More Healthcare Rants

I'm in the process of changing my Family Doctor (PCP, GP) and endocrinologist to the same practice as my opthamologist so they can easily share notes. I'm frankly totally fed-up that when I request each of the present ones to do that I am told they will and yet THEY HAVEN"T, NOT ONCE, IN THREE YEARS. I suppose it's a "we'll take in under advisement" thing, which really means "Go away and stop bugging us".
Anyway, each time I've tried I'm told it will take three months before I can get an appointment. This wouldn't happen in either of the two olde European lands where I have previously resided, but I sucked it up as the price of doing business in the US. A price, by the way, that costs me a huge amount of salary and the employers an increasingly prohibitive amount, too. But my experience thus far has been with changing practices. Imagine how mad I would be if I just wanted to see a different doctor in the same office.
The Guy and I received a letter from our ophthalmologist to say he was leaving the practice. As we were both due check ups in June I phoned immediately to get switched to the other eye doctor there. No problem I was told, except they were booking three months in advance. I got the first available appointments. For September 23. Almost 18 weeks away. That's more than 4 months. As long, if not longer, than you'd have to wait for an appointment under the free "socialised" medicine system in Europe.
Remind me again, why is the American health system described as "best in the world"?

via modernemama

Diabetes and Cancer

Great, just great. As if we women don't have enough to deal with there is this gem on the BBC news about the link between raised blood sugar and cancer in women. It used to be thought that diabetes actually protected you from cancer. This was oh, about a hundred years ago, and the reason was that without insulin most diabetics died before they got a chance to grow any cancer cells. With better care, insulin, testing strips etc people with diabetes are living to old age and, of course, are developing cancer and other diseases that "normal" folks get.
I'm not entirely buying this study. There seem to be a lot of unanswered questions: Why women and not men for instance? And statistically the age range they tested, 40-60 years, is when you would expect to see an increase in both blood sugar and cancers anyway. After all Type II diabetes used to be known in England as the type you got with your old age pensioner bus pass.
But it's true that you can use sugar to grow some funky stuff. You should see what it does to yeast. So why not cancer cells?
The article concluded with this:
"If someone is white and over 40, or over 25 from a black or South Asian background, and has either a family history of Type 2 diabetes or is overweight, they should consider asking their doctor for the simple blood test to determine whether or not they have diabetes."
I'd actually go further. Last month there was an article about the rise in Type I diabetes in children. Maybe it's time everyone is routinely offered a free screening whenever they see their doctor.