<p>When children are young, parents should of course determine when their child needs to visit the doctor. However, I believe that eventually it should become the child’s responsibility, speaking specifically about minor illness, of course. Serious illness is an entirely different matter. By the time I was in middle school, my parents were always asking me if I wanted to go to the doctor when I was sick and if I said no (unless I’d been sick for a very long time), I was not forced to go. I’m asking this question because my boyfriend’s mother is essentially doctor crazy. She wants him to go to the doctor almost the minute he gets sick, every time. Now, he is eighteen so she legally cannot have any control over medical things at all, but he still lives at home because we are still in high school. What I’m wondering is: does this seem crazy to you? Is it logical to go to the doctor immediately for common symptoms such as a headache and sore throat? I don’t think so. What do you think?</p>
<p>Maybe your boyfriend has a chronic illness you are not aware of which makes a sore throat much more dangerous (or an early warning signal) than you think. Maybe he had leukemia as a child which from which he is fully recovered, but his mom is hypersensitive to signs of an impaired immune system. Maybe he had a history of addiction and he used to use “I have a headache” as a way of avoiding certain situations when he was high or using. Or maybe his mom is crazy.</p>
<p>Why do you care?</p>
<p>What we think doesn’t matter, and what you think probably doesn’t either. If his mom wants him to go to the Dr. all the time, and he’s willing to do so (after all, she raised him, and he knows what she’s like), then what is the big deal? If he doesn’t want to go, then that is for him to sort out with her.</p>
<p>The only way for this to become your problem is if he stops being your boyfriend and becomes your husband and she’s in both of your faces all the time about not seeking medical care at the first sign of a sniffle.</p>
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<p>If he does not have a legitimate medical reason for frequent physician visits, then the frequent physician visits add load to the medical care system and increase the overall costs, perhaps contributing to the huge share of GDP that medical care consumes in the US (even in comparison to other rich countries).</p>
<p>Overtreatment also has the risk of causing harm. Or even being in the medical office environment with sick people all around can increase the risk of catching something.</p>
<p>I have my kids go to doctor as soon as things don’t normal to me. If they cough for more than week, if the fever doesn’t go away after few days, if the mucus is not clear…sometimes it’s nothing serious, but more often than not some treatment was required. My kids have actually said that they didn’t understand why some of their friends would be sick for so long without any treatment.</p>
<p>My kids are 20 and 25 now. I remind them to get their regular checkups, dental cleaning. If their doctor tell them to a follow up, sometimes they get lazy, I will also be on them.</p>
<p>A bit of advice, as a girlfriend, try not to voice any opinion about mother/son relationship, it won’t lead to anything good.</p>
<p>You don’t know the family history or his medical history. There could be completely legitimate reason why she’s so concerned. </p>
<p>He’s 18, he can’t be forced. </p>
<p>You placed weight on him becoming 18 suggesting that now he has the freedom to turn away from her frantic demands and not go to the doctor. But why rock the boat? </p>
<p>If he hasn’t relayed his annoyance or concerns to you about going to the doctor frequently, it’s not much to ponder about. </p>
<p>Caitiann, it sounds to me as if your parents were more relaxed than the norm in allowing a middle schooler to decide whether she needed to visit the doctor. Your boyfriend’s family visits the doctor at an earlier point in an illness. You should accept that someone who doesn’t follow your family’s practices is not crazy. </p>
<p>It’s none of your business. I agree with oldfort, nothing good will come of criticizing your boyfriend’s mother.</p>
<p>Oh come on, UCB. You have a much better chance of overburdening the medical system because you rarely or never go to the doctor even when sick than going to the doctor too frequently. </p>
<p>I make my DH go to the doctor. He wouldn’t go unless on his own other than feet first on a gurney. My one son also gets nagged by me probably a bit too much, but he’s a childhood cancer survivor, and I’m his mom, so yes, I’m a bit jumpy. It’s one of those fuzzy areas that has to be discerned by family, individual situation. </p>
<p>My son’s former classmate and friend died from H1N1 his first year in college because he was too late in getting medical help,and he sure did burden the medical system when he finally went because they had to go full court press in trying to save his life even though they failed. Still haunts me. </p>
<p>This is none of your business. She may or may not be overprotective, but right now making judgments on whether or not this is crazy is not a good tactic on your part.</p>
<p>As a health care worker, I’d agree with you. However, in no way would it help anything to have much of an opinion regarding how he was raised, and the values of his family. People have far different places regarding when they seek medical help. And there certainly are cases as mentioned with the sad death from H1N1 above. Accept, and discuss if he has interest in discussion. Otherwise, leave those sorts of decisions to him and his family. </p>
<p>As a mom, I reserve my nagging rights. </p>
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<p>Not necessarily true for all situations. Remember the recent controversy over breast cancer mammogram screenings and prostate cancer PSA screenings, where (at least for some widely screened groups), the tests were found to result in a lot of invasive and expensive overtreatment in the absence of a deadly cancer?</p>
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<p>Did I say that it was universally true? No. I said that you have a “better chance” meaning that more often then not, you do more harm by not going. </p>
<p>I’m not sure why you look for the exception in every single circumstance. Of course there are ALWAYS going to be exceptions. (Sorry- almost always. I’m sure there are three things on the planet that are guaranteed) </p>
<p>Just this past weekend we had a situation with our DS who is 22 and graduating in a couple weeks. </p>
<p>He came home for Easter weekend. While out at dinner on Saturday evening we see that one of fingers is red and extremely swollen - almost twice normal size. We are immediately concerned as any semi-rational person would be. The previous weekend, my wife was visiting him for mom’s weekend at his fraternity. He told her about an inflamed cuticle and she took him to CVS and bought him antibiotic ointment and bandages and cleaned and bandaged the finger. She told him to treat it for a couple of days and if it wasn’t better to go student health midweek. Of course during the week he neither put ointment on it nor went to student health. After dinner we literally had to drive directly to an urgent care center and force him to see a doctor. He of course was yelling that we were ruining his evening out with friends - even though they weren’t meeting for a couple of hours. Of course, he left the clinic 30 minutes later with a boatload of prescriptions for the infection. </p>
<p>The point being, just because you are 22 and graduating magna cum laude doesn’t mean you know all things! Sometimes you still need to be a parent. And sometimes the shoe is on the other foot - often with the adult children having to force the elderly parent to the doctor. </p>
<p>Until you marry this boy, let it go. If you are thinking of marrying him, just keep this data point in mind. </p>
<p>When I was 18, my parents wouldn’t let me go to the doctor. They could decide, since I still needed them to pay the bills then. I had like 20 desperately needed appointments when I graduated college and got my own health insurance because I had several chronic medical conditions that were going untreated-- including asthma. It can be worse. </p>
<p>I agree, stay out of it. The minute mom sees you as an opposing influence in her son’s life, she will not want you around, even if you are trying to be helpful. Don’t encourage him to rebel against his mother, going to the doctor never hurt anybody.</p>
<p>You have to be realistic about what a doctor can and can’t do. Going to the doctor for every sniffle or sore throat rarely does any good. (I’m not talking about serious illness.) It just passes the bug around, exposes you to other sick(er) people at the doctor’s office, and then you get the bill. The illness goes away by itself in a couple days.
Perhaps the mom has had some bad experience that makes her wary. Or she thinks doctors can cure the common cold. (There are some patients out there who practically worship doctors and greatly overestimate their abilities.) Was it Voltaire who said “Medicine is the art of entertaining the patient while nature takes its course”? While doctors know a lot more now than they did in Voltaire’s day, there are some patients with very minor symptoms who keep coming in just to be reassured, and unfortunately that wastes the doctor’s time. I have a relative like this–her spouse has a hard time convincing her that doctors can’t fix every minor (probably age-related) ache or pain. She is constantly making the rounds of doctors and has seen dozens of specialists, only to find out that there is nothing in particular that needs treatment. (This is VERY annoying to her spouse who can’t convince her to take up another hobby. . .)</p>
<p>The BF’s mother sounds like one of those people who visits the doctor and demands antibiotics for everything. Which has indeed had a massively negative effect on public health. Or maybe not, perhaps one of the other scenarios mentioned here is in play.</p>
<p>In any case, I wouldn’t set myself up against his mother, unless you see him being forced into over-treatment that actually threatens his health. (Assuming, of course, that you could even discern that.)</p>