#health

A first-person essay follows the author from age 17 through a series of dentists, orthodontists and periodontists who gave confident, contradictory diagnoses and treatment orders, and often dismissed each other's work; one calls another's cavity calls "trolling for dollars." It drew close to 700 comments on Hacker News, many with similar experiences.

JJ Maxwell, diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth in May, lists what he learned: be persistent about scheduling and ask for cancellations, push for comprehensive genetic testing, read the NCCN standard-of-care flow charts yourself (a free account works for non-professionals), talk to someone who has had the same surgery, and note that AI chatbots he asked tended to downplay his symptoms. He later added a tip from a commenter: if you are within a few hours of a major cancer center, go there; he says the biggest benefit he saw at MD Anderson was speed.

It was the most-upvoted story on Hacker News this week.