Hypochondria, a Dominican phenomenon?

[Rocky]

Originally Posted by sylindr

my dominican boyfriend got 2 pins in his finger from an operation. the pin near the end of his finger was not coverded by the bandage so it was open to everything. and I told him he should cover it up like the other pin or it would get infected he said the doctor said no it was not necessary, just make sure you don't have sex until you come back for a check up!!! Wellll he had sex becasue i told him that was ridiculous! and guess what the open pin got an infection!! Doctor asks "did you have sex?" and the infection was blamed on that and me....lol

And the moral of the story is,
Always get your boyfriend to cover up his "pin" before sex.

[laurajane]

I am affraid i have to agree, Dominicans are in most cases hypocondriacs. I have heard soooo many times women complain of a headache and then proceed to go to the doctors for analysis. Also on the very rare occasion my daughter has a cold or is dealing with teething pain my housekeeper wants to pump her full of 5 different types of medicine, even when she is not sick most of the women in the family (my husband has 12 sisters) are always advising me to either give her sedatives or vitamins etc. She is a well behaved baby, but they seem to think that giving them the same type of sedatives uses for epaleptics which can cause long term behavior problems is the key to a peaceful life!

I had a c-section and was up and about after 48 hours and got on with things, here my sister in law arranged for someone to look after her baby after a c-section for two weeks, 24 hours a day.

I do alos think doctors are not only extremley unconfident about diagnosing problems them selves, which is why no matter what problem anyone goes to the doctor with they ask for analysis, etc. I am quite sure that if you entered a emergency ward with your arm hanging off they would still order tests just to make sure the diagnosis was correct

Doctors and clinics also take advantage of the ignorance of dominicans also, one little girl was recently admitted into a clinic for 4 days when she complained of blood in her mouth, they pumped her full of drugs of which the mother never questioned and it turned out after i insisted she visited a dentist that she had a bad case of gingivitis due to bad oral hygeine, which can be treated quite simply with a dose of antibiotics to treat the infection and a thorough cleaning at the dentists. The clinic bill was 10,000 pesos for a easily identifiable and treatable problem.

They think i am crazy when i go out in the rain, but then we have all no doubt noticed that dominicans think they are made of sugar

Of course this isn't a Dominican bashing a quite frankly this is a forum about the Dominican Republic and we cant keep having this phrase thrown about just because we maybe discussing a negative or controversial point.

[santa110xyz]

hello folks!
i was laughing so much today when i read this thread
one of my maids got extreme stomach aches; immediately they did check the stomach including taking a biopsy.... etc.... Charging her huge amount of money (8,000 pesos) .... When her sister informed me about the results she told: " Luckily her sister doesn't have cancer, yet!!! It is a gastritis and she needs to change her eating habits....
Do they want to have serious sickness????
Well since this day, i don't ask anymore: How are you? They think, that i am nuts because i make teas when feeling not so good, have stomach ache, can not sleep...etc.. it really helps!

[Chirimoya]

Originally Posted by laurajane

I do alos think doctors are not only extremley unconfident about diagnosing problems them selves, which is why no matter what problem anyone goes to the doctor with they ask for analysis, etc. I am quite sure that if you entered a emergency ward with your arm hanging off they would still order tests just to make sure the diagnosis was correct

Absolutely spot on.

I also notice that for many women pregnancy is treated as an illness. They tend remain as sedentary as possible. Why are they automatically allowed to the front of the bank queue and given special parking spaces when elderly people aren't?

[laurajane]

Originally Posted by Chirimoya

Absolutely spot on.

I also notice that for many women pregnancy is treated as an illness. They tend remain as sedentary as possible. Why are they automatically allowed to the front of the bank queue and given special parking spaces when elderly people aren't?

Yes i agree, when was pregnant everyone said dont wait for someone to usher you to the front of a queue just walk straight to the front, but as much as sometimes i wanted to avoid the hour or so wait inline i just didn't have the nerve and was scared that someone would yell at me and make me go to the back lol. I can almost understand it for a seriously heavily pregnant woman but here evn if you are not even showing and just say you are pregnant they allow you to the front which is ridiculous, Oh dear have i just given all the women here an idea how to jump the queue!!

[LaTeacher]

i had a ball when i was pregnant with all the things people told me! we live on the third floor, so i was told to try to minimize the stairs - like stay in my house all day because the stairs were equivalent to... oh, i don't know, a roller-coaster. can't go to the beach, shouldn't be in the sun, can't eat plantains, stay away from heavy things, don't bend at all... but then, oh then, i was told if i was "too lazy" the baby would be lazy too.

i've heard about the not having sex if you've got some sort of infection or sore and when i asked about it at the doctors (a family practice) i was told that it's not because of the infection it's because of the antibiotics. apparently if you have an ejaculation the antibiotics lose their potency. go figure. i love it.

[fightfish]

Most of my Dominican friends are completely uneducated when it comes to medicine. By that, I mean that as a student athlete and an injury prone clutz I've spent mucho time in emergency rooms, doctors etc. And with every visit, somehow I learned something, such as antibiotics aren't meant to be taken for one day, or that cold and hot compresses are used for various strains etc. So when I am in a pharmacy in the DR,and people are buying one antibiotic pill at a time, I cringe. The pharmacists are partly to blame for doling out medicine that needs to be taken for multiple days, but on the same note, thank goodness for a system which allows me to purchase what I know I need without a prescription. Yes, Dominicans are hypocondriacs, but at least here we all can buy the medicine we want without visiting the 'doctor'.

[Matilda]

When we were in England around 4 or 5 years ago we had a lady here looking after the kids. She had to rush the eldest son to Santo Domingo for a brain scan. He had a headache. I explained that he had been playing baseball for 2 days in the sun and was probably dehydrated and just give him lots of water. No Brain Scan it was. He also had a nose bleed. I said it was probably as he was one of the most active nosepickers i had ever seen and always had his finger up his nose. Nope. He had too much blood so he had to be sent somewhere to be bled. Can't remember the bill but it was horrendous!

matilda

[Lambada]

Originally Posted by laurajane

Oh dear have i just given all the women here an idea how to jump the queue!!

I parked at Tropical Supermarket, Puerto Plata, one day about 5 years ago in the parking lot opposite side of the street & went for a space near the entrance without noticing the stork sign. The attendant was magnificent, helped me across the street, most caring. BushBaby was given all sorts of non-verbal approval signs (clenched fish, forearm forward etc) on his next visit to Tropical. It took a while for the penny to drop for both of us...........I was 60 at the time & definitely NOT pregnant.

I actually don't find people here to be hypochondriacs. When we first arrived sick people just got on with life. There has been some change in this over the 16 years as people become more aware through television about the names of medications without knowing what they actually do. I think as society here transits to consumerism uninformed by education or knowledge there is bound to be a settling period. Culturally, one carrot is sold so why not one antibiotic? Yes we all know why, but set in a broader context it isn't hard to understand. Give it what, 10 or 20 years & everyone here will be on a health & natural products jaunt.

[mike l]

Originally Posted by sylindr

my dominican boyfriend got 2 pins in his finger from an operation. the pin near the end of his finger was not coverded by the bandage so it was open to everything. and I told him he should cover it up like the other pin or it would get infected he said the doctor said no it was not necessary, just make sure you don't have sex until you come back for a check up!!! Wellll he had sex becasue i told him that was ridiculous! and guess what the open pin got an infection!! Doctor asks "did you have sex?" and the infection was blamed on that and me....lol

]

I assume that's covered by Insurance..........or is the Airflight out of here?