I once had a cardiologist suggest whiskey given the high levels of anxiety and the impact it was having on my heart’s biological pacemaker which has always been somewhat finicky.
With that said, he also said don’t tell anyone I said that in a professional setting.
Isn’t there some unspoken multiplier doctors use?
Like if you say “a few times a week” they hear “at least 4x a week likely more”…?
I feel like this pattern of people lying to doctors and doctors adjusting things to account for it really messes with rigorously honest people.
A little while back I was reading how when they ask you how much pain you’re in, with 10 being the most pain imaginable, they pretty routinely have people calmly say “12”. So, if you’re actually using the scale where you’ve probably never experienced more than a 9 and would be sobbing at an 8, so you say 7, they automatically assume you’re in basically no pain because you said less than 10.
Kind of wish we could just speak accurately and take each other literally instead of playing games where we try to figure out exactly what lie to tell to convey the truth, but I guess that’s not how most people are wired.
Back in the day I told a doctor that I have three beers a day. I wasn’t lying but they were 40s.
Oh god, I tell my doctor honestly that I drink ~5-6 Doctor Drinks a day so I hope he isn’t applying a multiplier…
Unless the person is the kind of person to decline a drink on the grounds that “it’s only Thursday”, “a couple of drinks a week” is likely either more than the person thinks or they (consciously of subconsciously) are downplaying how much it really is.
My doctor is a pretty cool guy and some of the banter during my visits has been fun. If there weren’t potential legal implications (for him) I’d totally be down with grabbing a drink after hours and shooting the shit.
Maybe I could invite the dentist that did my root canal too, he was going into the same industry as me before switching to dentistry and was also pretty savvy.
This is unironically the relationship I have with my PCP
The definition of having a drinking problem is when you drink more than your doctor.
