MANY HAD TO COLLECT WITH DIAGNOSES , from which the heart rate increased and the palms sweated, and the treatment was offered almost for life. True, upon closer examination of the issue, it may turn out that the diagnosis is not a diagnosis at all, but the purchased medicines create a hole in the budget, but do not improve well-being. This is because Soviet medicine has been developing for many years in isolation from the world, and standards based on the international classification of diseases were absent even ten years ago. Unfortunately, even today there are many conservative doctors who do not practice evidence-based medicine and stick to the concepts they are used to. Let’s look at the most common diagnoses that do not really exist, and at the same time we will debunk several myths.
Dysbacteriosis
Dysbacteriosis (aka dysbiosis) is treated by the realization that it does not exist . K Unfortunately, in our country dysbiosis overgrown insane amount of unconfirmed facts – and it created a lot of medicines, known as probiotics, prebiotics and eubiotics designed to normalize the intestinal microflora. The flora of the large intestine (and bacteria live only there, normally the small intestine is almost sterile) can really change slightly, for example, against the background of taking antibiotics, and then diarrhea develops – but most often it goes away on its own. Traveler’s diarrhea is also a normal reaction of the colon to a new microflora that enters the body when the environment changes, but it cannot be called a disease.
Vegetovascular dystonia
Experts practicing evidence-based medicine call vegetovascular dystonia a “garbage diagnosis”, implying that negligent doctors hide behind this term ignorance of the symptoms of diseases. Typically, patients with this diagnosis complain of dizziness, palpitations, general weakness, fainting, panic attacks, or something else.
For all these symptoms, it is important to look for the cause and treat it – but not under the diagnosis of vegetative-vascular dystonia. For example, a rapid heartbeat may indicate a low hemoglobin level, and dizziness may reflect problems with the vestibular apparatus. The diagnosis of “VSD” about 200 years ago existed in the United States, but only in Russia it is being made to this day. By the way, not a single English-speaking doctor will understand him, and if translated literally, he will be frightened – after all, “a violation of the coordinated work of blood vessels and the (autonomic) nervous system” sounds like something close to a stroke.
Salt deposits
This diagnosis is rarely made by doctors – more often it can be heard from friends when describing pain in the neck or clicks when moving in the joint. Recommendations vary from “eat less salt” to different detox and superfood intake. It seems that popular rumor confuses this condition with gout – the deposition of uric acid in the joints and soft tissues. Gout is a completely different story, with acute inflammation and pain around the joints, not at all like those with massage or regular exercise. In general, the disease is not the same, and the salts are not the same.
But the advice to eat less salt should not be ignored; reducing the amount of sodium in the diet is one of the most important ways to prevent arterial hypertension (which is most often mistakenly called hypertension).
Osteochondrosis
In general, such a diagnosis exists; ostechondrosis is a rare and extremely serious disease that begins to develop in early childhood. It is a degeneration or necrosis of bone tissue, with the result that growth is severely impaired. Again, it is worth keeping this in mind when communicating with foreign doctors – after all, only in the post-Soviet space this diagnosis is made to everyone who has changes in the intervertebral discs. Most people over 40 have them, and many are unaware of it. Unfortunately, under the sauce of such a diagnosis, it is quite possible to prescribe the patient an expensive examination, and then no less expensive treatment.
(Hyper) uterine tone during pregnancy
The uterus is a muscular organ that, like any muscle, can contract and relax; this happens both during and outside pregnancy. The English physician John Braxton Hicks described normal contractions of the uterus throughout pregnancy almost 250 years ago ; they can become noticeable in the first months. Sometimes they are called training contractions – and sometimes only contractions before childbirth are referred to as training contractions, and for some reason the usual Braxton Hicks contractions are considered a pathological “tone”. It is even worse that this condition, which can be ignored, for some reason is treated with no-spa, papaverine and other medications.
Cervical erosion
Again, erosion really exists and requires treatment, but it only occurs much less often than this diagnosis is made – the reason is that erosion is mistakenly called ectopia . Normally, the vaginal (visible part) of the cervix and its canal are covered with different epithelium, but the border between these two types of cells is visible on examination. This situation is called ectopia; this is a variant of the norm and a condition that definitely does not need to be treated or cauterized by anything.
Decreased immunity and vitamin deficiency
A mysterious decrease in immunity comes to our country from October to April and requires the purchase of a variety of drops, ointments or pills designed to protect against influenza viruses and other delights that accompany rainy, chilly and cold weather. But only limiting the possibility of getting infected protects against colds , and vaccination against the flu also.
In fact, serious disorders in the functioning of the immune system are rarely manifested by colds – infections that are very difficult, difficult to treat, lasts a long time, reoccurs, and are caused by rare and unusual pathogens can indicate immunodeficiency .
The same applies to vitamin deficiency – a complete lack of one of the vitamins in the body can lead to tooth loss (with scurvy) or curvature of the limbs (with rickets). But only malaise at the sounds of a spring drip, although it may be associated with a diet not very rich in vitamins, is not vitamin deficiency .
Sclerosis and rheumatism
These are more cases of misuse of terms; it is not clear why people call forgetfulness sclerosis, because in fact the diagnosis of “sclerosis” does not exist at all. There are several single-root diagnoses that indicate an overgrowth of connective tissue – for example, in the walls of blood vessels in atherosclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is also not associated with either age-related forgetfulness or absent-mindedness – it is a serious disease of the central nervous system that usually occurs at a young age. It is called scattered because the foci of sclerosis are chaotically scattered (scattered) in the brain.
Rheumatism is often called anxiety in the back and joints – about the same thing that is mistakenly diagnosed as osteochondrosis. In fact, rheumatism is an inflammatory disease that primarily affects the lining of the heart. It occurs due to an excessive immune response to infection with certain bacteria and occurs most often in children and adolescents – but older people do not get rheumatism.