Ensure - The Miracle Drink

Hi Blog,

It's been a while, I know. But I have to rant about something, so here it goes.

I work in an HIV Clinic. Patients with HIV have elevated calorie and protein needs compared to healthy adults without HIV. Many times the virus and/or meds cause the patients to lose their appetite and lose weight. When this happens, I usually recommend an oral nutritional supplement such as Ensure or Boost to help them gain some weight back and get their appetite to return.

I have no problem giving Ensure and Boost to these types of patients. It's the entitled, greedy mofo's I don't like to give it to. People who are 50# over their ideal body weight, haven't lost a pound in years and eat everything in sight are always the ones that think they need Ensure the most because *GASP* they lost 1# over the past month and they think it's the end of the world. Even though, in reality, they could stand to lose at least 30#.

The issue that inspired this post was that I just saw a patient a couple of minutes ago. The patient tells me she is swollen and retaining water, so my first goal is to educate her about a low salt diet. Meanwhile, she is eating a bag of Goldfish crackers while nodding mindlessly at what I'm saying about not eating those kind of things. Is she interested in relieving the swelling at all?? Noooooo!!! All she is concerned about is getting more "Ensure milk". I swear to God, my head almost exploded there in my office. I told her my lie about "I'll see what I can do about it, but Medicaid probably won't pay for it" and sent her on her way with some low sodium diet info she is probably going to throw out the minute she gets home.

Ugh, I need to find a new profession. One where I don't talk to brick walls every day.