Young People Deal
With Their Iatrophobia
(Fear of Going to the Doctors)
By Shana White

When I was younger, I dreaded the days my mom used to take me to see the dentist. To a young kid, it felt like I was going to see Freddy Kruger to get my teeth cleaned or get my cavity filled. Just the smell of their office made me nauseous. But I didn't feel the same way as I did when I went to see the doctor. The doctor was about healing for me, and I wanted to see him whenever I wasn't feeling well. But many people, especially young adults, don't see the doctor as much as 22.3 million people delayed medical care in the last year due to coast, and another 15.7 million did not receive needed care due to cost. This statistics was took from U.S department of Health and service that doesn't mean that they don't have health needs though. Instead, a generation is turning to alternative healing to treat health concerns.

In San Jose, and I know there's other city that has them, but there are a lot of herbal medicine store that sell herbal teas, roots and oils and other things as well.   When I was younger and got sick my mom used to force me to drink different teas – flax seed tea for your kidneys and liver, bitter bark tea to take out the impurities in the blood and chamomile tea for relive menstrual cramps.   They were the most terrible things I have ever tasted, but they worked (except for the chamomile tea, Aleve works wonders for me). Some of those practices have stuck with me, and I have noticed a lot of people my age going for homemade remedies to deal with health problems.

When I was visiting Nicaragua on the countryside, my cousin Andrew, who was 19-years-old, was sick and weak. His mother kept trying to get him to go to the clinic to see what his problem was.   For some reason, he hesitated to go. I asked him why he didn't want to go he said he was a Rasta and all he needed was some herbs and tea and he'd be fine. Wow, I thought to myself, he's bold. Most of the people his age that I met in Nicaragua, Rasta or not, were also very skeptical of clinics, and would choose more native, herbal based, ways for treatment.

Self-healing though is also popular here in the United States. A friend of mine, Miguel Gonzalez, 28, uses meditation and exercise not only to maintain his health, but to heal himself.   He uses breathing techniques and Tai Chi to help him deal with a chronic back problem. Miguel started having back pains really bad that eventuality led him to see a doctor, and was diagnosed as scoliosis. “I used to go to doctors and Chiropractor for my back, but I didn't want to rely on them so I started studying and practicing Tai Chi, and excising my back muscles to relieve the pain.” Miguel told me.   Ok so that tells me about young people who are trying to self heal themselves and self-prescribed treatments extend into all kinds of ways young people are looking to take care of themselves.

My cousin Stephanie told me a story of one her friends who wasn't able to become pregnant. Her friend knew she couldn't have children so she went to a doctor to see if there were any other ways to become pregnant.   The doctor informed her that there weren't any drugs that she can take to help her. But she was determined and the couple decided to see an herbalist. The specialist gave her different natural medicine to help her, and she is now 24 weeks pregnant.

But still even though people don't take the doctors order pretty serious and then decide to take matters in their own hands, there's that question of why fear arose when young people go to the doctors. To help me on this question, I asked a nurse.

For the past ten years, Sarah Jones, a licensed vocational nurses (LVN) has worked at a hospital in Palo Alto. Since Sarah has seen many patients, I asked if she could comment on if she sees younger people who are afraid to seek medical treatment. Sarah says the people that she sees are young girls who are pregnant. “There are girls who are afraid to see a doctor. They are around 18 years old and older and pregnant. The problem with them is that many of them have never seen a doctor or come in to see their prenatal visits. And the reason that they are afraid is because they are also on drugs and they aren't sure what's going to happen to them if they are tested. By law we are supposed to test to see both baby and mother are ok.” Even though young pregnant mothers aren't the only one who has some fear of going to the doctors there are other boundaries out there that hinders people from seeing a doctor. Sarah says that she thinks there are other factors such language barriers and not being able to fill out or understand insurance paper work.  

After talking with young adults in the US and abroad, as well as those in the medical profession, I came to answering my question is to where this fear developed for going to the doctor. I think that is not necessarily fear, but the dissatisfaction of what western medicine can do. So our generation is taking it on themselves to get the job done the way they wanted it – drinking herbs and exercising their way back to health.

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