Before I get a load of abuse, let me say for the record that I know that the NHS is mostly full of good people, trying to do the best that they can with the resources available to them. I have a lot to thank the NHS for, and I do maintain that we are incredibly fortunate to have such a service available to us in this country. I would never want to be without it, and I believe that every person throughout the world should have access to a similar service.
But it doesn't come without it's frustrations. It is becoming more and more apparent to me, that the NHS is largely there to line the pockets of the drug companies, and anything which falls outside of this goal is unsupported by them.
I'll give you a little bit of background to this.
When I was 5 days old, like almost every baby born in the UK since the late 1960's, I had a heel prick test. The heel prick test screens for a number of conditions, including thyroid function. A few days after my heel prick test, there was a knock at my parents' door one evening. It was our family GP, and he had come to tell my parents that I had a condition called congenital hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid), and that I would need to start taking thyroxine immediately. Thyroxine is a synthetic version of one of the hormones (T4) produced by the thyroid gland. The other hormone produced by the thyroid is T3. The two work in union with one another, and their production is stimulated by a third hormone, appropriately name Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH). Ever since that heel prick test, I have had regular blood tests to check that the level of thyroxine I am taking is appropriate, and as I grew up, the dosage was gradually increased (or occasionally decreased) until it levelled off as I reached adulthood. These blood tests look at your TSH levels only. So if your TSH level is high, is would indicate that your body is trying to get your thyroid to produce more hormones, and the thyroxine dosage will be increased. If your TSH levels are low, it means your body is telling you there is too much T3/T4 and your thyroxine dosage will be decreased. The problem with this system, is that it doesn't look at the T3 at all. Remember that thyroxine is a synthetic version of T4 only. For some reason, the NHS only deems the T4 to be important, but that isn't the case.
I am almost 27 years old, and up until now, this has never troubled me, not once. I have dutifully taken my thyroxine (most of the time at least, I skipped it a lot when I was younger) and never thought much more about it. But now I am having fertility problems, it has cropped up as a possible cause of all these miscarriages I'm having. I'm not going to pretend that I fully understand why, but I think it's something to do with the fact that the thyroid gland controls how your body responds to and utilises other hormones, and considering the fact that early miscarriages are often due to a progesterone deficiency, it would make sense that my thyroid could well be playing a part in it all.
My nutritionist told me today that in order to get a clearer picture of what is actually going on with my thyroid, I need to have a blood test which looks not only at my TSH levels, but also my T3, T4 and something called Thyroid antibodies. As the name suggests, these are antibodies which specifically attack the thyroid gland, and reduce it's effectiveness. The NHS does not routinely look at all these areas, but my nutritionist Abir said that they can do it, and given my circumstances, she thought I was a good candidate to be eligible to have these other tests done. So this afternoon, I called my GP's surgery and explained that I would like to have these things tested, and why. My usual GP wasn't there but I spoke to another doctor who I have seen on occasion. She basically said no, not a bloody chance. She is of the opinion that these other tests are completely unnecessary given that my TSH levels were within a normal range when they tested them last month. But what she failed to see is that TSH is only a part of the story. It obviously got her back up when I said that my nutritionist had requested them, and she said "You should tell your nutritionist to write to us and we will then explain to her why these tests are not necessary".
What I have gleaned from this, and a few other experiences with the NHS, are that basically if the investigations/treatment you are requesting will not result in you taking drugs, they aren't really interested. A month or so ago when I went to see my GP about the chemical pregnancies I've been having, all she said to me was "see how you go over the next 3 months and if you're still no better off then come back and we'll refer you to a gynecologist". Now, if I wasn't resourceful and curious, I would have just taken this advice, carried on trying without doing anything else to try and help myself, and in 3 months time I would have gone back, by that point REALLY concerned over still not being successfully pregnant and basically ready to pull out the big guns to get what I wanted. Big guns, in this context, tend to be drugs. Drugs which force your body to do what it isn't wanting to do naturally. For example, if you are not ovulating, they will give you a drug called Clomid, which forces your body to ovulate, whether it likes it or not. Now personally, I would rather try and address the underlying issues first. Establish any reasons WHY my body didn't want to ovulate, and do everything I could do to encourage and facilitate by moby to ovulate of it's own accord. But you see, there is no money to be made for the drug companies who make Clomid if this second approach is taken. Luckily, I seem to be ovulating just fine, so this is purely an example, but I know for a fact that were I to go back to by GP in 3 months, she would not be recommending that I take the natural approach. And I just feel that this attitude is so wrong. There is no denying that where fertility is concerned, the natural approach can make a big difference. GP's know this, it has been proven and is a fact, but they won't acknowledge it because it doesn't make money for their beloved drug companies.
I'm reading a very interesting book at the moment called Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. It largely discusses how, by charting your basal body temperature, you can build up a highly accurate picture of when you are and are not fertile. As well as using this to your advantage when you ARE trying to get pregnant, you can also use this to your advantage when you are trying to AVOID getting pregnant. By knowing exactly what days you are fertile on, you can either obstain from sex during this time, or use barrier methods of contraception. It is the most natural form of contraception there is, with none of the nasty side effects which come from more commonly known methods such as the pill, the implant, the injection or the coil. So may women suffer from awful side effects of these methods, yet GP's do not tell these women that there is a very effective method with none of the risks associated with other options. And why don't they tell them about it? Because the only money to be made from the FAM (Fertility Awareness Method) is the small initial outlay for a basal body thermometer (mine cost me about £3) and the cost of a few condoms if you choose to use them on the days when you are fertile. Is this lining the pockets of the drug companies? No. So is your GP going to tell you about it, even if you have had a stroke from the pill, severe cramping pain from the coil, and month long periods from the implant? No.
A few years ago, when I went to the USA for the first time, one of the first things that struck me when watching TV over there, was that the drug companies all advertise their products. I remember thinking "How weird is this. It's as if the public have a choice over which drug company they use, and aren't just told which medicine they need, like we are in the UK" and I remember thinking how wrong it was that these people are forced to make a choice like this. But what I am beginning to realise, is that we are actually worse off, because the choice has already been made for us. And it isn't based on which drug is actually most appropriate for us, it is based on which drug company the NHS has an agreement with, and therefore whose pockets they will be lining.
I could literally write about this all night, but I think you see my point by now. We're very fortunate to have the NHS and it does do a lot of good, but if you think that your well being is at the top of it's priority list and that it will do everything in it's power to help you and do right by you, then you are mistaken I'm afraid.
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