After my heart attack in 2021, I was told that I should start paying attention to my blood pressure. Up until that point, my blood pressure had always been fine. But I decided to take their advice and invest in a BP monitor.
What nobody told me was that blood pressure can change drastically throughout the day. Another thing that nobody told me was that the new medication I was taking would give me heartburn. Which feels pretty much like you’re having a heart attack.
So, I started taking my blood pressure at home, and I noticed it was higher than it should be. I also noticed that I was having chest pains. Which was just heartburn induced by my meds. But I didn’t know that. Every time I took my blood pressure, it was a little higher. And twice a day, my chest would hurt. Which worried me. And that worry caused my blood pressure to rise. Which worried me even more.
After a couple of days of being in this feedback loop, I went to the emergency room. And, because I’d had a heart attack the week before, I was admitted as a patient. And that was why I spent Thanksgiving Day of 2021 in the hospital. Not because I was sick, but because I thought I was sick.
I’m pretty good at recognizing patterns so I finally noticed that my chest pains coincided with me taking my meds. Once I realized that, I broke free of the feedback loop and my blood pressure went back down to where it should be.
The problem wasn’t with my heart, the problem was with my head. But I couldn’t tell the difference. For a day or two, I thought I was having a heart attack. Even though I wasn’t.
I had just had three stents inserted the week before. So, the next step for me would have been a triple bypass. But I wasn’t sick. I only thought I was.
I could have demanded a triple bypass. But nobody would have taken me seriously. Because the doctors and nurses probably see this sort of thing all the time. And they likely know that, just because someone thinks they’re having a heart attack, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are having a heart attack.
There’s a pretty simple test to determine if you’re having, or have had, a coronary event. A chemical called troponin is released into the blood stream when the heart has been damaged. To see if my troponin level was trending up or down, several tests were taken over the period of most of a day.
And that resulted in me spending Thanksgiving of 2021 in a hospital bed watching a rebroadcast of an old Packers game. Not because I was sick. But because I identified as being sick.
A hypochondriac is someone who has an abnormal and persistent fear of having a life-threatening illness. Treatments for hypochondria may include behavioral therapy and medication. The treatment for hypochondria does NOT include surgery.
So, there was a zero percent chance that any demand for a triple bypass would have resulted in a triple bypass. If I had demanded surgery, it would have likely resulted in a referral to a mental health professional who would have worked to cure my mind, not my body.
Two More Examples
Now, let’s say a woman goes to her doctor, says she believes she has cancer, and wants her breasts removed. She doesn’t have any proof. Maybe she just read an article recently about a celebrity who had breast cancer and now believes she does too. But she doesn’t have breast cancer. She only thinks she does.
Nobody is going to take her self-diagnosis at face value. Any doctor worthy of his or her medical license will want to run some tests. First, they’ll do a mammogram to look for actual cancer. If no cancer is found, and the patient’s demands persist, they might run a BRCA test to look for the gene mutation that would indicate the patient is at a high risk of developing breast cancer.
Should those tests come back negative, it would mean that the woman both doesn’t currently have cancer and isn’t likely to develop it. No reputable doctor would remove that woman’s healthy, fully-functional breasts. Because she’s not physically ill. She only identifies as being physically ill.
Instead, the woman would be sent to a psychiatrist for counseling. And, if behavioral therapy didn’t work, she would likely be prescribed medication to help her control her abnormal fears.
Because there’s nothing physically wrong with her.
The same thing goes for a man who believes he has testicular cancer and wants his junk removed. In an abundance of caution, he’s decided he wants everything to be cut off. He has no real symptoms. He’s just pretty sure he has cancer because he saw a video on YouTube about someone who did.
But he doesn’t have testicular cancer. The problem isn’t in his body. The problem is in his head. But he can’t tell the difference.
No one would take him at his word and cut off his dangly bits. The doctor would first run some tests to determine if it was medically necessary to remove his genitals. Should those tests come back negative, the patient would be informed that surgery isn’t warranted and that it would be unethical for any doctor to perform elective surgery to remove healthy, and fully-functional, male reproductive organs.
If he persisted in his demand to have surgery, he would be referred to a mental health specialist. The louder he proclaimed his belief that he had cancer, the more everyone would believe that he’s not playing with a full deck. Because he doesn’t have cancer. He only identifies as someone with cancer.
And even if the patient managed to find a doctor to perform the surgery, there isn’t a single insurance company anywhere that would pay for a junk removal procedure that isn’t medically necessary. Insurance companies do, however, typically cover the cost of mental health care.
A Line in the Sand
There is a very clear line in the sand. If there’s nothing wrong with your body, but you merely believe there is, the established medical practice is to treat the mind, not the body. But, just to be certain, doctors will make sure you don’t actually have the affliction you’re proclaiming to have. In my case, they measured my troponin level. For others, they may do a gene test, x-rays, MRI, ultrasound or any combination of the above.
If the patient is still convinced that they’re suffering from an illness they don’t have, then the treatment is to help them realize they don’t actually have that illness. The treatment is NOT to help them pretend that they do.
If someone only believes they have an illness, it is unethical and morally wrong for a doctor to perform surgery. No matter that the patient demands it.
Now, let’s consider what would happen if that same woman went to a different doctor. One that specializes in gender affirming surgeries. I don’t know, maybe she saw something on Tik Tok that convinced her that a woman can become a man.
But, instead of saying she believes she has cancer, and wants her breasts removed, she tells the doctor that she believes she’s a man, and wants her breasts removed. Well, that’s an entirely different story.
Here’s the thing. She’s not a man. She only thinks she is. No amount of surgery is ever going to change her into a man. The problem isn’t with her body. The problem is in her head. But she can’t tell the difference.
This is where the medical profession is supposed to step in. They’re supposed to treat the real problem. Which is mental, not physical. But the instant she claims she’s a dude, ethics and morality go right out the window.
These poor souls are stuck in a feedback loop of people praising them for being their “authentic self”. And, instead of helping them break out of the loop, so-called “doctors” are reinforcing their delusion.
If you go to a doctor and tell him that you believe you have cancer, the doctor won’t automatically believe you. He’ll run tests to prove or disprove your self-diagnosis. And, based on the results of those tests, he’ll determine if you actually have cancer or are simply deluding yourself.
But, if you tell him you believe you’re the wrong gender, then all of a sudden your word is good enough. You’ll be told that it would be delusional if you denied your imagined gender identity.
And although there’s a simple and easy DNA test that will determine if a man is actually a woman or a woman is actually a man, performing that test isn’t required nor is it even encouraged. It’s considered “transphobic” to even suggest such a thing.
The Right Tool for the Job
If you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. And, when you’ve built your reputation and livelihood on performing body-mutilating surgeries on dysphoric people, every dysphoric person you see will require surgery.
We’ve gotten to where it’s considered socially acceptable to take advantage of the mentally ill and exploit them for profit. Companies with huge marketing budgets have worked tirelessly to normalize certain types of behavior rather than get people the help they truly need. And they’ve bastardized the English language to help groom and encourage certain types of thinking.
A woman who believes she has cancer, and a woman who believes she’s a dude, want the same thing. They want their breasts cut off. But one is rightfully considered mentally ill, while the other is praised for being courageous. Both of these women are mentally ill. Both will demand surgery and, sadly, one of them will get it. And even more sadly, neither of them are likely to get the help they really need.
Bonus Thought
I sometimes add a bonus thought at the end of the podcast. I wanted to share this one with everyone. Here it is:
A woman who has the BRCA gene has a better than 50-50 chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime. Here in California, insurance companies are NOT required to pay for preventative breast removal surgery for women testing positive for the BRCA gene. But they ARE required to pay for breast removal if it’s done for gender reassignment.
