What's Your Routine When You Get Sick?

Over the last week or two I've been trying to get over being sick and was curious what you all do when you're feeling ill. In the United States, healthcare is a big issue right now and though we spend more than most, from what I've seen, the quality of care we get isn't that great. I could go on and on about how messed up the insurance system is or how the loss of price discovery, government regulatory capture, and revolving door politics has influenced these things, but I'll save that discussion for another time.

What I'm curious about is what your routine is when you get sick? Do you go to the doctor right away? Do you use home-remedies, prescription drugs, or over-the-counter meds?

(Side note: one of my favorite quotes about medicine comes from the comedian Tim Minchin's Storm the Animated Movie: "Do you know what they call 'alternative' medicine that works? Medicine.")

I'm not a big fan of going to the doctor for most common things, because it seems to me, often our own bodies do the healing eventually anyway. Last Sunday, I could tell my cough/sinus headache was only getting worse so I went to the walk-in clinic and got X-rays, blood work, mouth swabs, etc. They found a bacterial infection, but the lungs looked good, so it hadn't yet developed into anything worse like pneumonia or bronchitis.

I got some antibiotics, and I've been basically taking it easy all week. I worked less than 20 hours and have been resting as much as possible. My thinking is while my immune system is fighting something off, I should be taking it easy, drinking plenty of water, etc. The sinus headaches were making it difficult to code anyway.

So here I am, seven days later, having run the full antibiotics course, and I'm not sure if I'm really all that much better. I'm still coughing and the sinus headache still comes and goes. Does this thing just need to run its course? Should I just forget about resting and get back to "normal life" using pain killers, decongestants, and the like? I don't really know.

I'm curious what you do. Healthcare is becoming more and more personal as people can now research their own symptoms online and get to know themselves better than most anyone else. At the same time, there's a growing distrust of experts which may be leading to a net result of decreased wellbeing. True experts can bring real value with their experience, training, and education. The "appeal to authority" fallacy has quite a few caveats as Wikipedia describes it also as an "argument from unqualified authority".

There's also the wisdom of the crowd to consider. Maybe that's what this post is about. I'm curious what you think and do.

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Luke Stokes is a father, husband, business owner, programmer, voluntaryist, and blockchain enthusiast. He wants to help create a world we all want to live in.