Night of the living brain fog dead or how I hacked myself better via open source
I’m going through this right now and it feels like everything Americans have complained about socialized healthcare is now true in the US as well: long wait times to see providers, providers that churn through patients like their doing oil changes, providers that just push you along to the next step in a playbook without considering individual needs.<p>I’ve been dealing with fatigue for about two years and had to preempt a yearly physical to be able to talk to my GP about it in December. That gave me the referral I needed to get a sleep study, which identified moderate apnea. It’s the middle of April and I would have just been getting a provider prescribed auto PAP had it not been for a friend who had an unused one.<p>Like the author, CPAP is doing nothing for me, so next month the specialist will probably recommend another sleep study, followed by several more months of waiting for appointments and DME providers.<p>Meanwhile, my wife found that one of the medicines I had been taking had recent studies indicating effects on sleep. I went from 10-20mins of REM a night to 2-2.5 hours by cutting it out prior to any PAP therapy. It should have been done under Dr. supervision, but I can’t ever see my Dr., so I said screw it, found a typical tapering protocol and did it myself.<p>For shorter term things - sick visits, etc., it is impossible for my wife or me to see anyone at the network of our GP (one of the largest in the state) and have to go to urgent care. The last time my wife wanted an appointment she asked if she could go to another location to get in sooner. They denied the request because of continuity of care. So she went to a minute clinic that is completely unrelated to the network - how does that provide continuity?