MEDICINE BALLS
Conditions attached
THE diagnosis of just about everything is on the rise. Asthma, ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, multiple cancers, multiple genetic diseases, dementia, hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia, diabetes, osteoporosis, kidney disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, pulmonary emboli, aortic aneurysms, chronic Lyme disease, sexually transmitted infections, sexual dysfunction, caffeine-use disorder and a compulsion to vote for Reform.
Are we getting sicker as we live longer? Or are we over-diagnosing for little benefit and considerable harm as the seriously ill are pushed to the back of the treatment queue by the less ill? Or is it more complicated than that?
Every medical intervention has always had the capacity to cause harm as well as benefit, including diagnosis itself.
When you go in search of a label to help explain why you are the way you are – mentally and physically – it’s hard to know if it will help. And sometimes a label is dumped on you by a doctor when you don’t want it.