March 6th, 2010
I’m Not A Doctor But I Read A Lot of WebMD….
I haven’t ignored the Super Fantastic Blog Contest 2010, really, I haven’t. In fact, it’s not too late to enter, my response and box wine influenced winner decision will arrive next week.
I had to get this one off my chest, lest it fester and drive The Husband crazy for the next month. I realize this contradicts my earlier post ‘I’m not your mommyblogger’ but I couldn’t resist.
We were recently forced to switch pediatricians, our HMO broke up with our Medical Group and since the HMO has custody of us, we had to say goodbye to our wonderful pediatrician. Instead we were sent across town to the evil stepmother of a new office.
I’m continually surprised about the medical field. I used to want to be a doctor, back when I was a kid. That goal was whittled down and smooshed into an unhealthy obsession with medical television dramas and forensic crime TV. One thing I have learned as I get older: real medicine is much less interesting and competent than television medicine. Give me television medicine any day. Those doctors know what’s going on, and they act quickly. In real life, you can sit in that waiting room for days only to be diagnosed with a shrug of their highly educated shoulders and a prescription for a pharmaceutical strength multi-vitamin.
My son, Mr. Adorablepants, is the healthiest kid I’ve ever seen. He’s fearless, strong, and eats anything I put in front of him, most of the time that is…sometimes he throws it across the room, but he throws with gusto – I have to give him that. So when our new pediatrician told me I needed to put him on pharmaceutical strength Vitamin D supplements, I paused.
I know my medical knowledge comes from WebMD, I know. However, I also know that Mr. Adorablepants lives in sunny Southern California and is outside at every possible opportunity, has fair skin and is a healthy weight and height – not obese. Thus precluding any of the risk factors for Vitamin D defiency. He also has no signs of muscle weakness or lethargy.
I can’t help but wonder who’s funding the Vitamin D campaign around there. In any case I told her no thanks.
Then, they wanted to give him a TB test. He’s two years old…. Now, as a teacher I’ve been TB tested every which way from Sunday. They TB test us teachers to the point of giving us TB with all the micro-doses of the virus that they have to inject under our skin. I know my TB tests. As a result, I know that all 800 times I’ve been tested, they’ve made a big stink about telling me not to bump or mess with my arm, because irritating the little bump of virus can give you a false positive result.
I would love to explain to Mr. Adorablepants that he shouldn’t mess with the bump on his arm, but I think his response would be this:
“Dinosaur! Grrr!”
That’s been his stock answer to most of our discussions lately.
So I asked the nurse: “Do you get a lot of false positive results on two-year olds when you give them a TB test this young?”
She nodded and said “Well, yes…”
So, we passed on that one too.

At the end of the day, we left after two hours, with a good guess at what he weighs and an approximation of how tall he is. They had me stand on the scale with Mr. Adorablepants, and then did the foolproof scientific method of asking me how much I weigh and then subtracting the difference.
Seriously people?
Then, to make up for it, they gave Mr. Adorablepants a lollipop – or in the immortal words of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – a cavity on a stick. This was especially ironic as they had just given us a referral for his first dental visit. When I pointed out that a lollipop is a major choking hazard for a two-year old, the doctor looked at me like I was made of witch-cake and said “Well, yes….”
We passed on the lollipop.
I feel mildly bad about being such a bitch on wheels, but not too bad.
It just frustrates me. You have to be your own amateur doctor to not get screwed by your professional doctor.
A few years ago I was having some allergy issues and trouble breathing. I went to my doctor who looked up my nose, listened to me breath and two minutes later prescribed me an asthma inhaler.
I had to explain to the doctor that the inhaler could kill me as I have a heart murmur and have been explicitly told to stay away from anything that increases my heart rate – such as Sudafed, coffee and especially Albuterol inhalers.
He shrugged and said “Yeah, you don’t want to use this then.”
I know WebMD is not an alternative for medical school, but it’s frightening to me what could happen if you trust your doctor too much.























