5 Costly Fibs We Tell Doctors
By Annie Tucker Morgan, DivineCaroline
It starts harmlessly enough: youre sitting in a doctors examining room, reflecting on how well youve taken care of your body since your last visit a year ago. Sure, you might have hit the bars more and the gym less than you meant to, but you think youve been pretty good overall. Not so faston second thought, those habits also mean that youve put on a few pounds and bummed too many cigarettes off strangers when youre two martinis deep, and even your skin is paying the price.
As you enter this shame spiral, you hear a brisk knock on the door. Oh no, its the doctor! Shes going to take one look at you and see right through the shell of a person youve become to the multitude of sins youve committed. And heres where the lies beginyoure not hurting anyone by stretching the truth a bit, right? Wrong. Youre actually hurting yourself. If you truly care about your health, youll avoid blurting out these five fibs to your physician in the future.
1. I dont drink that much.
Certainly, there are weeks when you dont touch alcohol because youre swamped at work or simply not in the mood. But for the majority of us, there are just as many weeks when we drink a couple more glasses of wine while cooking than we intended to, or when happy hour becomes happy four hours. When your doctor asks you how much booze you consume, hes looking for an average, so its your responsibility to take into account both your off weeks and your on ones, and come up with an accurate representation of your imbibement. Yet patients continually lowball this figure when theyre in the hot seat (or on the examining table, as it were) or say things like, I drink only once a week. Just be aware that your doctors onto you: as Rakhi Dimino, MD, told WebMD, women who make the latter cla! im might indulge only one night weekly, but then they drink six or seven cocktails in [that] evening.
In addition, its fairly well known that whatever number of weekly drinks you tell your doctor you have, he doubles or even triples it automatically. So, given that fudging the figure is futile in the first place, its to your advantage to tell the truth, not only because its simply easier, but alsoand more importantbecause of the fact that negative interactions between alcohol and numerous types of over-the-counter and prescription drugs are extremely common. Even if you never take anything stronger than Advil, consuming three or more alcoholic beverages per day along with ibuprofen can cause stomach bleeding and liver damage. If you come clean with your doctor about your true alcohol intake, he can recommend medication for you thats certain not to put your health at risk.
