Excerpt: "I felt it crawling around for months. It was a prickling tickle coupled with the sound of scraping-a maddening ringing and itching, mostly in my right ear.
One night I was startled awake at 3 a.m. by a high-pitched piercing tone. I shot up and threw off the covers, thinking it was the fire alarm. As the sound faded, I realized the shrill ring was coming from my own head.
Throughout the day, there was a quieter tinnitus that came and went. Sometimes it faded into an oceanic rush that, at first, sounded like it was coming from far off before it grew deafeningly loud, all in under a minute.
After a couple of weeks, I realized that it felt as though there was a bug in my ear; something writhing around, scratching to get out. I tried Q-tips, flushing with water, and simply shoved my pinky in as far as it would go, but nothing helped"
The author attributes her misadventure to being a woman, because doctors "routinely" misattribute women's symptoms "to anxiety." Much evidence supports that view, but another lesson from the story rates further attention.
California has had "tort reform" since the 1970s, and mandatory medical insurance since 2014. Since then, doctors' incentives align all one way: generate more billing by seeing more patients, writing more prescriptions, and doing more procedures, but don't worry about rushing to a wrong answer, because there is little or no accountability. Friends (including especially doctors) who move from the northeast to California find the doctors here are almost always seriously worse than elsewhere. California has among the highest medical costs in the world, but frankly terrible doctors who continue misdiagnosing and injuring patients year after year. Although "tort reform" is usually a Republican slogan, California's version was enacted by Democrats: Governor Jerry Brown signed MICRA, and President Obama signed Obamneycare. Both major parties get their money from the same sources, so the "debate" resembles a parody of a beer commercial ("tastes great, less filling"): more money, less accountability. As a result, everyone overpays, and patients suffer needlessly and die prematurely.
Excerpt: "I felt it crawling around for months. It was a prickling tickle coupled with the sound of scraping-a maddening ringing and itching, mostly in my right ear.
One night I was startled awake at 3 a.m. by a high-pitched piercing tone. I shot up and threw off the covers, thinking it was the fire alarm. As the sound faded, I realized the shrill ring was coming from my own head.
Throughout the day, there was a quieter tinnitus that came and went. Sometimes it faded into an oceanic rush that, at first, sounded like it was coming from far off before it grew deafeningly loud, all in under a minute.
After a couple of weeks, I realized that it felt as though there was a bug in my ear; something writhing around, scratching to get out. I tried Q-tips, flushing with water, and simply shoved my pinky in as far as it would go, but nothing helped"
www.youtube.com/embed/3i42Smtbmeg