That's a rather weak criticism of a complex system of medicine. In many cases it's impossible to get a clear diagnosis of the underlying condition, and so treating the symptoms is the only practical option. Given that we have limited resources and imperfect knowledge, what's the alternative?

Yeah, not the way I look at it. The system of medicine (in the US, at least) is totally geared toward treating symptoms with a prescription.

Case in point: I was on prilosec for years. I weaned myself off it by moved to another over the counter med, but I was able to completely stop taking that went I went on a low carb diet--my reflux completely went away, which was a great surprise to me. At the time I was taking prilosec, the 90's, it was one of the most profitable drugs on the planet. There is a great incentive for doctors to just treat the symptom.

Btw, the reason I stopped taking prilosec: I had a followup endoscopy and saw from the video that the lining of my stomach was, rather than being smooth, completely covered in small bumps. When I asked the doc about it, he said they were harmless. After quizzing him about it, it was pretty clear that opinion wasn't backed by science, but the consensus among his peers. That was the last day I took prilosec.

> The system of medicine (in the US, at least) is totally geared toward treating symptoms with a prescription.

Based on the anecdotes you provided here, it seems like your doctor is geared towards treating symptoms rather than conditions. They're not all like that - my doc won't give me an ambien perscription for sleeping while I travel, she won't put wy wife on BP meds until she tries 6 months of changes in diet and exercise, and is very very picky about perscribing antibiotics for most illnesses.

It sucks that your doctor isn't a good one, but the nice thing about the US system is that you generally have a choice in docs, so I'd suggest you go shopping!

How many examples do you need of "treating the symptoms rather than the problem" before you concede it's an actual issue? Let's not just blame this on doctors.

Heart disease is the number one killer in the US, and it's preventable. But it's much easier for people to pop a pill than to change their lifestyle.

Pain killers are also massively overperscribed for back and neck pains which can often be resolved with adequate movement, posture, and stretching (i.e. yoga). But after a long day of sitting still in an office chair they prefer to just go home and remain sedentary (i.e. lay on the couch and watch tv), all of which also contributes to heart disease/circulatory problems as well.

The field of psychiatry is almost entirely geared towards treating symptoms with perscriptions.

Also, plenty of symptoms need treatment even if you can't fix the condition. Nobody [sane] is telling T1 diabetics to stop managing their blood sugar and get their pancreas fixed.

Interesting that you should bring up type I diabetes. It is a perfect example of how current medical practices treat symptoms, at the expense of patients. Why? Because treating it with drugs makes companies lots and lots of money. I have an in-law that took his medical condition into his own hands and went on a strict very-low carb diet. After a few months he was taking a fraction of the insulin he was previous to the diet. Why isn't this the first thing the medical community tells patients to do? Because there is no incentive. The drug companies wouldn't like it, selling so much less insulin.

I have a couple of relatives with T1D and that was exactly the first thing they were told to do. However doctors know that many people will not do this, and good doctors are more interested in helping the patient be healthy than being moralistic jerks, and so they prescribe insulin to meet the patients existing needs instead of saying "well you should have eaten better and then you wouldn't be dying so young".