Quackery

[poliphilo]

Earlier this week we took my mother to the doctor's to have him look at her leg- which has been giving her problems for about a week. He diagnosed a "flair-up" and prescribed extra pain-killers.  See what he did there?  Basically nothing- but the trick is to do it reassuringly and with an air of professional competence.

Today we're taking her to the hospital in Maidstone for an injection into her eye. This is a new treatment and we suspect she's being used as a guinea pig. But why not? She's losing her sight and this might save it. No harm in trying...

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

If the injection in the eye is for macular degeneration, it's an established and proven technique. It may be new where you are, but my grandmother's been having it for five years, and her vision is still fine, even though she would have been completely blind by now without it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We were told it was experimental- and had only just been made available over here.

It's very early days but the signs are that it's working.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's certainly on the new side, but I would consider it to be well out of the "experimental" stage. It's likely that the doctors in your neck of the woods only recently got the training in the procedure, and she's among their first patients. It's in the "rolling out the treatment to new populations" stage, as far as I know, getting the equipment and training to new doctors. But I think that's a step more certain than "experimental".

In other words, I think you can feel free to feel confident about this thing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's good.

Thank you for the reassurance.