Here are some tips to use if you are sick but you are not too weak to think for yourself.
These tips should be useful for everyone but they may especially suit the context of Indian medical world.
The idea is to take intelligent initiatives and help towards condition improvement with responsibility. There would be no use of blaming others later on and you would be the one to suffer. So, it is wise to be proactive.
1. Choose a doctor :- Find about good , specialist doctors for the disease and then go to one as possible. You could ask friends or neighbors but also check about the doctors from internet, you may get some relevant information. It's always better to go close to home as possible without compromising much on the doctor or hospital. These should however be as per the need of your disease and other factors.
2. Get information about disease:- Collect information about the disease as much as possible through friends, internet, books etc. Also, try to understand treatment options, recommended tests etc. If you have enough knowledge , you would be able to understand the doctor's language and prescriptions better. You would also be able to realize whether the treatment and improvement is progressing aptly. It is not wise to remain ignorant or have less idea and blindly depend on prescribed treatment.
3. Monitor your health:- Monitor the status of your disease from time to time. Are you improving or getting worse? If you are not improving as expected, please discuss with your doctor without much delay. Let him know your status and check whether any changes are needed. He might suggest some changes which need to be followed. This discussion may also give you an idea about your doctor's working style and commitment to treat you.
4. Get tests done:- There may be some prescribed pathological tests to discover more about your condition, please ask if they should be done. If required get them done early, to help your doctor become aware of exact condition and treat you accordingly. Even if doctor does not suggest from his side, please ask if any test would particularly help him diagnose. This expenditure is worth it to get your treatment in the right direction and minimise the possibility of mistakes.
5. Ask questions:- If you have information about the disease, you might have some doubts about treatment process to be followed etc. Please, discuss all such doubts with your doctor and apply them as possible for better treatment.
6. Apply home / self healing:- Along with taking doctors medicines, you may apply in most cases any home remedies or self healing practices such as meditation or reiki. Some small precautions or eating or applying of a particular thing may be very useful to treat the disease. You may want to check with your doctor before taking any home remedy.
Also, prayer, goodness and meditation may help to keep you positive and ready for faster treatment.
Application of these along with medicines may help to take a complete care of yourself.
7. Check medicines:- It is very important to check names of medicines, expiry date and power (usually mg) as prescribed by doctor. Sometimes, the pharmaceutical shop may give you different, expired or higher power medicine , which may harm you instead of treating. Please, check these each time you buy medicines.
8. Keep a check on other problems:- If any other problem or illness is growing after you start taking medicine for your particular disease, discuss this with the doctor very soon. This may be a side effect of your medicines.
9. Check cleanliness, disposability:- If you are given any injection, it should be with a disposable syringe. If you are given any physiotherapy or any treatment/tests with machine, please check and ask for cleanliness if needed. You may become a victim of another disease if you dont request care of this.
10. Change the doctor:- If after following a doctor for some appropriate time, you are not improving much, please don't hesitate to change the doctor. The doctor may not be right for your disease so please do not get stuck, move soon if you suspect the treatment is not going well.
Hope, this would help someone in some way.