to think people that just believe unquestionably what doctors say are naïve

[dhdjdbrjrkbr]

So my sisters ds age 2 has very bad eczema, i used to have the same but changed my diet and it cleared up in months despite taking prescription stuff for decades that only made it a bit better.

So ds go said to my sister eczema is nothing to do with diet. She just beleives him and is ignoring me.

Medical advice is changing all the time, it wasn't that long ago doctors were advertising cigarettes.

Aibu to think she is very naive?

i agree with the title of the thread but not so much with the example. i've never seen much evidence of specialist knowledge that google couldnt achieve from most gps, whereas dr google has managed to correctly id all the rare conditions my family seem to be cursed with. i guess we must be some weird statistical anomoly - its not a migraine, its a brain tumour type of thing. had we listened to our gp, half my family would be dead by now. but they are generalists, not specialists, such is the downside of our system

also frankly it doesnt help when doctors lie to cover up their mistakes, which we also have plenty of experience of

I could give many examples of GPs being wrong and making mistakes. Anybody who trusts them blindly is a fool.

I'm not saying I know better than the doctor, I'm just saying he is wrong to say eczema has nothing to do with diet. Obviously not all can be solved by diet either.

Doctors need to be more open minded and open to suggestions. Their medical training doesn't encourage this.

I'm not saying I know better than the doctor, I'm just saying he is wrong to say eczema has nothing to do with diet.

I don't imagine for one second that he said that. Even with my limited knowledge of suffering from eczema myself and my son having had it, I would lay money on the fact that the GP would have said something along the lines of eczema in a child of that age was very unlikely to be diet related, and probably recommended that other methods of treating it would be less intrusive and easier to administer than making significant changes to a 2 year old's eating habits.

I have a friend whose father was a doctor, her view on gps was that they have a range of information and treatments available to them and will treat you as best they can with what you tell them and what they see, they are not magicians, so if what they tried first isn't working, go back and they will try something else.

Well what my sister said to me was using the "nothing to do with diet". If he had of said usually or often I would of not been bothered by it.

You are absolutely not BU.

Drs are GP's General practioners with a wide basic range of knowledge.
The amount of times I'vebeen back, as well as DF & DM & queried stuff is unbelievable. Also I find they like to get rid of you with a pill.

The other thing is following problems - the latest is a friend with a pain-told she has pulled something. A year later dead from cancer that they never picked up until 2 mths ago Terrible.

Own your health I say. Plenty of information out there, make the most of it & get them to prove you wrong.

YADNBU. A succession of GPs 'diagnosed' my stomach pain as IBS. When I paid for a private scan, it turned out that I had a pancreatic tumour. I wouldn't take it as read if a GP told me my name was moggiek!

Does your sister regard you as generally pushy, dhdjdbrjrkbr?

Oh come on people, if this isn't a pushy thread with fictional backstory about particular diet types then I will eat my lentil-woven hat. And I'm a VEGAN for chrissakes.

Yes, diet does sometimes play a role in illness - no-one's denying that. However, all sane people will follow their trained medical professional's advice first and then, if that does not work, either seek new advice or consider other options. If you start out by trying to follow all the advice at once from everybody qualified or unqualified, then you are being unscientific and (IMO) pretty stupid.

I think YANBU. I think diet plays a huge part in resolving some health issues. If your sister isn't even going to give it a try for her DD, I think she is missing a trick.

GPs may not know everything about medicine but they know a damn sight more than the average mumsnetter. Having someone who has a bit of expertise in everything is often better than having a consultant. I feel that a big problem a GP has is lack of time. As I said unthread I would like an ezcema nurse.

Ezcema has a multitude of causes and trying to find cause of someone's ezcema is really hard. My GP thinks that stress or overtireness can cause ezcema. Factors like contact with cats, washing power, change of weather, chlorine when swimming can aggreviate ezcema as well as diet.

It's all very well to suggest radical changes, but sometimes the changes (putting down Tiddles the family pet because she is too old to be rehomed) are worse than the eczema.

The majority of children outgrow eczema. Saying that a change in diet cured one child's eczema is anecdotal. The truth may well be is that the ezcema was cured because the child's immune system matured or may a stressor in the child's life was removed.

YABVVVVU

Why do GP's get peoples' backs up so much?? "prove you wrong" "get rid of you with a pill" - I appreciate that you (general you) might have had bad experiences but this is a caring profession. GP's are 'people' who might get it wrong but they have a far far better chance of getting it right what with the years of training, pharmaceutical knowledge and peer reviewed science behind them than some anecdotal diet shit.

YANBU.
For the past 4 years I've been taking DS to GP with rashes/spots that come and go. I was told each time that it was a viral thing/MC/they weren't sure, kids just get rashes etc.
We must have been about a dozen times over the years and always been fobbed off, one time the GP didn't even bother looking at the spots.
Now they've finally said they think it's an allergy.

I've had problems with my own health too, I was going back to GP over and over saying I shouldn't be as tired as I am, they kept putting it down to depression, despite the fact I told them I'm not depressed.
After doing my own research I got them to test my vitamin D levels and it was extremely low.

GP's are only human and they can't know everything about everything.

nancy the OP didn't say that everybody's eczema is down to diet, she was annoyed that the GP said that diet is not linked to eczema when it is a known fact that for some people it is.

Sorry that was directed at brokenhearted, not nancy

You don't what the gp said to the OP sister. Infact the op sister has the right to keep the details of the consultation to herself. The fact is that the child's mother does not want to go down the route of excluding foods from a child's diet.

All gps I have come into contact with respect the views of the parents. The treatment for eczema is a partnership. Many health professions see parents as experts on THEIR child. There are lots of different approaches to treating eczema. A GP often has experience that is invaluable.

Certainly medical professionals recognise the role of diet. It's part of the reason that weaning guidelines have been changed for babies.

reallytired we can only go off what OP has told us. She says the GP told her sister eczema is nothing to do with diet. Her sister is now unwilling to consider that diet could be a contributing factor.

Really a decent GP should say something on the lines of "some people find that certain foods can trigger eczema, but for many there's no link. If you want to try eliminating certain foods, this is how I'd recommend you do it..."

A really decent GP might say that he does not think that eliminating certain foods is appriopiate at this stage. Elimination diets should be a last restore rather than a first line of attack. The child's eczema can't be that bad otherwise he would be under a dermalogist.

5 years ago when my DH was 61 he started getting pains in his leg and back, he went to his GP who told him he must have strained something and that it would ease in time, it didn't so he went back, again he was told (by the same GP) that it would ease, by the time he went back for the 3rd time he could only walk with the aid of two sticks, his work was suffering, his social life (and mine) was non existent and he was in terrible pain.

This time I went with him and again saw the same GP this time I demanded further investigation, the GP was bloody rude, more on less implied that I was a fussy demanding cow and that there was no underlying reason why DH was crippled and to be patient.

At this consultation he also gave DH a repeat prescription for Statins, a drug DH had been on for 6 months, when DH took his first one he left the leaflet that came with the pack on the table and I was curious and read it.

On the list of side effects was muscle wastage/damage, so I googled Statins my research led me to several sites explaining the side effects plus several discussion boards both here and in the US, where people described exactly the same problems as DH suffered.

Now sorry but I would expect a GP who prescribes a drug with certain (and well known) side effects to investigate further when a patient presents with a condition that may well be caused by those side effects.

DH came straight off Statins and with 2 weeks could walk normally with out sticks and without any pain.

Last year the same GP realised DH wasn't taking Statins and on hearing why, prescribed him with a different brand, within a week the leg pains came back.

That's why I would never take any medication with out checking possible side effects.

Could it be that whilst your sister had a long and involved conversation with the doctor about whilst it maybe diet, but removing food groups with toddlers can be very tricky and lead to other problems. So she and the doctor had agreed not to go down that route.
However, she doesn't want to discuss this with you and so her simple solution is to tell you the doctor says it's not diet.