As for "extravagant" procedures...
I am all for them. I mentioned here a month back that I paid for a Heart Scan and a full body scan with a EBT scanner, a procedure that Kaiser would not pay for. At $1000, it was cheap.
My Kaiser Doctor grumbled that it gave "too much information," but it showed that I had a 322 plaque score, about "average" for my age, and enough to put me on a small dosage of a statin. This procedure is the ONLY non-invasive way to find out if you have any plaque, and if so, how much. He also ordered a stress test of my heart, both electric and nuclear. These came back fine.
The body scan showed a cyst on my kidney, probably a benign water one, but enough that it caused my Kaiser Doctor to order an ultrasound of my kidneys.
This ultrasound showed no problem with the cysts, but it did pick up what may be a tumor in one of my kidneys, and I am now scheduled for an MRI next week.
I did some online checking, and found that the only way they pick up these kind of tumors early is when a scan is ordered for something else. The odds are one in four that it's benign, and in any case, it's still so small that if an operation is needed, I will probably get rid of it with no long term effects.
NONE OF THIS would have been found if I had not got the EBT scan. So I am damn glad I was concerned and got things looked at.
The moral of this story? GET SCANNED, FOLKS!!!!! |
