Always Trust Your Instinct When Dealing With Doctors and Other Medical Professionals

Seems pretty basic enough right? Trusting your instinct is common practice for most of us when it comes to selecting what dress to buy or what seat to purchase for a live event or what makeup color looks best on our eyelids when browsing at the cosmetics counter. But how about when it comes to our health and dealing with doctors and their ilk? Not so easy right?

Well I’m here to say please trust your instinct with them too, even if the message is to go against what the expert is suggesting. I’m not saying to completely refute all health advice from a professional if it doesn’t agree with you, no. But sometimes your gut is wiser than the experts. It might lead you to get a second, third or fourth opinion until you find the right doctor for you. Or maybe the message your body is sending you is to do your own research which might include alternative remedies and health care if you tend to go to standard Western GP’s.

I was reminded of this choice (that is available to us anywhere and everywhere) yesterday when I was at a medical imaging center for a scheduled scoliosis x-ray. I have scoliosis (please see my previous blog about it) and my osteopath suggested that I get an x-ray to check up on it since my last one was taken when I was 18.

When I walked into the x-ray room with the technician, I asked for proper coverage (full torso shields in an apron like form) of my breasts and ovaries. This is a standard request since x-rays are unsafe and can potentially harm our bodies, especially the sensitive reproductive parts of our anatomy. The technician showed me the inadequate partial shields they used and informed me that unfortunately it was all they could provide in order to get the full picture of the spine. I happen to know this is not true, since I had full coverage shields years ago when I was a kid who underwent quite a few x-rays taken regarding my scoliosis. Thanks to my mom following her instinct at that time, and finding a doctor who protected my body and still was able to get a full x-ray of my entire spine.

So, I kindly informed the technician that I would not be able to carry through with the procedure, since I felt it would be a health risk, and I left. I know that a thermogram can show the same detail of my scoliotic spine and there are little to no potentially negative side effects.

Listen to your gut always! And inform yourself as best you can so you are not at the mercy of what one health professional’s diagnosis might be.