#AskLwanda

There are a few things that guarantee treatment success. 

The most important one is the patient history. It's more important to know the how, when and where about the rash than it is to know that you have a rash or to just see a picture. The patient history gives the healthcare professional more context about the presented condition. 

The signs and symptoms that the patient is experiencing are also very important. Yes you have heartburn BUT is the heartburn accompanied by blood in the vomit or stool? Is there any pain in the abdomen? When is the pain worse/ better? This is more important than leaving it at heartburn. 

Choosing the correct treatment plan is all about making the correct diagnosis. Patients MUST allow the healthcare professional to make the diagnosis instead of jumping to the name of the medicine of the procedure that they think needs to be done. 

This podcast is about the correct and intended use of antihistamines. 

We consider brand names like Allergex, SleepEze, DPH, Benylin, Cipla-Actin, Phenergan and others. 

It is common place to find a medicine registered for cough being used by patients to treat insomnia. 

It is also common to find a medicine registered for pruritis (itchiness) being used by patients to promote appetite. 

We focus on the implications of these and especially use in paediatrics. 

The first thing you want when you get permanent employment with benefits is to get a medical aid. You've always hated your teeth and now you can finally find a way to pay for the dentist. Also, when you are thinking of starting a family and are scared of the expensive monthly gynecologist visits, the R30 000 hospital bill and the R10 000 gynecologist fee for delivery of the baby and that R2 000 bill for the pediatrician when the baby is born. 

What if I told you that you could sign up for medical aid and still pay for all those costs + the medical aid from your own pocket? 

The medical aid is allowed to put you on a waiting period for 3-12 months. 

Listen to the podcast for further clarity on this. 

Enjoy!!

Patients want to have easy access to healthcare. The clinic/ pharmacy/ hospital should be in close proximity to the private residence. More importantly, the patient wants to access all the necessary medicines and procedures at that very facility without being referred to a different facility that ay be far away and inconvenient for them. 

Unfortunately healthcare is graded and the higher we go is the more complicated and expensive it gets. 

FAQs

This podcast aims to answer these questions and more. 

Enjoy!!

In South Africa there are state (or government) hospitals and then there area private hospitals. Society generally has the opinion that private healthcare is superior to public health. This is largely due to it being exclusive as it costs more and isn't accessible to most of the general public. Only +/-19% of South Africans are on medical aid and these are the people that access private healthcare. 

FAQs

This podcast will answer these questions and more. 

Enjoy!!

Often patients are confused by a doctor referring them to another doctor. Why does this happen? Does it mean you made a bad decision going to the first doctor? Should you now rather go to the specialist doctor whenever you get ill in the future? 

These are some of the common names for specialists. It is important to understand that healthcare has been separated into the easier cases and the complicated cases. Doctors (general practitioners) see patients who suffer from common ailments but when these get complicated then a doctor that specializes in that particular disease should rather look at the case. As you may have guessed it by now, GPs are much cheaper than specialists for this reason. 

I hope you enjoy this episode and that it makes this clearer for you. 

In this episode we speak about the common translation of the word optometrist to eye doctor. This is probably okay in layman terms but it is concerningly incorrect. The word doctor brings certain expectations to the patient. Patients, because they do not know any better, may go to an optometrist whereas they should be going to see a general practitioner or an ophthalmologist. 

What is the difference and why the fuss? 

We explain all this in detail in the podcast. Enjoy. 

Social Media has made it seem like the majority is not vaccinating. 

How do these occurrences compare to hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths? 

Many ask what it is that happens after you inject a vaccine. How exactly do vaccines work?

What is immunity and for how long does it last?

If babies get antibodies that protect against infectious diseases from a mothers breast milk then why do we need to vaccinate?

Let us try to answer these questions in the simplest manner possible. To do this we will need to divide the immune system into 3. We will call these the innate immune system, the adaptive immune system and the memory part of the immune system. The vaccine is injected either under the skin (subcutaneous e.g. Measles, Yellow fever), into the skin (intra-dermal e.g BCG vaccine) or into a muscle (intra-muscular e.g Hepatitis B, PCV, DT, Td, TT, DTwP, DTaP, Hib). Some vaccines like the Polio Vaccine and Rotavirus are given orally.