I’ll create the thread overnight.
On an interesting note, I’m actually (likely) returning to the states next month for six weeks (or longer)! I haven’t been to the states in 4 years. I’m curious to see how the landscape has changed. I’ve heard areas like CA, NY etc have gone extra woke
I’m curious as to compare and contrast America to Australia. The PC bullshit has recently begun to infiltrate Australia. Apparently the school I graduated from has gone woke as of last year (like super woke, had trans activists come to talk to students… and this was a catholic school when I graduated…)
America sets many of Australia’s trends, yet we always remain around 5 years behind… so if my cities (nearest city to me) current state is reminiscent of what metropolitan America was like 5 years ago, I can’t imagine what it’s like now.
The reason for me returning to the states is not a happy/good/vacation related reason. We have seemingly exhausted all resources available for the condition i’ve been diagnosed with in Aus. The medical community here is very, very conservative and frequently ill-equipped to deal with rare conditions. My parents are going for work while I’m looking for consults with American physicians as to try figure out a way to deal with the course of disease progression whilst maintaining an adequate quality of life.
For instance, I have fucked up shoulders… partial thickness RC tear, potential labral pathology (both shoulders), a redundant capsule with extremely lax ligaments that allows me to voluntarily dislocate one shoulder and both shoulders can be pushed out of place. With more damage accrued over life, the more lax the shoulders have become. In Australia they WILL not touch a shoulder with a redundant capsule. In America a number of treatments have been synthesized to help people like myself who actively sublax/dislocate despite having healthy scapulohumeral kinetics and supporting musculature. ESP if a lesion is already present (as is the case).
No joke, there are ZERO orthopedic surgeons in Aus who specialize in stabilizing lax shoulders caused by congenitally lax connective tissue. There are a few surgeons who might take a crack at it, but they don’t use the technology/procedures that have been found to work in the states. There are roughly 10,000 people in Australia with my condition… in theory if ONE surgeon here were to specialize in this here they’d manage to pull in a huge number of clientele as the shoulder(s) are one of the most frequently and most severely affected regions in those afflicted with inherited CTD’s.
Not only will they not help… but doctors by and large also don’t want to help with the pain associated with things moving out of place either. Procedures like arthroscopic capsular plication, posterior inferior capsular shifts with bone block (while smoothing down bone spurs/arthritic degeneration), bioinductive bovine augmentation to fix partial thickness tears that cause a lot of pain etc are treatment modalities that have existed in the states for many years… yet they aren’t performed here
It is spellbindingly frustrating… We can’t necessarily afford this treatment, but it’s either this or I have to end up applying for disability or go to a methadone clinic (fuck you if you actually suffer from pain that keeps you from sleeping day in and day out, but have all the pain meds in the world if you are a poor, down on your luck drug addict!) Still going to university, but can’t hold down a job at the same time anymore.
In America pain isn’t really treated anymore either unless you’ve exhausted all other options… But in Aus there’s no adequate pain management for young people even if you’ve exhausted all available avenues… I can’t even get a long term script for meloxicam here (granted it is on record that NSAIDS have led to me vomiting blood on four occasions, as my condition weakens stomach lining to begin with). But at the very least they’ll take a crack at fixing what is causing the pain!
New advancements in the world medical technology frequently stem from two countries in particular.
The United States of America (you guys have a TON of medical schools/top notch programs for training specialists) and Israel
Sorry for the rant… but for everything that is wrong with America (including healthcare if you don’t have insurance) you guys have some of the best doctors, and for those who can afford it the treatments you have available are some of the best in the world!
