I had a coworker at my old company who used to tell me about her back troubles. (That tends to happen. Because I stand all the time, I’m a magnet for questions and back pain stories.)
Anyway, I remember once, at a work social event, this woman recommended her chiropractor to me. She had tried a few chiropractors, but she liked this one because he used a traction technique that was gentle on the spine. I asked about the treatment, and she ended up telling me that her chiropractor was out of network, she had been paying him hundreds of dollars a week for months, and her back was as bad as ever. But the chiropractor recommended ongoing treatment, and she continued to pay for it.
I was shocked. I wanted to say, “If you’ve been going to this guy for months with nothing to show for it, he’s a quack! Stop wasting your money.” But you can’t say that to a coworker, so I stammered out something that was only marginally more polite. She emailed me her chiropractor’s information, I never called him, and things were awkward between us until I left.
I puzzled over this incident for a while. I still puzzle over it sometimes. Her story led me to another question, which is still a partial mystery to me. This woman was smart and creative – her job required more technical chops and a better sense of design than I have – but she clearly approached treating her back differently than I did, and I couldn’t explain why.
It’s not just that I got this story second-hand. I’ve had three first visits to a chiropractor in my life. Only one resulted in a second visit, and only because I’d already researched the massage therapy technique he offered, knew he was the only practitioner in my area, and made my peace with a couple sessions before I called to book the first session. I don’t recall the exact number of appointments I made, but I know it was less than five.
Honey, I Love You, but Your Health Advice Sucks
My husband and I also have very different philosophies regarding medical care, to our mutual frustration. We are both health-conscious, but we act on that impulse in very different ways.
When my husband has a health problem, his first impulse is to go to the doctor, where he expects to be given a prescription, either for medication or a procedure. He generally doesn’t do a lot of research himself beforehand, and trusts the doctor to make the right decision. (To be fair, his mother is a family practice doctor, and he will often call and discuss the matter with her first. Which is sensible.)
He is far less willing than I am to experiment with lifestyle changes. He doesn’t go out of his way to wear sunscreen, exercise, or plan his diet. He doesn’t actively look for ways to avoid medical care.
By contrast, I am, in my husband’s words, “a stubborn goat.” I’m not likely to go to a doctor unless I already have a good idea of what’s wrong with me, and need a prescription to deal with it. If I suspect a sinus infection, for example, I’ll go to the doctor and ask for antibiotics. But if my knife slips and I cut my hand? Yeah, I’m staying home.
We clashed recently when I came down with a killer flu that left me with a high fever for over a week. One day, when my husband insisted that I take my temperature, the readout was 104.0° F (or 40.0° C, if metric is your thing). My husband panicked, and pleaded with me to go to the emergency room. I wouldn’t budge. I insisted the ER doctors wouldn’t do anything I couldn’t do at home, and it wasn’t worth the time or expense.
But my husband has a stubborn streak equal to mine, and it was fully engaged that day. He was ready to tie me up and drag me off to the emergency room. And I was ready to jump out the window and into the river to avoid it.
We compromised, sort of. I took some ibuprofen, and agreed to go to the hospital if my temperature got any higher.
The ibuprofen lowered my fever to an acceptable level, we didn’t go in, and I felt vindicated. And I fully intend to drag this story out as evidence the next time he insists on a hospital visit.
What’s My Type? I Will Answer With a Heavily-Annotated Report.
A few days ago, my husband and I got sucked into a Google rabbit hole when we tried to decide whether we were type As or type Bs. Neither of us have ever felt completely comfortable in either category.
I won’t make any claims about the accuracy of online personality quizzes or categories. But my husband and I landed on this explanation of personality types A, B, C, & D, and it resonated with me.
The description of a type C personality in particular was shockingly on the nose for me. When my husband read it out loud, I thought it could have been written specifically to describe me.
- “[T]heir strive for excellence and perfection can mean that a task takes much longer than it needs to.” Too true, unfortunately. It’s embarrassing how much time I’ll put into researching…anything, really. I will not tell you how much time I spent looking things up for this post, because I lost track.
- “A Type C person will happily follow the rules, so they enjoy jobs and tasks that follow a set procedure or are about complying with rules, laws or procedures.” I find the words “compliance,” “policy,” and “workflow” sexy, alright?
- “Having a routine and focusing on one thing at a time is important for Type C people. Any disruption to this can be stressful or frustrating.” Just ask anyone who has ever interrupted me when I’m in the middle of something. I have daily routines which I rigidly follow, and I don’t take kindly to having them interrupted.
- “Type C people often get bogged down in detail and making things perfect. As a result, they might miss a deadline or spend too long on tasks.” There’s a reason I prefer journal and book publishing to daily newspapers.
My husband identified as a type D, which incidentally, was a personality type originally identified in medical psychology as a risk factor for poor outcomes after cardiac events. This is another fact I am reserving to use in future arguments.
Knowing I was type C personality gave me a useful frame for understanding why I approach medical care the way I do. I trust doctors up to a point, but I’m not afraid to challenge them, and I need to see the data before I’m convinced a certain course of action is the right one. It’s always bothered me that doctors don’t have a patient-friendly reading list handy for any given condition or treatment. My first impulse when I want to know about anything is to read a book about it.
Granted, my behavior is not fully explained by my personality type. Some of my skepticism is based on past experiences – I had a lot of unproductive doctor’s visits related to my sciatica. And I consulted at least five doctors who not only failed to diagnose my hypothalamic amenorrhea, but gave me advice that was the exact opposite of what I should be doing. So whatever degree of trust I had in the first place has eroded.
These days, I’m hesitant to go into a doctor’s office, quick to jump ship, and reluctant to try any procedure or treatment until I’ve looked into the research myself and concluded it makes sense.
My skepticism is compounded when it comes to alternative treatments, since I don’t assume they’ve gone through clinical trials or been approved by the FDA. Any treatment with a detectable profit motive is enough to get my antennas going, and if the pitch relies on charisma instead of data, I’m gone.
(Okay, even that’s not 100% true. I’ll suspend judgement if a treatment is cheap and without obvious risks. I was willing to try valerian root tea for my sciatica, and I did buy a cheap TENS machine; neither helped. I still experiment with posture and exercise. But it would take an awful lot to overcome my resistance to acupuncture, inversion tables, or chiropractic care.)
The next time someone recommends their chiropractor to me, I plan to ask about the type of therapy they use and ask for the data. If the person actually has an answer, I’ll know I’m dealing with another type C.
