No matter what any media doc youve never even met (let alone never been examined by) says, do not stop any medication without discussing it with your primary care or prescribing doctor. If you dont feel confident in your doctor, you can find a different doctor or get second opinion, of course. But please do not make the mistake of equating a media doc with something to sell who has an opinion or suggestion with a true medical recommendation. This particularly applies to when suggestions are made to stop a medication, for which the latest craze is stopping statins. Its not that I dont believe, generally speaking, with some of the concerns (eg lifestyle changes for heart disease prevention being underrated, statin side effects being somewhat minimized, benefits being somewhat exaggerated). Yet medical recommendations can only ideally be made within the context of a doctor-patient relationship. This means youve met the doc in a clinical setting, theyve interviewed and examined you, likely done some lab work on you and you have plans to, or can easily make an appointment to, see them face to face in their office (or at least discuss something by phone with them until you can) soon to discuss the optimal approach to your care, as an individual. So while its ok to get information from professionals off of the internet as a basis for discussion with your personal physician or care provider – such information should never take the place of such a relationship. And please believe me that such info is of widely varying quality - some outright outlandish. Internet docs who suggest people stop taking a medication without even having the professional judgement to make it clear to that reader that they discuss it with their doctor first are committing an unprofessional, and potentially grave, error in my opinion I strongly suggest that you not use their info as anything more than a basis of discussion for you to have with your doctor. That is fair game of course. Docs do need to be kept on their toes of course. So many really need more nutrition and lifestyle education, to be sure. But they do not need the rug pulled out from under them by self serving Internet docs. Id suggest those docs spend more time writing peer reviewed and well vetted continuing medical education (CME) courses for docs to enrich themselves with valid lifestyle and nutrition info before delving into taking over doctor patient relationships with best selling books and Internet blogs....neither of which Im at all against - until you cross the line of telling patients what to do rather than educate and suggest they discuss with their personal doc and care team.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 14:18:30 +0000
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