it
only works in 1 out of 13 people (I didn't need the high-level
mathematics I learned in college to know that 1 out of 13 is different
than 13 percent!). He was callous to the fact that accurate statistics
are important to people considering surgery to remove organs from the
body. He told us that trying to dissolve the stones would be very
costly; that it would take years, and that it probably would not work.
He then told us about another method that would "explode" the stones
using ultrasound. He said that this method was also controversial and
that although it was approved in Europe, the procedure was not yet
approved here in the US. He said there were serious health risks
associated with this method, and implied that we would have to fly to
europe or something.
He said that most people opted for surgery to remove the gallbladder,
and that surgery was by far the best way to solve the problem. He said
the surgery was routine and that he did many every week. It was simple
and quick. To add insult to injury, he even bragged that he had gotton
so good with the procedure, that he could remove a gallbladder in just
22 minutes.
At the end of the "consultation" I asked him if there were any ways that
she could modify her diet to help the problem. His reply was:
"Eat all the fatty foods you want, if you don't take out the
gallbladder, you will end up in the emergency room soon and it might be
fatal at that point. Do you want to get on the schedule for next
Wednesday? I can do it then."
We were devestated when we left. For me, the meeting was quite
dramatic, as when I was a child 35 years ago, I used to go on house
calls with my Father, who was a physician (along with both of his
brothers). Back then, doctors would go to the house of an ailing person
to help them. To me, this doctor had the bedside manner of a mosquito.
We felt that her life was in danger if we did not do something, yet she
did not want someone to remove something from her body.
We called about 5 hospitals in different towns and found out that a
gallbladder operation costs between $8,000 and $10,000 and takes about
30 to 45 minutes with laproscopy. It is amazing how much these guys
make for so little work, but this explains the lies.
At that point, little did we know that we could spend less than $10 on a
more effective procedure that would leave everything intact (no, this is
not an advertisement!)
When I told the story to my cousin, he told me about a book that had a
lot of good information about healthy living. He said he thought there
was something in the book about gallstones but he wasn't sure what it
was. We got the book and found out about the apple juice procedure. We
both tried it and it worked for me but not my wife. She tried it again
a few weeks later without success. She then tried the gold coin grass
next for 2 weeks, followed by the apple juice procedure again; this time
using a grapefruit and lemon at the end. This time it worked!. She
intends to continue doing the flushes every few months for awhile.
You might think that this real-life horror story was bad for us, but we
now feel very different about it. We feel that although we have dodged
a bullet, actually something very good has happened to us. "Dr. Chop
Chop" (we now affectionately refer to him this way) actually helped us
in an indirect fashion. Until this incident, we did not eat healthy,
and we were overweight. Since the meeting with Dr. Chop Chop, we have
started eating healthy foods and have both lost significant amounts of
weight (myself 30 pounds so far).
So, although this doctor first appeared to us as a monster, it turns
out that scary Dr. Chop Chop has actually helped us improve our life!
He uses a method that is quite different than what my Father would have
used, but it works and has ultimately helped us become healthier!
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