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By Brooks A. Mick, M.D.
Feb. 13, 2006 Our great and benevolent government has created a code book of thousands of alphanumeric designations of diseases and medical conditions. One of those codes, V15.81, designates one of the more deadly medical conditions in existence. V15.81 is the code for NONCOMPLIANCE. It is the dreaded epidemic of noncompliance that results in the death and disability of a great many Americans. I try my best to prescribe proper treatment, but too often the patient returns in 2 months or 6 months or a year and I find that they simply haven’t been taking the medication. Seldom is there an excuse I can buy. Many times a patient newly diagnosed as diabetic simply is in denial and refuses to believe that they are, indeed, diabetic. Same with a diagnosis of high blood pressure. With high cholesterol, there is less likelihood of denial, but people think they can treat it adequately by diet, which is seldom the case. In fact, after a myocardial infarction or attack of angina, it is NEVER the case. All these people should be on a cholesterol drug, just as all diabetics should be on a cholesterol agent. Sometimes the excuse is cost. One often finds, however, that the patient who can’t afford medication can nevertheless afford cigarettes, beer, and satellite TV and other luxuries. Patients who “can’t afford” high blood pressure medications will, strangely, often be able to afford Viagra to combat the effects of the high blood pressure on their sex life. On rare occasions there is a legitimate money problem, but these patients know that my nurse or I can supply them with samples most of the time. They just have refused to come in to get the samples. I used to become depressed or angry about such patients. I knew that they could be kept in much better health if they would simply follow directions and take a few tablets a day, stop shaking so much salt onto their food, eat more vegetables, and pass up about half the bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice that they were consuming. But in order to avoid unnecessary worry on my part, I had to formulate Mick’s Primary Law of Medicine: When the patient refuses to treat his illness, Dr. Mick does not get sick. Here are a few other principles: 1) Diabetes is not controlled by diet. The sugar may be controlled, but the disease is not. 2) Disease damage is not additive, it multiplies. If you have diabetes AND high blood pressure, you have four times as much chance at getting strokes and heart attacks as if you had only one of those disorders. It is thus at least four times as important to control BOTH diseases as it would be to take care of just one of them. 3) Arteries are the low man on the totem pole. Everything picks on the arteries. Protecting your arteries is a primary necessity to maintain your health. 4) Sure there are risks to taking medication—but the greater risk lies in NOT TAKING YOUR MEDICINE! And lastly, V15.81 KILLS! Avoid it as you would avoid the plague. ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: Physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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