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In my last post I started mentioning  my disdain about the medical profession and how I got that attitude from my great-grandmother.  I was listening to an episode of Oprah Winfrey the other day and all the blunders that do happen in the medical profession and if my great-grandmother had been alive and heard the show, she no doubt would be rolling her eyes in disbelief on what goes on.  For instance, one woman was supposedly diagnosed with breast cancer…she got mammograms, MRI, biopsies and NONE showed cancer, yet via her specimen slide it showed cancer and she had a mastectomy.  It later was discovered and  turned out the specimen slide was for the wrong person…it wasn’t her specimen but another woman, who unfortunately was no doubt being told she didn’t have cancer, when in fact she did.

 As I see it, all along we take the medical profession’s word, we trust doctors and trust that their evaluation of our medical problems are absolute gospel truth…we DON’T question their opinions and judgments, but it’s literally our lives at stake here and often we’re playing Russian roulette. Heck, I can even cite two incidences in my own life where the medical profession no doubt bungled and it had to do with both my grandmother and mother.

My grandmother was diagnosed with asthma relatively late in life, perhaps not having symptoms until her early 60s, naturally she was bombarded with a lot of medications, from those inhalers, to pills, usually Theophylline but other asthma medications as well.  Now those medications can do a real number on the heart, making it palpitate, especially Theophylline.  At some point, her doctor even gave her nitroglycerin since she seemingly had a heart condition…that goodness she never took it though, since if one doesn’t have a heart condition can actually trigger one.

Years passed by, and my grandmother’s asthma  was getting so out of control, she often had to go to the ER.  One day, back in October of 1986, she had a real dousy of an attack and we called the paramedics–they took her to the ER and she was pumped up with higher ranged doses of asthma medications, including of course Theophylline.  Hours later, feeling better she was discharged and came home.  She wasn’t home more than twenty minutes when yet again she got a bad asthma attack.  We called the paramedics again and she goes back to the ER where the same higher super doses of medications were given to her—AND–by the same team of doctors.   She died October 8, 1986 at the hospital…NOT from asthma, but from cardiac arrest.  The culprit?  Theophylline which can only be prescribed generically and under certain supervised conditions as it was later found out, years after my grandmother’s death, that Theophylline can trigger, yes, as you can guess,  cardiac arrest.  Back then, neither my mother or myself made the connection nor question the “wisdom” of the doctors in how they went about treating my grandmother…we trusted them.

 I myself did take Theophylline very briefly whenever I would get bronchitis.  In fact, the very first time I had a real severe case of it, and went to my doctor he gave me the injected version of it which is stronger than the pill form.  I asked my doctor what side effects I could expect and he said maybe a little dizziness.  So trusted him and allowed him to give me the shot.  Well, let me tell you, I experienced MORE than just a little dizziness, my heart palpitated like crazy and I swear I wanted to punch my doctor right there and then, but yes at least it did clear my lungs and I could breathe better.  After that episode, my doctor recommended I take regular doses of 400mg of Theophylline daily…well, yes I would take it, but not the whole pill, only a quarter of the pill which I’d cut up…and it still would make my heart palpitate.  Then whenever I went back to the doctor, all of a sudden it seemed my usually normal blood pressure was now reaching the high zone…Long story short…I later dispensed using the medication all together, and guess what?  My blood pressure was normal again and no longer had heart palpitations.

I shall continue more about my viewpoints of the medical profession in Part 3 and discuss about my mother’s death which I also blame on the medical profession as well.

©2009~Melanie Neer aka pyewacket

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