I met the guy I’m seeing for lunch yesterday after a few weeks of him being away on a trip. When he came into the restaurant, I noticed him hobbling. Of course I could see he was injured and asked what happened? He explained he fell down an embankment on his left side, 2 weeks ago! His foot and ankle were badly swollen, his elbow and hand were equally as bad. I asked him what the doctor said, and he told me he didn’t need one! I’m not a doctor, but do I have to tell a grown man he needs one?! What’s the deal with some men?
Why are so many men hard headed about setting a doctor when injured?
r/AskMen
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Here’s an original copy of /u/BeingReallyReal’s post (if available):
I met the guy I’m seeing for lunch yesterday after a few weeks of him being away on a trip. When he came into the restaurant, I noticed him hobbling. Of course I could see he was injured and asked what happened? He explained he fell down an embankment on his left side, 2 weeks ago! His foot and ankle were badly swollen, his elbow and hand were equally as bad. I asked him what the doctor said, and he told me he didn’t need one! I’m not a doctor, but do I have to tell a grown man he needs one?! What’s the deal with some men?
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IDK, I go to the doctor for anything that is major.
Most women I’ve date or know, like my mom, refuse to go.
Probably not the first time he has fallen and knows how his body works well enough to deduct he doesn’t need medical attention.
If he dies in the coming weeks you have a case, if he turns out to be fine you don’t and owe men an apology.
Case closed.
I’ve been injured enough times to know when things may need a doctor and when I’m just going to go there for them to tell me “yeah it’s just a sprain, take this painkiller and rest”
I think when you’re raised to be tough and “suck it up”, that becomes deeply engrained.
Every time I to the doctor, he just says to take some ibuprofen and lose weight. Waste of time and money.
While I can’t answer for that man specifically, I don’t go often because of the general hassle of the medical and medical insurance fields, so I reserve Dr visits for very serious issues only. He’s probably had similar injuries in the past and knows there’s nothing the Dr will be able to provide that is worth the hassle of the visit
I think a lot of guys would rather just suffer through an injury than deal with the horse shit rigmarole that entails going to the doctor and dealing with insurance or not having insurance and being self pay.
Insurance wants you dead and doctors don’t give a fuck.
Doctors are like shady car mechanics, except you pay them even if they break you. Eventually, a guy will go in and then you’ll get diagnosed with something your common sense and a cursory overview of your symptoms show isn’t the case. But, hey, he’s a doc… so you end up in surgery and have pieces of you removed… only to find out later you were correct all along and guesstimating your own treatment protocol fixes your issue. But, you still had organs removed for no real reason. 1) we see it’s a shady af way to make money 2) we wait knowing this 3) we go in, eventually only to be proven correct. That’s why. Still, as we get older, we see a 20% chance at the doc being right is worth it. When you’re young, it isn’t.
Because 99% of the time Drs are useless and tell you “take some ibuprofen and keep off of it for a few weeks”
Thanks tips.
I also had to spend a lot of the past 5 years in the Er for incredibly legitimate reasons and the amount of people in their for completely stupid pointless reasons backing everyone else up for hours and hours makes my blood boil and I don’t want to contribute to my Provinces already horribly bogged down Health care system.
Doctors have turned into salespeople. And the worst thing about it is that they aren’t even trying to convince ppl like regular salespeople do. They use scare tactics and we feel we should believe them because they are our doctors.
Partly “It’ll get better on its own”
Partly “Doctor’s going to tell me I have two weeks to live, and I’d rather not know”
Does he have insurance or a cheap plan that requires him to meet his deductible first?
I can’t really quantify it. But I’m not going. Internal organ pain that lasts more than 12 hours, I may go to the ER
Because we learn that things heal over time, and doctors are really expensive. Us men are raised to not complain, not speak out if we’re hurting somehow, and to just deal with it on our own.
I’ve always presumed it goes hand in hand with suppressing their emotions all their life so, if there is a medical concern, their emotions do what they have always done which is to downplay what hurts (i.e., if I minimise it, it is minimal, and therefore does not need a doctor).
Because society says men aren’t allowed to show weakness
Money. If I’m not actively bleeding out, I’m going to tough it out. Even then it might make more sense financially for my family to let them collect the life insurance.
Injured a finger last weekend. Tested it a few times, confirmed it’s not broken, don’t need a doctor to tell me to take Advil and wait for it to get better.
Same pattern writ large.
>he told me he didn’t need one!
#Trust Men
doctors typically fucking suck and tell you nothing of import. “you’re hurt – ice it, take pain relievers, stay off of it. that’ll be $300 please.”
and if it’s anything beyond that, they’ll send you to a specialist with a 8-month lead time on an appointment.
On the other hand, why do women love going to the doctor?
(Serious question.)
I go if it’s something I need a doctor for.
Like if I cut myself while cooking, I know to clean the wound and let it heal. I don’t need to go to the doctor for that.
If I get the sniffles or a fever, I know to go to bed and relax for a few days, call in sick to work, that whole routine; I don’t need a doctor to look at and then reaffirm those already known truths.
It feels like such a waste of resources and time to go, for things that will heal purely by time alone, instead of things that would require medical intervention.
Another point is also just that, because where I live, going to the doctor is free, and as a result, people go to the doctor for any minute little piece of bullshit. The waiting rooms are filled with hypochondriacs and people who’s just there for their monthly checkup while being perfectly healthy, so the waiting lists are insane. if I need tog o, and I go online to book an appointment, I am lucky if there’s less than 2 weeks of waiting time.
I saw one for the first time in 25 years had a blood test ,
Ambulance turned up on the middle of the night n rushed me
To
Hospital scared me to death and there was nothing wrong
If health services were efficient and freely available I’d use them more often. But sitting in a waiting room for hours to see a doctor for 5 min to tell you to rest and heal makes it very often a waste of time.
Normally I’d give most injuries a couple days to see if they’re getting better or worse before going in (obviously if there were blood or dones sticking out I’d go right away).
Ever see a hospital bill?
Its because we can usually pull through and would rather that then spend 6 or 8 hours in a hospital
I think some people experience fear of the unknown. So they become avoidant, even if it’s very obvious that it needs to be addressed to the rest of us.
A doctor visit is not only a financial burden, but it becomes an ongoing responsibility because there’s going to be aftercare that is expected of the person who is seeking treatment.
I think a combination of fear and responsibility avoidance keeps a person from seeking out professional assistance.
for me personally it’s that I have a lot of anxiety around doctors and medical institutions, I had multiple times in the past where I’ve gone in for one issue only for it to result in months of x-rays, blood work and other tests only for them to ultimately tell me it was a muscle issue or some shit like that, so unless something is immediately and obviously wrong in a way that I can’t ignore I prefer to spare myself the trauma and wasted time of jumping through all those hoops
Because a doctor typically doesn’t solve the problem, is expensive, and frequently humiliating.
So odd that this popped up on my feed. My bf is the same exact way. He had a bad tooth and was shaking in pain snd refused to go to the doctor. This week he fell and hurt his knee really bad and refused to go to urgent care. I got kind of frustrated with him and asked him why he wouldnt go to the doctors. He told me he has medical anxiety and one time he went to the doctor for stitches and was really nervous and the doctor told him to quit acting like a baby. Now he thinks that all medical professionals will treat him like that.
How do you set a doctor
Too much hassle most of the times things will be fine in a week or two.
Just had my 5th reconstructive surgery for a sport related injury on left side of my body. It happened in March and I didn’t accept there was actually a problem until July. Wanted to do surgery immediately, but I pushed it off to last week so I cpuld finish some things up with work.
It isn’t a real injury until the doctor says it is.
They don’t want to go bankrupt
$$$
As a man, an american man, i’d go to the doctor for even slightest boo boo if i could. But! Since that isn’t financially feasible, i only go once a year for my “free” check up or if i think my ticker’s about to blow.
Essentially because western medicine is a joke driven by nothing but profits for little to no actual knowledge in many cases. I will only go if there is something serious and then only move for with anything after 2-3 opinions.
They want to either push pharmaceuticals or tell you to take ibuprofen and rest. It’s pointless.
Because I grew up poor and we only went to the doctor if we were dying or Doctor Mom couldn’t fix it.
One time I had a little something wrong.
So I went to a CityMD (a walk-in/ urgent care clinic), who made me wait for a couple of hours, and then insisted i needed tests from a hospital right away.
So I ended up taking a cab (because taking a subway wasn’t ‘right away’ enough to not miss the “only appointment they had”) to get to my appointment at the hospital for the tests.
I ended up having to wait anyway for something you’d think (from the way they made it sound) I could just walk into. My insurance didn’t cover the tests, I ended up paying out of pocket.
It was, as I originally suspected, nothing. The entire process was pointless, there was nothing to do, it was just “one of those things”, I would have been better off just staying home and doing nothing.
This is how things go.
Also, you know how that whole whore/madonna thing is a mean thing applied to women? Men have “guys never go to the doctor”/”Men are just big babies with their Man Flu, wound-wailing about nothing”. People need to pick one and stick with it. As a result of it, when i do go, it’s almost impossible to get taken seriously. Making it even more of a waste of time!
Too much effort to go (book an appointment, take time off work, end up waiting for ages) and in the end you just get fobbed off and probably patronised or belittled. Easier to just save your time and not bother.
Because I don’t have insurance
They are afraid, not as courageous as the women.
Sounds like he just needs some Tiger balm.
I got a similar injury before. Sometimes the sac in the joint leaks but it heals up on it’s own.
All over reddit women bitch and moan about the doctors never listening to their problems, but insist men should go. What’s that about? Maybe I’ve been to the doctor and they’ve been useless for me too and I don’t want to waste my time?
Several reasons. One is money. For me, my health insurance has a $4500 deductible, that is a lot of money out of pocket for something which more often than not is something a doctor will just say “take it easy for a few weeks”.
Another reason is our families typically rely on us heavily. We don”t like making them worry or stress, so we often keep health things to ourselves, until it becomes a big deal.
I have a fear of doctors and their prognoses.
A deep-seated fear of being rejected when asked for help.
I know it’s dumb. it’s bull headed, it’s prideful, and all the stupid things it definitely is.
But I’ve had myself being talked out of going to the doctor by the receptionist a couple of times by (what felt like) a wall of apathy and “are you sure it’s that bad?” Questions, making me just resign to say to myself that it probably wasn’t that bad anyway.
Often in my life I couldn’t afford to.
If you don’t have insurance or your insurance is really bad. A simple procedure can get very expensive. In addition, medical professionals will do more tests to cover themselves from liability, which will cost a great deal, more money. And no one will be able to tell you how much you owe, until it’s over.
And sometimes it comes down to
Doc It hurts when I do that.
$45,000.00 later
Then don’t do that.
and you can pay it off over time at $20.00/hour (40k/year)
Or you can limp for a couple of days.
Have you ever heard the term “man up”. Well, this is an example of “manning up.” It is a toxic mindset.
It’s a hassel. If he’s still hobbling along just fine and not in a tremendous amount of pain then he’s probably fine to skip out on the doctor. If it hasn’t gotten any better over those couple weeks though then yeah it might be time to get checked out.
I usually end up paying them to do very little or actually make things worse
Also, I have a buddy who thought cats subsist solely on milk in the wild and is acing med school
It’s a feeling of weakness and that you can shake it off.
But I know from family who are doctor’s assistants. And they are told that if a man calls in complaining about something. To get them in ASAP.
Because we wait till the last second.
2 weeks, go to dr
Because Medicaid is “better than nothing” but it sucks. The quality of care, what it’ll actually cover and the waiting times are all pretty bad.
Plus the healthcare workers in “my state” are really fucking rude, too and I don’t feel like dealing with the constant passive aggression and disrespect. As if im wasting their time and they’re doing me a god damned favor for doing the bare minimum and talking to me for a few minutes. So if it isn’t an emergency, I’ll manage myself. lol
The times I have went for shit like this they remedy is usually something I could have done without there help. Rest and stay off your feet type of shit.
I also have been misdiagnosed so that makes me weary about doctors who I feel are GUESSING at times.
Routine checkup and when my body is out of what feels normal that an over the counter meds can’t fix, off to the doctor. Slips and falls that are still swollen after two weeks need attention.
Had a friend who refused to see a doc for YEARS while dealing with GI issues. Kept saying it’s just heartburn, it’s normal, etc despite worsening symptoms. I suspect he was gunshy about getting an endoscopy/colonoscopy.
Died in the hospital from untreated stomach ulcers. I’ve never been more angry at anyone and I miss him.
Some men can feel like they can’t “afford” to be down and out. Similar to how people can feel like they can’t take time off from work. And if they don’t feel like something is “seriously” wrong, they may not feel like it’s worth it.
Coworker had a stroke at least 2 days ago. Worked with him all day yesterday. After work we chatted briefly. Told him he needs to go to the hospital, not just the hospital but the er, like right now. He went home because he has a second job he needed sleep for. I know I’m overdue for a check up and I probably should be on blood pressure meds and I’m overdue for a colonoscopy but damn, a fucking stroke would force me to go in immediately. I hope he ends up ok, he’s a good dude.
I’m military, so I get free medical. I still hate going for a number of reasons.
As much lip service they give us about taking care of ourselves and not suffering in silence, any medical attention we need to receive outside of the standard yearly stuff (which is a complete joke, btw) is treated as a burden. If I need to leave early or take a couple hours out of the work day, I’m either creating a problem by being gone, or I’m just not present in the spaces.
I don’t feel like the quality of care is there either. Others have said they just get told to take ibuprofen. That’s common. I went into a civilian ER once when a random knot appeared on my arm, then turned into a softball sized bruise three days later. The nurses there told me I hit my arm on something and needed to treat it with a warm compress. I told them I didn’t hit anything, there was a random knot that appeared, and that was abnormal, but they insisted I must not remember how I hit it.
Even if I can get a doctor to agree that I am having an issue and not making it up, they typically range from doing jack shit about it to giving me the third degree for waiting so long to come in. It’s like medical themselves discourage you from doing them for anything other than yearly required labs and screening.
That’s why I severely dislike seeking medical help.
I have a friend who fell and broke some ribs. I’m a guy but if it was me I’d probably want to go to the doctor. But he said he was fine and it had happened many times before.
He was in pain for a month but he was fine.
That same guy one time was doing some hard manual labor and looked really bad after. He was sweating and looked pale. Now if it was me I’d think it was my heart and I did think it was his heart. But it wasn’t and that was 4 years ago.
Another example is my uncle was working on a roof and his 75yo neighbor was helping him. The old guy had heat exhaustion or something and was pale and gaunt. He looked like death. Yet he didn’t go and he was fine. I too thought it was his heart.
My mother many times has occasions where I thought she should go right to the ER and she didn’t. Yet she ended up being fine afterwards. These were scenarios that I personally would have gone.
My friend’s wife is an internal medicine doctor. You’d think she’d be the best person to know when something is to worry or not. Yet she doesn’t. While shes not a pediatrician I refuse to believe she doesn’t know that her kid doesn’t need to run to the doctor because they have a slight cough or a sprained ankle. These are things our grandparents knew instinctively.
I think many of us are not in tune with the needs of our bodies. Just how resilient they are and what true danger is. It’s very similar to how parents 60 years ago let their kids out alone and today they fear letting them play in a fenced backyard alone or even another room.
Sometimes we become overly sensitized to actual danger and risk.
It usually costs money that we don’t want to spend, even if it’s just a Co-pay. If we don’t have insurance, that makes it a total no-go unless its life-threatening.
Wait time. Varies by area, but getting a non-emergency appointment in my area takes 3 weeks minimum. Even if you’re an existing client. Urgent care is often not in-network and ER visits cam ne difficult to claim if its not an emergency.
We dont want to sink the time it would take to do so.
We’ve judged or misjudged our ability to recover and opted for that instead of medical attention.
It’s a hassle and doctors are condescending. We’re expected to “suck it up.”
As a tradesmen, I don’t think ppl realize how often I we are (minor) injured in the course of a day, most don’t even register. A joke in the trades is that soap is often called “cut finder” because you’ll have tons of cuts on your hands you didn’t even know about until the soap hits and stings. Not that I’m a tough guy, it just doesn’t register until later. After years of this, I have a pretty good grasp of what needs professional medical intervention and what needs ‘first aid’ (iced/isolated/wrapped/cleaned/flushed/etc)
Even things like stitches would have to be a significant wound, because I can’t take the next several weeks off till it’s closed and keeping stitches clean can be a nightmare, I often find butterflies/tapes and compression a better easier to keep clean option. My general rule of thumb is I can do it my way until the second I see any signs of infection, then it’s time for professional intervention.
That being said TLDR
Most ppl can’t remember the last time they saw blood in person (menstrual cycles, excluded) more less their own. Some ppl
See it regularly and have a very different response to it.
P.s. I am not a smart person 🥴
What is the deal with some women calling men babies when they say they are sick? Everyone is different.
Because deep down we know we are wolverines..
A few reasons. This from a 42 year old trick skater who has semi-frequent minor to moderate injuries (dealing with a torn rotator cuff right now – no doctor visit)
Boys are not taught to take care of themselves. Then they become men who don’t get their yearly physical, don’t establish a relationship with a primary care provider, and most definitely don’t get a colonoscopy when they need to start. We learn that we are invincible and invulnerable until we no longer are.
Just gotta man up
Little boys are praised for being able to tolerate pain, and mocked ruthlessly for showing any sign of ‘weakness’. That kind of conditioning is very hard to break.
Eh. You decide to go to the doctor.
Spend a lot of time figuring out how to find one your insurance covers.
Go down the list, calling different offices, with ridiculous holding times, rude reception staff, and after possibly a day of calling around and being on hold, make an appointment at a super inconvenient time. In my line of work, there aren’t private, uninterrupted time slots to make personal calls.
Show up early for the appointment, then get a clipboard or maybe a tablet and fill out the entire history of your family tree and write your autobiography. This is done with an extremely rude, unprofessional receptionist who acts like you are assaulting her for making her do her job.
Then get weighed and measured, typically by a P.A. or nurse who is condescending and rude. Am I at a doctor’s appointment or a comedy roast?
Go sit in an exam room and wait 15-20 minutes (now 30 minutes past your appointment time, but you showed up 20 minutes early).
Someone in scrubs comes in, holding the paperwork you filled out with every detail of your entire life, takes you blood pressure, temperature, then proceeds to ask you every single question you already answered on the intake form, plus several other weird questions about things that don’t relate to why you came. Then they tell you to wait until the doctor sees you.
So you sit there, shirt off for some reason, staring at an anatomy chart, and some jars filled with qtips and tongue depressors.
Another hour goes by. You can hear the staff gossiping and giggling.
A few times the door knob jiggles, but no one comes in.
Eventually someone, either the doctor or most likely another nurse or P.A. comes in. They sigh in frustration. Ask you once again for your autobiography that you have now given twice. They take some notes but mostly disassociate and ignore while you talk.
Then they ask why you are there. You explain whatever it was, hurt hand, knee pain, odd rash. The doctor will briefly look at things related to it, ask about your diet and lifestyle. Tells you to lose weight, eat better, and requests some blood work. Out the room in under 5 minutes.
Then the nurse or whoever comes in 10 minutes later, tells you to get blood work, and hands you a pamphlet typically unrelated to your original complaint.
Now you have to go get the blood work done, that’s another half day.
Get that done, then….radio silence. Spend a week playing phone tag with the Dr’s office. Eventually someone tells you your blood work was unremarkable except something is slightly off so watch that.
6 months later get a bill for $2000 because somehow something about your visit wasn’t covered or authorized, despite checking first. Oh and whatever you saw the doctor about got no treatment, and eventually got better on its own or you learned to live with it.
So now you wasted at least two days dealing with this, spent a bunch of money, your job is making comments about a drop in productivity while you deal with your vague “medical issues” and at the end of the day, you got no real help.
If you’re hurt you’re suppose to suck it up and walk it off.
Most men then can’t the difference between hurt and injured, so they deal with it.
Because we are told all through life to suck it up. Also, we are kind of dumb on some stuff.
As a result, we have a fairly good read on what needs emergency attention and what will be a recommendation for a pain killer and rest.
“Oh look at me, the millionaire who goes to see doctors.”
Lets count the reasons….
1- Head pain so intense I blacked out for hours. Doc 1 said headaches, gave pills. Still pain, sends me to ER for spinal tap and other things to rule out stuff. ER doc messed up the spinal tap twice, had to have it done under Xray guidance. Head continues to hurt, admitted to hospital. Doc and Neuro say its migraines. Another incedent happens a year later and based on everything I am thinking I have MS. Doc won’t look at it, says see the neuro from before, neuro says definitly not MS, its sleep apnea despite having no signs/symptoms. Go to the Mayo for testing, guess who has MS.
2- Heard a pop in my knee, went to a doc, took an xray, said it was fine just probably sprained something. Ice and it will get better. Saw an ortho the next week and I had a bucket handle tear. That doc did the surgery, said no weight for 30 days, then rehab. Went in a week later and was walking on it, doc upset, told him it felt good and I was rehabbing it. Said it would fail and come back at 30 days so he could say it again. Came back at 30 days, full flexation and told him how I did a 300lb squat the week prior.
3- GP, two Cardiologists, and an EP cardiologist before I got the diagnosis I knew I had a week in after learning how to read an EKG. Two years of diagnosis to cure a heart failure issue I identified 30 days in.
I could go on and on.
Last time I personally went to urgent care was for a sprained quad. All the doc said was to keep off the leg and take ibuprofen. Last time I legitimately needed a doctor was a dislocated kneecap. Honestly if an injury is at the level of or greater then a dislocated kneecap, I’m gonna go. A broken finger or sprained finger is less then the kneecap injury
Most are raised to be independent which isn’t a good thing. Sure, you learn about yourself and your limitations, but you can still be wrong. If no one teaches you anything, especially now with the younger generations of men, you really in affect just grow up and make do without. There is no support system. Friends and family are limited. Regular people don’t give a fuck. Very little support or outreach programs for men in general let alone our health issues. People heckle you or talk shit about you (women love to do this). You kind of learn very quickly that nobody gives a shit about you. You learn to shut the fuck up and to deal with it on your own.
Doctors are expensive.
Insurance can be shit.
The level of quality and care is questionable.
People are generally shitty with men unless you are severely injured.
I would say men probably are not good at advocating for themselves, so they don’t properly explain their health issues. We are typically used to putting ourselves last, especially as we get older and have a family.
We also now graduate more women as doctors now. Most of the men are old, no accepting new patients, or are working part time (at least in my area). The few men who are doctors are essentially foreign born. I would imagine this would make men less likely to go.
Probably hesitant to go to the doctor because the doctor will say “yep that’s a bruise. Ice it and take ibuprofen for swelling. That’ll be 1900 bucks please.” (Talking about the US of course).
The last time I posted this response I was told it was wrong and down-voted because women have it worse, but I still believe it.
It’s not about being afraid, it’s about wasting time. Going to the doctor as a man is a joke unless you have something clearly and visibly broken or bleeding out. First they roll their eyes at you and treat you like a drug seeker. Then you’ll get zero to minimal testing for anything, maybe a blood panel. Then they say, “It’s probably something viral, just come back if it doesn’t clear up on it’s own.” Then you’re told to kick rocks and sent off, maybe with a prescription for a general antibiotic. Not to mention now you have a bill for the visit and you’ve lost half a day’s wages to do so.
The whole experience makes you feel like a giant inconvenience at best. When that happens enough times, you just stop going until you’re certain that not only is there something actually wrong, but it has to be obvious enough that the Dr will take it seriously and not make you feel like an ahole for wasting their time.