WHen it comes to your health, listen to your doctors and not your pastor.
https://twitter.com/bimbo_cash/status/1556336069125316609?s=20&t=AXo2dQtiq18vi5PfZJrhgQ
A few days ago, I saw a post on @ebingo's status talking about an orphan who had chronic kidney disease. I wrote about her in one of my posts.
She needed a transplant and didn't have funds for it as he was an orphan.
Somehow somewhere a Twitter influencer helped her raise 11 million naira (16k USD) to get a transplant. I didn't know how she got an influencer to help her, al I knew at the time was that she was sourcing for funds from TV stations.
Interestingly, the twitter influencer posted 2 days ago that she went to Christ embassy's healing school and after series of prayers and faith sessions she was told she was healed.
I was very angry at the church for doing that.
I then found out the money had reduced from 11million naira to 7 million naira. I wanted to add my voice to slander her but I stepped back for a moment and decided to forward the pictures and the tweet to my Senior registrar.
Before now, I knew she had a bad heart- meaning her heart was not able to carry out the function of a normal heart. Her heart could not pump blood effectively. The fraction of blood pumped out of the heart is called ejection fraction. The normal ejection fraction is between 50-75%. Her ejection fraction was 27%.
She was in heart failure.
Now, there are two hospitals I knw that handles kidney transplant. One of them is Zenit hopital in Abuja. Zenith hospital abuja will not conduct surgery for a person whose ejecion fraction is below 40%. Borderline ejection fraction ranges between 41% and 50%. So this means she can't do anything.
University College hospital where she is currently being managed has the hands but however they rarely do kidney transplant surgeries. I am not sure of the availability of the facilities. wont take her for surgery with that ejection fraction.
After thinking of all this, I told myself that there was no way the 11 million naira was not going to eventually reduce.
Since the kidneys are not good, she will be getting fluid overload and pulmonary oedema- a condition where the lungs are filled with fluids. The kidneys can't excrete the fluid so it's going to build up.
The kidneys also function in creating red blood cells alongside some major organs like the bone marrow. With CKD, this function reduces and so she will come down with anaemia- a condition where the blood level is low.
With these complications, she will require sessions of dialysis. A session of dialysis costs about thirty thousand Naira(50$). She has to do a test to check her blood level.
Anytime she checks her blood level and it is below 20%, she would require transfusion.
Before transfusion, her blood needs to be screened against the blood she will be transfused with to ensure that it matches.
1 pint of blood plus cross matching might cost her close to fifteen thousand naira.
Remember, her kidney disease is still progressing and so frequency of her treatment is going to rise.
Finally, after doing some investigations, I discovered some influencers ask for commission from these people with health problems. From what I gathered, one influencer asked her to pay a thousand dollars.
This was really sad but what's the point of this post.
Take home pints
The church is partly a problem in Nigeria
https://twitter.com/bimbo_cash/status/1556338414273941506?s=20&t=AXo2dQtiq18vi5PfZJrhgQ
I don't know how to say this but the doctor isn't the enemy.
I have seen patients who claim that their pastor said that they no longer have a disease and then go ahead to stop taking their drugs only to come back worse.
In this case, the person in question has chronic kidney disease and she was told she was fine.
How?
I am not saying miracles don't exists but I can't seem to wrap my head around it.
Chronic kidney disease is a condition that has only one definitive treatment. The treatment is transplant. If you dont get a transplant, you cant be cured.
Same with other conditions, like HIV, hypertension and heart failure will also say things like my pastor said the hypertesion has gone and so I shoud stop taking the drugs.
I have heard a patients say that they stopped taking their anti retroviral drugs because of one so called pastor. Ten tthey go on to say things like I went to do a test and they couldnt detect it. The reason why it was not detectable at the point is as a result of the effect of the drug on the replication of the virus.
By Mikael Häggström - File:Main complications of persistent high blood pressure.svg, CC0, Wikimedia
Chronic conditions usually require treatment for life
A lot of people don't know that once you have a chronic illness like HIV, diabetes or hypertension, you would require treatment for life.
Just to put it out there chronic disease require life long treatment and don't get deceived.
Finally to round it up, most chronic diseases affect the vital organs of the body. So, using your drugs will go a long way in halting the progression.
For example, Chronic kidney disease can go on to cause hypertension. Tis hypertension can lead to heart failure. The hypertension can also lead to stroke.
So my advice for you out there is to listen to your doctor, check your major organs and live healthily.
Nice one Sir.
The best prayer a patient can say is for God to heal him/her through the drugs and the medical interventions by the doctors. But while praying, taking the prescribed drugs and relevant medical interventions are still very important because faith without work is dead.
The doctors are still the instruments for God to heal His people.
Yeah, more scientifically now, I think I read somewhere that in some devoted people, praying (as something complementary to the medical treatment) prompts a placebo effect that might help with the recovery.
Sure, faith and healing go hand in hand. The medication serves as the conduit for the prayer to work
Wow.
Praying might have a placebo effect but not in most chronic conditions.
For example, a patient with HIV will only get worse if they pray without taking their meds. Even if they get better at first, they will eventually get to and stage and die a fatal death
However, psychology plays a role in patient outcome and this is where prayer comes in.
I am aware, that's why I said "as something complementary to the medical treatment".
Of course, I totally agree
It's a very wise title. I'm afraid that some personal believes that many people hold can end up killing them. I'm sure there must be a way to conciliate both views (science and religion) for the sake of one's own health, but it requires listening to science and real medicine first.
BTW, in your post you have this sentence:
How can a reader double-check this? I looked at your source but I couldn't find it there.
This is a in house policy for the Zenith hospital in Nigeria and not a standard practice.
Of course in developed climes, they might be able to conduct the surgery with an ejection fraction as low as that.
However, with my knowledge she would require a heart transplant too.
Oh, I see. I guess it is a kind of internal policy if we can't read it the newspapers.
Yes.. It is..
And it's a way of preventing deaths in surgery.
You can check this out
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0886022X.2016.1194162
Thanks for your contribution to the STEMsocial community. Feel free to join us on discord to get to know the rest of us!
Please consider delegating to the @stemsocial account (85% of the curation rewards are returned).
Thanks for including @stemsocial as a beneficiary, which gives you stronger support.
You would be amazed by the level of ignorance. Someone's genotype changing from SS to AA.
We can't loud it, that doctors are not the enemies, enough.
Congratulations @bhoa! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s):
Your next target is to reach 4500 replies.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPSupport the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!
I don't know why people fail to see that it is actually God that gives knowledge to the doctors and so invariably it is God that is helping them through the doctors.
I have seen patients with inoperable breast cancers who would have gotten help if the hospital was their first point of call but No! they choose to believe that the Doctor is the devil that gives wicked diagnosis.
Might I say that the mentality is appaulling and ultimately self destructive.
But My name is "Miracle" and I do believe in Miracles but the bible advises that wisdom is profitable to direct and even say that in all our gettings we must get understanding!!
Understanding therefore is key!