Latest / The Diva Details / AI, Gut Checks & Gallbladders: A Diva's Guide to Owning Your Medical Story
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the Diva Details. Welcome to the Diva Details.
- 0:05Where bold, confident women embrace life unapologetically.
- 0:10From love and sex to wellness and reinvention. We keep it.
- 0:30Hello, this is Diva Mia. Today, I'm going to talk to you about something that
- 0:34hits really close to home.
- 0:35I know I've been away for a couple weeks, and I apologize, but I had some major health issues.
- 0:42Something that is impacting a lot of us as we get into our 50s and our 60s is
- 0:47once in a while, we have a health issue or a health scare that comes out of
- 0:50nowhere, although I'm a firm believer nothing comes out of nowhere,
- 0:54and it will knock you on your butt.
- 0:56It will take over every aspect of your life.
- 0:59When you have a health issue, you only have one issue, and that's your health.
- 1:03Everything else gets pushed back to the back burner.
- 1:06So today I wanted to talk a little bit about something personal to me and my health issue.
- 1:11How to self-advocate when you get into a medical situation that a lot of us
- 1:17are or our loved ones are,
- 1:18and how we need to take care of ourselves as well as listen to our doctor,
- 1:24but at the same time advocate for ourselves so we don't get run over and ignored.
- 1:28The average adult now sees the doctor more often than they see most of their extended family.
- 1:34Most people are terrified to question them. I think a lot of times some doctors
- 1:38have a God complex, or we look at them as if they are all-knowing.
- 1:42I'm sorry, it's called practicing medicine for a reason. They're practicing.
- 1:46They don't know it all. They may come across as if they know it all,
- 1:50and they may tell you that you have to do this or you have to do that.
- 1:53I experienced that recently. They tried to railroad me.
- 1:57You need to learn to stand up for yourself, and you need to learn to stand up for your family.
- 2:01Because if you don't, when you know you're right, they may guide you down the wrong path.
- 2:06Just like that friend that says they know how to sell your house,
- 2:09even though they've never sold one, or they sold one one time,
- 2:13and they tell you to go against your realtor's advice, and they may lead you down the wrong path.
- 2:18Or, you know, a dentist that says a tooth needs to get pulled,
- 2:21and all of a sudden now it doesn't anymore.
- 2:22There are things that happen in medicine, there's things that happen in life, and no one knows it all.
- 2:27And that's why today I'm going to talk a little bit about how to do self-advocacy
- 2:31for yourself, how to research information yourself, and how to be really informed about your health.
- 2:36Because the more informed you are, the more you can stand up for yourself.
- 2:41And learning how to advocate yourself in the medical system is so crucial because
- 2:44as we get older, we're going to have more and more doctor's visits,
- 2:48emergency visits, surgeries, etc.
- 2:50It just happens. Things come up. Some things are unexpected.
- 2:54Some things are planned.
- 2:55But nonetheless, you still need to be able to advocate for yourself.
- 2:58So recently, I went through navigating doctors and hospitals,
- 3:02and I did not blindly trust them.
- 3:05I know they're a medical authority, but I understand my own body, and they don't.
- 3:09And without them understanding my body, it can be dangerous for me because I
- 3:14have a rare autoimmune condition.
- 3:17We need to talk about how healthcare is focused on the majority,
- 3:22not the minority. Each of us is unique.
- 3:24Artificial intelligence is one of the things that helped me,
- 3:27and it's become a smarter advocate for our health than I think than a lot of friends or people.
- 3:34Family members, they all are, by the way, they all are looking out for your best interest.
- 3:39I'm more of a fact-based person. If I can get the data and understand the data,
- 3:43I will go that direction.
- 3:45I don't want to go off of someone's opinion just because of their Aunt Sally
- 3:48did this or their Uncle Bert did that. I'm not into that.
- 3:52So healthcare is very complicated. And doctors are, they're amazing professionals
- 3:57and they're very good, but they're also overworked. A lot of times they're rushed.
- 4:01They have to deal with insurance systems. there's a profit margin
- 4:04they have to hit and they see dozens of patients per day and
- 4:08most of the appointments are only 10 to 15 minutes if you're going to even to
- 4:11your primary and you're talking to them for 10 minutes they're not going to
- 4:14know everything about you you may forget to tell them some things as well so
- 4:18sometimes you are the only person who has the full picture of your health and
- 4:22if you go to an ER an emergency room you're the only person that knows your
- 4:26history in detail And you live in your body 24 hours a day,
- 4:30not just 10 minutes, which is what the doctor sees you.
- 4:33Now, they can read tests and they can read labs, but there's a gap.
- 4:37And that gap needs to be filled by self-advocacy. It's essential.
- 4:41It's not an option if you want to live long and have longevity.
- 4:46Doctors should be a partner in the health care system.
- 4:49Just like if you have a real estate professional and they advise you not to
- 4:53buy a house or they advise you to buy a house, you have to make the final say.
- 4:57Just like if a doctor says you need a surgery or you don't need a surgery,
- 5:00you get to make the final say.
- 5:02Now, there are times when there's emergency things that, you know,
- 5:05you have to need or you really need to go and do.
- 5:07But a lot of times, if they can't explain to you why you have to do it right
- 5:12now, then you may need to question their authority.
- 5:15Some doctors will educate their patients very well.
- 5:18I did deal with a couple doctors that were very educational and took my questions
- 5:23and answered them thoroughly.
- 5:24And when I had points, they listened.
- 5:27I had other doctors, no offense, that were trying to mansplain to me.
- 5:31And treat me like I was clueless when, quite frankly, I know way more about
- 5:36my autoimmune than he does because I've been living with it for three years. I'm an expert. He's not.
- 5:41He probably researched it once 20 years ago. In college, he didn't even know
- 5:45that the name had been updated five years ago.
- 5:48I'm more of an expert at my autoimmune
- 5:50than he is, and I can read the labs probably better than he does.
- 5:53And that's why you have to advocate for yourself.
- 5:57Unfortunately, a lot of doctors have large egos, and I ran into one of those
- 6:01doctors at the emergency room. It's kind of like a medical god complex.
- 6:05They think they are the end-all, be-all, and they know it all.
- 6:08The reality is they don't. You need to advocate for yourself.
- 6:12They are not gods. They may have a large ego, and you're probably going to step
- 6:16on it a little bit, even if you try not to.
- 6:18But I tried not to in the very beginning, and then he kept mansplaining and
- 6:22trying to force me into doing something, and I just said no.
- 6:25Then I told him why, and then he left. He told me to stop researching online
- 6:29and stop Googling, and I said, well, somebody's got to advocate for myself,
- 6:33and that kind of upset him.
- 6:34He says, well, the doctors here and the nurses are looking out for your best interest.
- 6:37I go, well, somebody's got to advocate for me, and that's what I was doing.
- 6:41It doesn't mean that he's a bad doctor. It just means that I'm not prepared
- 6:45to listen to his advice when I have
- 6:47things that are telling me quite the opposite of what he's telling me.
- 6:50And you've got to be prepared to advocate for yourself, but do it respectfully.
- 6:54There are times that they may get upset, but it was his ego getting upset, not anything.
- 6:58I was never mean. I was never callous. I just specifically said I need to advocate
- 7:02for myself, and I was clear.
- 7:04Never swore at him, never got angry.
- 7:06I was just very clear. So what I recently went through, it was a pretty serious
- 7:11medical event. It involved my liver, my gallbladder, and my pancreas,
- 7:15and I have an autoimmune that affects my liver.
- 7:17I ended up needing to have a duct cleared, and they did an MRI of my gallbladder,
- 7:23and my gallbladder looked a little inflamed but not too bad with a few stones in it.
- 7:28They decided that, or they said I needed to have my gallbladder out. I said, why?
- 7:33They go, well, it's a simple procedure, and it's just preventative.
- 7:36For me, to take out an organ as an idea of prevention is not what I'm looking
- 7:41for. Because I have an autoimmune related to my liver, I don't want to remove
- 7:45something that's very close to my liver that is going to impact it down the road.
- 7:49Plus, it might push me into a liver transplant way before my time.
- 7:53So I said, unless you can show me why my gallbladder needs removed, I'm not going to do it.
- 7:58Well, I had an obstruction in a duct, but that was the main problem.
- 8:03My gallbladder was actually still in good shape. It actually showed up as normal on the MRI.
- 8:07One of the doctors kept trying to push me to have gallbladder surgery.
- 8:10I said no, and they want to do the gallbladder surgery first.
- 8:13They kept saying no, and I kept saying no, and he got a little angry with me.
- 8:16And I had to stay in the hospital.
- 8:18I had a lot of tests run. And they were supposed to operate on me Monday for
- 8:21removing the blockage in one of my ducts.
- 8:24But they had some issues with the emergency room.
- 8:28One of the other things was they didn't tell me the ER was down.
- 8:31They just kept saying, oh, we don't know what time we're going to schedule you.
- 8:34Oh, we don't know what time you're going to schedule you.
- 8:36And I was like, guys, I'm in a lot of pain here. Can we figure out when we're
- 8:40going to have the surgery?
- 8:40And then they finally fessed up to it like 2 o'clock in the afternoon that the
- 8:43ER was down because they had a boiler problem. It would have been nice to know
- 8:47in the morning because I could have gotten transferred to another hospital.
- 8:49They did try to transfer me later in the day, but it was too late.
- 8:53So ended up that I ended up having
- 8:55what's called ERCP, where they actually remove a blockage in your duct.
- 9:00And they did a really good job. I got a lot of stuff cleared out.
- 9:03And then it ended up triggering pancreatitis because that's a side effect of the procedure.
- 9:08Since I'm extra sensitive, I tend to get a lot of side effects.
- 9:11Then I had to deal with pancreatitis.
- 9:13As soon as the pancreatitis hit, that doctor that was trying to push me to have
- 9:17my gallbladder out just assumed it was my gallbladder again.
- 9:19I had already uploaded all of my information into ChatGPT and was researching extensively.
- 9:25He kept saying, it's your gallbladder. I go, it's not my gallbladder.
- 9:30All signs are pointed to pancreatitis.
- 9:33Pancreatitis was an option that it could have happened. About 10% of people
- 9:36that have ERCP may get pancreatitis.
- 9:38But it's a much higher percentage, close to 50%, if you have an autoimmune like I do.
- 9:43They ended up putting me on some massive pain meds, which I was only on for
- 9:47a day and a half because I don't like pain meds.
- 9:49I got off as quickly as I could, but I had to deal with a lot of extra pain.
- 9:52The doctor that performed the ERCP was wonderful.
- 9:56He was very apologetic that it happened, and I don't think it could have been
- 10:00avoided, and sometimes it does happen.
- 10:02But he did a great job explaining it, and he was not pushing for my gallbladder out.
- 10:06Besides, if you have pancreatitis, no doctor in their right mind would operate
- 10:10on a gallbladder. But that other doctor, he was the one that did rounds,
- 10:16the general doctor, and he just kept pushing, pushing, pushing.
- 10:18And I said, look, I'm not having my gallbladder out. You can stop asking.
- 10:22Besides, I have pancreatitis, and you shouldn't be operating on a gallbladder
- 10:26if you have pancreatitis.
- 10:27He goes, well, we'll see what the tests come back as. The test came back,
- 10:30and it showed pancreatitis.
- 10:31I had to strongly and forcefully push back on the doctor because doctors don't
- 10:37know everything. Sometimes they don't see the full picture because they're blinded
- 10:41by what they're used to seeing.
- 10:43And I know everybody's getting their gallbladders out lately.
- 10:45I mean, it's like everybody's lining them up, getting their gallbladders out.
- 10:48I think it's an important organ.
- 10:50And I think every organ in the body is important. I don't think you should be
- 10:53taking them out willy-nilly unless you have to.
- 10:55I don't care if some people says it's preventative. It wasn't preventative for
- 10:58me. And I do realize I could get another blockage and I have to go back in.
- 11:03But that's what it is. It showed normal.
- 11:05And because of that, some doctors, they think they know it all.
- 11:08And they may miss those rare conditions like I had.
- 11:11Because now that I've had that surgery, I feel amazing. My gallbladder is still there.
- 11:16I kept it in. The ERCP seems to have removed all the problems that I have,
- 11:21but it's only because I stood up for myself. And I had to do it by myself.
- 11:26There was no one with me. And I advocated for myself.
- 11:29Now, I do have a friend that's a nurse, and she said, well, what is your doctor
- 11:32saying? I kept saying, well, my doctor doesn't know what he's talking about.
- 11:35And he didn't. He doesn't specialize in it. Because what I have only happens
- 11:39once every 100,000 people. He probably never sees it.
- 11:42And so my specialist understood what was going on. And my GI doctor understood
- 11:48what was going, but they really wanted to pull out my gallbladder.
- 11:51Now, I'm sure there's a profit margin there somewhere because those gallbladders,
- 11:54they're a very simple surgery and they charge $10,000 to $20,000 to pull those out.
- 11:59But I don't think you should take it out unless you really need to.
- 12:01So I held on to my gallbladder. And if I had not asked questions and done research
- 12:06and pushed for those answers, I think my outcome would have been very different.
- 12:10And I really like the fact that I had one doctor, Indian doctor,
- 12:13that was a very good bedside manner. He kept explaining in detail.
- 12:16When I asked questions, he gave me the semi-medical, not the full medical term,
- 12:21but exactly what was going on. He gave good explanations.
- 12:23I actually liked him. The other one just had his ideas of what I should be doing
- 12:27and was mad because I didn't do it. You really need to stand up for yourself
- 12:31because silence in health care can be dangerous.
- 12:34If you don't ask questions and you don't speak up, bad things can happen.
- 12:38Things can happen to you that you didn't realize that shouldn't have been done.
- 12:43Sometimes you'll have side effects. Then when I had the pancreatitis,
- 12:47I did the research on what pain meds I needed to be on for pancreatitis because they're
- 12:51They were putting me on a pain med that was too light, and pancreatitis is extremely painful.
- 12:56Once I got my pain meds managed for a day and a half, I was great.
- 13:00Things got fixed. But you're going to have to stand up for yourself,
- 13:03okay? You're going to have to advocate for your health. It's not disrespectful. It's responsible.
- 13:08You have to advocate for you, because if you don't, no one else is going to.
- 13:12Medicine is evolving, I think, and it's constantly evolving,
- 13:15and things keep changing, too. with.
- 13:17Sometimes what a doctor went to school for, he may have understood that this
- 13:21is how they treated before, but now there's a whole new pathway to treatment.
- 13:24What was standard practice 10 years ago? So if they've been out of school for
- 13:27more than a couple of years, I mean, 10 years ago, it's maybe not even be active anymore today.
- 13:31And if you have a unique situation, they may have no idea.
- 13:35And doctors do specialize. A liver doctor may not deeply understand an autoimmune
- 13:39disease, and an autoimmune doctor may not understand other things.
- 13:43An ER doctor may not recognize any metabolic conditions. He may not understand
- 13:47that because he's used to treating emergency situations.
- 13:50Rare conditions are often misunderstood. And quite frankly, we're all a little rare, if you ask me.
- 13:56We all have a little bit of uniqueness to us. And some doctors only see certain
- 14:00diseases once or twice in their entire career.
- 14:02And I think mine was probably one of those. He didn't understand the complications
- 14:06of pulling out my gallbladder for me.
- 14:08But for him, it was a simple surgery. And I agree, it's a simple surgery.
- 14:11But it's the lifelong results of that surgery that I have to deal with,
- 14:16that I have to be subject to, and that it could push me into other future surgeries.
- 14:20It can push me into cascade organ problems, and I didn't want to have to deal
- 14:25with that if I didn't need to.
- 14:27Sometimes, you know, most of us are knowledgeable people about our conditions
- 14:32and may even be more knowledgeable than the doctors, especially if they're just
- 14:35a general doctor and they don't have our specialty in mind.
- 14:38Your doctor is the expert on medicine. You are the expert on your body.
- 14:42So remember that you have to work together.
- 14:45The two of you, you and your doctor, to come up with a solution.
- 14:49I think AI is going to change patient advocacy forever.
- 14:54And this is where it gets really interesting because artificial intelligence
- 14:58is becoming such a powerful tool for patients.
- 15:01And if you have any type of medical condition, I do encourage you to load your
- 15:07test results into AI, tell them which diet you're on, tell them what supplements
- 15:10you're on, tell them what pharmaceuticals you're on, ask them for its input.
- 15:14Here's the other thing is there's a lot of people out there on five,
- 15:17ten different pharmaceuticals all at the same time and seeing multiple different doctors.
- 15:22It's nice to just do a gut check and say, hey, AI, I'm on all these different
- 15:26pharmaceuticals. Are any of these going to have interaction issues?
- 15:29Because not all doctors realize all the medicines you're on and know all the
- 15:32different interactions.
- 15:33AI can help with interpreting blood work trends. So every time I got my blood
- 15:38work back, one, at least twice the first day and then every day after that,
- 15:42I uploaded my blood work into AI, and then it helped me interpret the trends.
- 15:47And then it also helped explain the lab results. Now, I knew a lot of the lab results, but it.
- 15:51It went into more detail and gave me expectations on where my lab work should
- 15:55be trending if the surgery went well.
- 15:57And then it helped me compare across different medical research options, too.
- 16:02So it gave me a detailed information about what was going on.
- 16:06And it also suggested questions that I could ask the doctor to see what the
- 16:10doctor thought about certain things or certain processes. It didn't replace the doctor.
- 16:14So here's the thing. I think a lot of doctors are threatened by the Internet and threatened by AI.
- 16:20It's not replacing them. It's just asking, letting us ask smarter questions
- 16:24so that we are more informed patients.
- 16:27One of the doctors was very happy with that. He was not a very egotistical doctor.
- 16:30He was a very informed doctor.
- 16:32And he and he liked the fact that I was asking questions and that I was very
- 16:37knowledgeable about what I have because I have to be because it's my body.
- 16:41I do my own blood work every month, sometimes every two weeks if I'm doing a
- 16:44lot of changes to any supplements I'm doing.
- 16:47And so every month I get blood work and I'm tracking it. and
- 16:50so I knew when my numbers when my bilirubin went from 2.5 to 10 there was not
- 16:55that was not a normal gallbladder issue there was something going on with an
- 16:59obstruction before they even did the MRI I knew I had an obstruction and I said
- 17:04I wanted to keep my gallbladder if at all possible but one doctor just kept pushing and pushing and.
- 17:09I had to overly advocate for myself. AI doesn't replace the doctor,
- 17:14but it makes you much more informed so that when you have to push back,
- 17:18you have information to push back with.
- 17:20You don't sound like you're just doing it out of emotion. I was completely doing
- 17:24it fact-based. I was completely doing it data-driven.
- 17:27I was completely doing it based off my numbers, based off my symptoms.
- 17:31Based off of what was going on. There was no emotion there.
- 17:34I wasn't angry. I could do it in a very intellectual, informed way.
- 17:37A lot of the different doctors have apps.
- 17:40And when you go to a hospital, you should download the app because you can check
- 17:44your results from your tests.
- 17:45You can check your results from your blood work, any imaging,
- 17:48pathology, procedural notes.
- 17:50All of that stuff is in an app that you get when you go to any doctor or hospital.
- 17:55You legally have the right to them. If you don't have the app or you're not
- 17:58really good with phones, you can ask them for physical copies.
- 18:01You legally have the right to everything they test with you.
- 18:04Take a snapshot of it. if you have it on the app, just download it and re-upload it into the app.
- 18:09So you have the ability to integrate AI. You have the ability to integrate just
- 18:15looking up your own documents.
- 18:16It is a lot more work, I will say, if you don't upload it into ChatGPT or one
- 18:23of the other AIs out there and do the manual work, because then you're looking
- 18:26at test result by test result.
- 18:28I like the fact that I could upload the entire test result. It would scan through
- 18:32and say, oh, well, you've been on regular saline for too long and your chloride
- 18:37is up. That's a common thing.
- 18:38Things like that were informative.
- 18:41So I was like, why is my chloride level so high? That was because I was on normal
- 18:45saline for a really long time.
- 18:47Then the other thing was, they pumped about 60 pounds worth of fluid through me in six days.
- 18:53I gained about 20 pounds, even though I didn't eat anything for those six days in the hospital.
- 18:58Because I was on, at first I was on every day they thought I was going to have
- 19:01the surgery, and then it ended up that afterwards I had pancreatitis,
- 19:05so I couldn't really eat.
- 19:05So I gained a lot of fluid weight, which then I talked to Chachi PT,
- 19:09and it says, okay, well, for every day you were in the hospital,
- 19:12it's going to take about two days for the fluids to come off.
- 19:15So then I was like, okay, I got 10 to 12 days of just fluid retention loss,
- 19:19which is good, because then it
- 19:21didn't bother me so much. AI is a tool to kind of put your mind at ease.
- 19:26And then I would say, is this a normal side effect? Is this a normal symptom?
- 19:30And it helped me evaluate my condition in a way that I think when you go to
- 19:35a hospital and you're laying in bed and you're all by yourself and something happens,
- 19:40you feel something or you're not feeling well and you ring the door and she's
- 19:44like, okay, I'll be right there.
- 19:46And then like five minutes later, they show up. They ask for your symptoms.
- 19:49Okay, I'll send that off to the doctor. You could wait a half hour or an hour
- 19:52or two before you find out the results.
- 19:55Whereas if I had the ability to look it up right away, it might put my nerves to rest.
- 20:01Because now I can say, okay, it's just a typical side effect.
- 20:04Or this is happening because of this.
- 20:06At least then I could also say, maybe they should alert the doctor right away
- 20:10because it looks like it's a serious problem.
- 20:12Or if it feels like normal, you could say, okay, I'm going to let them know.
- 20:16They've been notified. They can take whatever time they need to,
- 20:19but at least I know what steps I need to take. For instance,
- 20:21I needed to walk more to help get the fluid down.
- 20:24That's one thing that was recommended by the AI as well as the nurses.
- 20:28And the nurses said, I said, how much to go? Just as much as you can.
- 20:31And AI said, walk 15 minutes every hour and just do as much as you can.
- 20:35And so it gave me more of an analytical approach to exercise.
- 20:40My recovery. You can also copy and paste lab results if you have it in an email,
- 20:45CT scans, MRI findings, and then ask questions of the AI.
- 20:49Say, what does this mean in layman's terms or simple language,
- 20:53these test results, the blood work? Why is this number so high?
- 20:57And what conditions can cause these abnormalities?
- 21:01You have a gut check. If they come in and say you need your gallbladder out,
- 21:03when your gallbladder is showing normal, you have a gut check.
- 21:06You have a secondary a gut check.
- 21:08And then I said, well, I asked it, why do the doctors recommending my gallbladder
- 21:11come out when it shows as normal?
- 21:13Then it said, because a lot of times it's preventative. Then I asked that question,
- 21:17are you wanting to take it out just for prevention? They said, yes.
- 21:20Before that, they were acting like I needed to have it. Then I asked why.
- 21:24Then they said, it's because of prevention.
- 21:26For that, I didn't want it prevention. I am here to heal myself fully. I'm doing that.
- 21:31Granted, in the future, I may still have to have it out. And I understand that,
- 21:35but it's not in the condition that it has to come out right now.
- 21:38It was more important to get the blockage out as far as I was concerned.
- 21:41Then you can also say what additional
- 21:43tests might we consider if this test shows that I have a blockage?
- 21:48Can we do any other tests or do we need to go straight for surgery?
- 21:51You can find out different types of things. Now, I ended up having surgery and that's okay.
- 21:55I'm not afraid of surgery. I was just not wanting unnecessary medical procedures
- 21:59if I didn't have to have them.
- 22:00Now, look for patterns too. AI is great for looking at patterns,
- 22:04I think, better than humans, honestly.
- 22:06It looks at the symptoms, it grabs the labs, and it can look at the trends over time.
- 22:10Doctors do as well, don't get me wrong. However, AI does it so quick,
- 22:14and it's so powerful, especially if you have a rare disease.
- 22:18I think doctors can look at an EKG and say, yes, you had a heart attack.
- 22:22And we've got to do something about it. And you've got to go along with that.
- 22:24Or maybe they've got to get stent put in. I get that.
- 22:26But if you have a rare autoimmune condition or a rare disease that is not common,
- 22:31AI has the ability to look at the trends in your data and your labs and all your medical symptoms.
- 22:37And it can put together those trends and offer suggestions the doctor may not realize.
- 22:43I think this is amazing. Because going forward, I think doctors really need to embrace AI.
- 22:48Because right now, their patients are. And their patients are starting to advocate for themselves.
- 22:53And instead of them feeling threatened by our knowledge, maybe they could look at it as.
- 22:58A way to inform themselves as well. AI should never replace a medical professional,
- 23:03though. I'm not saying that in any way.
- 23:04But it acts like a research assistant for us so we can ask better questions,
- 23:09so we can be better informed.
- 23:10It's like an extra brain or having your own specialist that you're bringing
- 23:14to appointments with you to go talk to your doctor.
- 23:17So remember, you can push back, but let's do it respectfully.
- 23:20When you advocate for yourself, it doesn't mean being confrontational,
- 23:24but it does mean be direct. You do not have to be a pushover.
- 23:28Doctors respond best by curiosity. Ask questions with the statement, if that makes sense.
- 23:33You're saying, oh, wow, my bilirubin is high. I see that.
- 23:38Is there something I need to be doing quickly that would be the most important
- 23:42thing to focus on in order to bring it down? instead of saying you're wrong.
- 23:46Try saying, I read somewhere, and I always say, I looked up online,
- 23:49and they got mad about that, but I looked up, and I wanted your opinion,
- 23:53because it says that my lipase, can you do a lipase test?
- 23:56Because all the symptoms are pointing to pancreatitis, because the doctor just
- 24:01wanted to take on my gallbladder. He didn't want to do a lipase test.
- 24:04Lipase is what I needed to do in order to look at my pancreas numbers.
- 24:08I asked for that test. It got done, and then it was very clear that I had pancreatitis.
- 24:13It was good for me to know what tests to even order because at the time,
- 24:18the doctor was just wanting to go full force to take out my gallbladder.
- 24:21None of the symptoms were gallbladder-related. Then it was like,
- 24:24can we also look at this option?
- 24:27If it comes back that my light pace is up, can we also explore maybe getting
- 24:31me on pain meds that work for pancreatitis?
- 24:33Then you can also say, once you get your lab results, are there any other tests
- 24:37that need to be done to rule out that it could be this or is not that?
- 24:41Just keep the conversation collaborative and curious. If you do that.
- 24:46The doctor's egos shouldn't be as a...
- 24:48Is involved, although some doctors will. I can't say for all.
- 24:51And some doctors, I mean, I will tell you, that guy that was mansplaining to
- 24:55me, I don't know why he thought he was just so much more superior than me because
- 24:59I was very honest. I was not mean.
- 25:02And the other doctors, all the other doctors were fine. It was just this one
- 25:05man that just had this huge ego and just wanted to keep pushing, pushing, pushing.
- 25:09It kept proving him wrong every time he said something because he kept saying,
- 25:14you have to do this. I go, well, why can't we do this?
- 25:16Can't we just go get a lipase test and check. He ordered it and he saw that
- 25:20he was incorrect by pushing some things.
- 25:23So just be an advocate for yourself. Be informed, but always stay calm.
- 25:26Don't make it emotional.
- 25:27If you get emotional in a hospital, things can spiral. I was there and I saw
- 25:31this woman throwing a fit at the nurses and screaming at them because she hadn't gotten her food.
- 25:36I was thinking to myself, lady, I had to eat for six days and I didn't want to scream at the nurses.
- 25:40Don't scream at people and just advocate. Be calm.
- 25:44Bring documentation. If you know you're going into the hospital and you have
- 25:47an autoimmune that's unique or some type of disease, bring your documentation
- 25:51with you. Put it in a binder.
- 25:53Have that binder. And then listen to the doctor's reasoning and then do your own research.
- 25:58Because you need to advocate for yourself. And you may be the one that has to
- 26:02advocate for loved ones as well.
- 26:03Because this is especially true
- 26:05when you have elderly parents or sick children or just a sick partner.
- 26:09And what's happening is we need to start helping them advocate for themselves.
- 26:13If you're in this position, you may be the information organizer.
- 26:17You may put together binders. You may.
- 26:20All their medications, their diagnosis, their lab results, keep it all together.
- 26:24My lab results, I don't keep them paper-wise anymore because it's about 2,000 pages.
- 26:29But people, I keep mine electronically now. And the nice thing is when they're
- 26:34electronically, you can also, a lot of the different apps have trends,
- 26:37so you can see trends over timelines.
- 26:39So hospitals want to move quickly on problems. So when I went to the ER,
- 26:43I was pretty much admitted within an hour of my lab results coming back from
- 26:49the ER. Be prepared to advocate for yourself because changes happen quickly.
- 26:53And you may be pushed into things, and it may be an emergency that you have
- 26:56to get something done. Quickly research, if you can, or for your loved ones, research.
- 27:00Honestly, the best medical outcome happens when three things work together.
- 27:04Knowledgeable doctors, very informed agents, and then intelligent tools like
- 27:08AI or Google, and just do your own research.
- 27:12Your health is too important to leave entirely up to someone else,
- 27:15especially someone else that doesn't know you.
- 27:17Because when you go to the emergency rooms, they don't know your history.
- 27:20They don't know your story.
- 27:21But learn to ask questions. and learn to be respectful at the same time because
- 27:26as you advocate for yourself or someone you love, you can't be afraid.
- 27:29You have to be direct, but at the same time, respectful.
- 27:33Doctors, they save lives every day. Nurses are there and they're great helps.
- 27:36Some of the nurses were wonderful.
- 27:38Some of the nurses are afraid of the doctors though, I will say.
- 27:40They have to work with those people every day. They have to collaborate.
- 27:43You're not really gonna get someone to go against a doctor, I will say,
- 27:47if you're talking to a nurse, but you can ask the nurse questions and they can
- 27:52relay them to the doctor because a lot of times you're only seeing the nurse most of the day.
- 27:56Doctors only come in once or twice a day. So advocate for yourself.
- 28:00Be informed, be engaged, and be unafraid.
- 28:03Be unafraid to speak your mind. Be unafraid to ask questions.
- 28:07And realize that you are your best advocate. You will always be your best advocate.
- 28:12And no one is better than you. So I hope this helped for anybody out there taking
- 28:17care of people or taking care of yourself or if you come into a medical emergency yourself.
- 28:21Realize you have the right to question things and
- 28:24do your own research and advocate for yourself because a lot of times there
- 28:28might even be better things out there that are coming down the pipeline this
- 28:31is diva mia hopefully this helped this is not medical advice this is a way to
- 28:36help you educate yourself when you're having a medical condition this is diva
- 28:40mia signing off i hope you have a wonderful day.
- 28:43And I wish you all the best health in the world. And I wish you long life and
- 28:48love. Take care. Ciao, ciao.
- 28:51Thanks for tuning in. Like, subscribe, and drop a comment. We love hearing from you.
- 28:57Visit thedivadetails.com to connect. See you next week for more.
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