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Doctors and nurses
Unlike various friends who are blogging about weight-loss stuff, my local GP surgery appears to be completely useless.
I made an appointment last week, asking for "a general health-check up, as I've been working on diet and exercise changes - I want to know body-fat, cholesterol, etc". So they made me an appointment with a nurse, and I turned up today and had my height, weight, and blood pressure taken. No commentary was offered even when I asked (he seemed to think the blood pressure was odd (105/71 I think), asked me when I'd last eaten, but didn't seem interested in discussing it with me). No other measurements were taken, and I was told that was it. So, waste of an hour really.
Possibly useful information to come out of this farce; I had a similar check-up when I signed up at that GP surgery in 2008. Back then I weighed 69kg - so I had put on 8kg (over a stone) in the last 3 years, 6kg of which I have lost again in the last 3 months.
Possibly odd information to come out of this farce; in 2008 I was 178.5cm tall. Today I was apparently 173.5cm tall. I've lost 5cm in 3 years?? I just measured myself at home, which is admittedly usually more prone to inaccuracies, but I got 176cm on both tries, so I'm going to get someone else to help me triple-check that. All a bit confusing. I did carry some weights home from the shops this morning, I'm wondering if that might have compressed me a bit? o.0
I made an appointment last week, asking for "a general health-check up, as I've been working on diet and exercise changes - I want to know body-fat, cholesterol, etc". So they made me an appointment with a nurse, and I turned up today and had my height, weight, and blood pressure taken. No commentary was offered even when I asked (he seemed to think the blood pressure was odd (105/71 I think), asked me when I'd last eaten, but didn't seem interested in discussing it with me). No other measurements were taken, and I was told that was it. So, waste of an hour really.
Possibly useful information to come out of this farce; I had a similar check-up when I signed up at that GP surgery in 2008. Back then I weighed 69kg - so I had put on 8kg (over a stone) in the last 3 years, 6kg of which I have lost again in the last 3 months.
Possibly odd information to come out of this farce; in 2008 I was 178.5cm tall. Today I was apparently 173.5cm tall. I've lost 5cm in 3 years?? I just measured myself at home, which is admittedly usually more prone to inaccuracies, but I got 176cm on both tries, so I'm going to get someone else to help me triple-check that. All a bit confusing. I did carry some weights home from the shops this morning, I'm wondering if that might have compressed me a bit? o.0
no subject
Often the 'nurses' who do those sort of checkups aren't actually nurses at all, they're what's called 'medical technicians' or 'healthcare assistants'. They're trained to take histories and do basic stuff like blood pressure and drawing blood for tests (often very badly, in the case of the one at my surgery) but not to actually diagnose or make judgment calls. So that's probably why they were able to note that your blood pressure is slightly low (it is - normal is about 120/80) but not give you any suggestions on what that might mean.
They also wouldn't have done blood tests (for blood sugar, cholesterol etc) without a form from the GP - you can't just order them yourself.
Height thing seems odd. Maybe they made a mistake? You do lose a little height through spinal compression over the course of a normal day but only about 1-2cm. If you ARE losing more then you may want to see a doctor about that as it could be an early sign of skeletal problems.