<p>A close friend of mine is starting to worry about her husband. He hasn’t been to the doctor in years, and he flatly refuses to go. He won’t even discuss it. He’s an intelligent guy, mid-50s, a college grad, but he has this idiosyncrasy. My friend is worried that he’s walking around with high blood pressure, possibly high cholesterol, and incipient diabetes. Has anyone faced this problem? Is it a “guy thing”? Any advice?</p>
<p>Can she wager with him? I’ll ___ if you go to the doctor? (I"ve got one of these going right now with my own H - he needs to have his hearing checked and won’t do it.)</p>
<p>Guy thing? Not really. In my experience it’s often an overweigt, unhealthy, in denial thing.</p>
<p>My husband hasn’t been to the doctor (close to never) in 33 years of marriage. He is not overweight or unhealthy. But I cannot relate to that choice.</p>
<p>I think it can be a ‘guy thing’ to some extent if one were to generalize. Perhaps some doctors or people who know the stats can chime in. </p>
<p>The problem is, ‘not seeing a doctor’ doesn’t seem to actually prevent any problems from occurring - i.e. ignorance is no assurance. </p>
<p>It comes down to him to decide for himself if he’ll go in. Unfortunately we aren’t as invincible as we’d like to be and a past history of no health problems isn’t a sure indicator of no future problems. Also unfortunately, it’s in the 50s/60s that many men die from a heart attack, cancer, or many other diseases and there isn’t always a warning. </p>
<p>For me, I decided to be less selfish and be considerate of my family and go in to see the doc - even to the point of having a colonoscopy. I want to do what I can to be around to see the major events in my kids’ lives and maybe even grandkids’ lives someday. There are so many people I know in my general age group having health issues, mostly men, that one really needs to have their head in the sand to not see it or think it can’t happen to them.</p>
<p>Maybe suggest that the friend appeal to the H on the basis of doing it for his family since he won’t do it for himself. Maybe they can convince him he’s not being fair to them to act like a scared kid and act this selfishly.</p>
<p>Maybe she can offer him a deal - either he schedules a physical, or he buys a $500,000 life insurance policy and names her as the beneficiary. Perhaps that will open his eyes…</p>
<p>I know someone who is kind of like this. She does not “trust” medical doctors or other health care professionals. She does go to the doctor, but she shopped for one that does not order invasive tests and it takes something huge for this doctor to follow up and coax a patient to seek a specialist. In the meantime, at least blood pressures are taken and blood work/urinalysis are done for this patient. Also, she gets the appropriate vaccines and things like antibiotics when necessary.</p>
<p>The reason for the lack of trust is the fact that she is aware that medicine is business. She does not feel that things like colonoscopies are safe (ie: she points out the risk of perforation of the colon and how some hospitals do not use 100% sterile equipment. There were some news stories in the past about non-sterile techniques used by a hospital). She does not feel that doctor’s offices are clean enough so one can get an ailment that is worse than the one the patient walked in with to begin with. I can go on. When you point out the risk of colon cancer, for example, she would rather assume the risk of eventual death than risk death on the table today from a colonoscopy. She feels that when “her time is up, it is up”. She feels that these tests are ordered to make money for facilities and physicians and to practice defensive medicine so she won’t subject herself to these tests.</p>
<p>doctors will find something “wrong” to prescribe meds to make everyone more $$$$…it’s how it works</p>
<p>I know some who go to the doctor but then refuse to take medication recommended by the doctor. Statins for one.</p>
<p>I like the $500,000 life insurance policy idea.</p>
<p>One of my mom’s friends noticed that her tongue was partially discolored and it hurt. The friend didn’t want to go to a doctor, so she ignored it. Months later, it was still bothering her so she went to a “natural healing” clinic in Florida. After a few more months, she finally went to a doctor–Stage IV cancer of the tongue. Four months later, she was dead at age 62. What a waste.</p>
<p>^^The person that I know would have told you that the person with cancer of the tongue would have died anyway. They would have suffered more from chemo and tests. At least they made the most of their very last days. Some people think this way, and perhaps this would have been the case, and perhaps not.</p>
<p>How could one get a $500,000 policy without a physical?</p>
<p>My husband is one of those who will not go to the Dr. He goes by the “I feel fine so why go to a Dr.” Consequently, he has no idea what his BP is, what his cholesteral is, no colonoscopy, etc. He also has some moles that I am sure need to be removed but he refuses to take any action. He drives me nuts. There is no bargain that would entice him to go.</p>
<p>The problem, of course, is that if you never see your doctor now, you will most likely see way, way more of him/her, and his/her many colleagues, in the future.</p>
<p>Yep, I can’t figure these guys out either who never see a doctor, my husband included, even though he appears to be healthy. Oh, can’t use life insurance as a bargaining chip as he has life insurance. Laketime asks if that required a physical…I can’t remember as it was so long ago when he bought it and so maybe he did that one time. </p>
<p>And yes, I cannot figure out people who actually have symptoms and won’t see a doctor or follow a doctor’s advice. The story above about the tongue…my MIL recently mentioned a lump on her tongue and that the doctor thought to be safe, she should have a biopsy. Doesn’t want to do that. NUTS. She claims it must be from this fall she had but she had the fall a few months ago. I would surely follow a doctor’s advice in such situations.</p>
<p>My h used to belong to the no doctor club. I was very fortunate that he had a minor something which I cannot remember now that required removal. Maybe an annoying bleeding mole? Anyway I did some research and with Lots of luck found a great physician who connected with husband. If you can make a deal with H do your best to find someone who has connected with others before. I had expected h’s doctor to be lean, healthy looking. When I finally saw a picture, he was overweight and dumpy looking. Doesn’t matter, my husband watches diet and gets checked routinely 
best of luck</p>
<p>DH never went to the doctor. But he did go to the dentist. Fortunately, when he had what the dentist thought was an infected salivary gland, she sent him to the doctor. And the doctor figured out that he had cancer. Stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It turned out to be responsive to a new drug on the market; that was 11 years ago and he’s been in remission for 9 of those years.</p>
<p>Can you conspire with someone who will bring less emotional baggage to the discussion? I’d told my husband I wanted him to go to the doctor–he “felt fine”–but the dentist got to him by simple medical logic. “I’m concerned, go get it checked.”</p>
<p>dmd…I’m not the OP but my husband never goes to a doctor OR a dentist! I do both. Oh, I should mention that my husband is in the health profession!</p>
<p>Laketime, you pretty much could not get a $500k policy without a physical, every so often a company will offer a no exam plan, but it is priced accordingly.</p>
<p>An anti-doctor may take the insurance physical as it does not feel as official, it is ‘just’ a paramed exam; however, most companies don’t want to insure some one who never goes to the doctor. If you’re over 50, they’ll want to see at least one physical in the past 3 or so years.</p>
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<p>OR</p>
<p>they might find cancer at a curable stage in a 57-year old woman who, for all of her adult life, refused to go to a doctor, not even for pap smears, mammograms, etc. (she had no children), then when stage 4 cancer was discovered, she lived about 2 1/2 months. </p>
<p>Yea, that would be my sister-in-law a year ago.</p>
<p>But God forbid she do anything to help anyone ‘make some money’.</p>