Telling your doctor the truth is important in receiving the best possible care
Trust has to run both ways in the healthcare setting, but too often, whether accidentally or intentionally, patients are not giving their healthcare providers the full story.
Brandi Giles, a nurse practitioner with Bon Secours St. Francis Health System, sees this in a few common circumstances.
Home remedies and supplements
Grandma’s sure-fire cure has its place, but in some cases, it might interfere with a needed medication.
“My master's thesis is on Appalachian folk medicine for this very reason,” Giles said. “What I've seen is that people won't necessarily be fully transparent about what they're taking at home for symptoms or even supplements. They fear that their Western medicine providers or their nurse practitioner, their physician will look down on them or tell them to stop taking it, or they'll think that they don't agree with it.”
That’s not necessarily the case, according to Giles, but a home remedy or supplement could interact with other forms of treatment, mask symptoms or cause other problems, if your healthcare provider is not informed.
“There are some medications that I would prescribe to you for a lot of things that will interact with supplements, and they will even interact with simple home remedies,” Giles said.
Giles said physicians and other providers may both understand and support a holistic or naturalistic approach to health, but they still need to be made aware of vitamins, supplements and the like.
“You want to seek out a medical provider that matches your health beliefs, so that you can have those open and honest conversations,” she said. “We want to make sure that what we prescribe is going to number one: help you, number two: not harm you by interacting with something. And also, that we’re not causing you to be in a situation that you’re choosing between your normal treatment of something and what you know and believe in, versus what we provided.”
Social media
If it seems like something is a popular Facebook cure, that absolutely doesn’t mean it works or is even safe. (Asking Dr. Google doesn’t count.)
“I understand all that,” Giles said of social media pushes. “And I also understand that not all studies are created equal and critically evaluated.”
Just because it looks reputable doesn’t mean it really is. A nugget of good information can quickly descend into something entirely different.
“It's like they're playing the game of telephone, right?” Giles said. “It’s 10 shares or 1,000 shares from where it was originally, and they've only taken bits and pieces and they added their own logic or their own thought process to it. They end up with something completely different and it can be very harmful.”
Don’t make it seem better or worse
“Another thing that I see – and I do work in urgent care at the moment –is people kind of over-exaggerating symptoms or under-exaggerating symptoms,” Giles said. “I can't tell you how bad your pain is. I can't. That is something that is very subjective to each person.”
But Giles wants patients to know that they can be honest about how they are feeling. There is no need to try to make symptoms seem worse in an effort to prove that care is needed, just as there is no need to tough it out and minimize pain or illness.
You deserve to be safe
Safety is a critical issue for Giles.
“As a health care provider, I am a mandatory reporter for child abuse or child neglect,” she said. “If you come and tell me, ‘I'm being beaten at home’ and you're a competent adult, then I can't go and call the police without your permission, but it is a safe space in that exam room to be able to say those things. There are resources. You may not be ready to take those resources, but there are resources – and that's not just physical abuse. It’s mental abuse, sexual abuse, human trafficking type situations.”
Giles noted that human trafficking can apply in a variety of situations, and she and other healthcare providers want to help.
“With your permission, I can start those wheels,” she said. “That person has to be ready. That is confidential behind those that exam room doors. If you're an adult, and you're in a situation like that, then I can help at whatever level you need me to help.”
No need for embarrassment
That thing you are embarrassed to say out loud? Your healthcare provider has likely heard it before.
“The other thing that's super important and that you want to be honest with your healthcare provider about is things that you may be embarrassed of,” Giles said. "Please don't be embarrassed. We want to be able to treat you because we don't want you to get sick. We don't want you to have to face decisions alone if you don't have to. And we want to give you the very best possible care that we can give you.”
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Telling your doctor the truth is important in receiving proper care
