Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
General Discussions
The Watercooler
When doctors don't listen to patients (inspired by MM's thread)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="susiestar" data-source="post: 550310" data-attributes="member: 1233"><p>I used to live in the area near where Hounddog lives and she is NOT wrong about that area. The stories I could tell would scare you away from hospitals forever. Heck, one of my great uncles went in for eye surgery for cataracts and they removed his GOOD eye and left the other one alone in spite of writing all over his face with a sharpie to mark what they were going to do. They mixed him up with another patient and let a doctor who was higher than a kite and reeking of whiskey do the operation. the other patient was to have his eye removed because it had an infection that was at imminent risk of going into his brain. That guy DIED before they could get him over the cataract surgery he didn't need and strong enough to have the correct surgery done to remove his infected eye. He spent 2 weeks in Hades from the infection that ate his brain. My great uncle felt lucky that he got away just having his eye removed! </p><p></p><p>Same town they flat out refused to do anything to deal wtih my child's fear of hospitals and docs when he had to have tests done. My child was afraid because he had previously WOKEN UP during surgery (and we found out as he told us all about it - he was TWO - after he came home from the hospital!) and his blood pressure went so high during some tests that he almost had a STROKE but the docs didn't really seem to give a hoot.</p><p></p><p>I was lucky to find a doctor there who LISTENED and CARED, but it took seeing at least 10 docs to find him. I actually got to this good doctor via referral from the OB who delivered me! It was the doctor he sent his grandchildren to, and with-o his referral I might never have been accepted as a patient. </p><p></p><p>there are good and bad docs, but honestly, I don't think listening skills are stressed much anymore and it is very hard to get a doctor to pay attention to a patient, and even harder if that patient is female. Sorry, that may offend some and isn't meant to. I just know that my dad, bro, husband, male children ALL have easier roads to good medical care and prompt medical attention and appropriate services than my mom, mother in law, stepmil, daughter, and myriad other female relatives have had. EVERY SINGLE ONE of my daughter's childhood friends has been diagnosis'd with 'conversion' or some sort of 'it's all in your head and not real' diagnosis before the group of them hit 16. We are NOT living in the are that HD is in anymore, and I am talking about more than a dozen girls that J has been friends wth since age 6. I could see one or two fo them, but broken bones and bronchitis and pneumonia and strep are NOT conversion disorders unless you are female in this town. Cause those are generally the problems that get a 'conversion' diagnosis around here. </p><p></p><p>Yes, when J was first given this diagnosis there were MANY here who urged me to go ahead with treatment for it, because it COULD be that - the brain CAN do strange things. But when we spent YEARS going to appts to get treatmetn for that from tdocs and psychiatrists and over and over they told us that they had NO clue how anyone could find this to be conversion, well, what am I supposed to think? Cause she has done all types of psychological therapy and her medical problems don't get any better. So my gut says it isn't a psychiatric problem but a bad neurologist problem and I hope to figure out some way for her to be able to go to college and figure out some kind of life. </p><p></p><p>In my experience the best way to figure out what is wrong is to do some research and read and listen and follow your instincts. If the doctor insists it is something you strongly feeli t isn't, or if the treatment is causing huge problems, then it is time to read and ask questions and figure it out yourself. My vit D deficiency was noted on lab tests for almost 15 YEARS before ANYONE bothered to say a single word of it to me. We actually found copies of tests my mother kept from my teens that showed it back then. Vit D levels of 1 or even 0 and NO ONE bothered to say a word. Now? My teeth are disgusting crumbling ugly things and nothing will help them. My ortho surgeon who did the last disc fusion was AFRAID and almost closed me up with-o even trying because the bones were that thin. Bone building medications like fosamax are not possible because I don't have enough D in my body for the medications to put calcium back into my bones. My calcium levels are fine, but it is because it is coming out of my bones into the blood. I figure in another decade or two I will be a jellyfish. I wish it was a joke. I still have docs who insist that I should take super high vit D. At least they do until they realize that it makes me spend days nonstop vomiting and nothing stops it. Plus it never raises my D levels.</p><p></p><p>had ANY doctor just LISTENED to the way my pain acts, or bothered to LOOK at the lab reports - which have bright red all caps bolded lettering showing that the results are dangerously low - then back when I was a teen/twentysomething they could have figured a way to deal wtih this. Instead several decades went by and now? No one can figure out how to teach my body to use Vit D for anything other than an emetic. A very effective, lasting emetic, but an emetic nonetheless. The last doctor who tried to force me to take the rx vit D supplement was told I would be happy to as long as he would stay right there by me for me to puke on the entire time it kept me puking - which was several DAYS. He allowed as how he had other things to do so we would try to think of something else. If I hadn't threatened to puke on him in his office he would have just written the rx and walked away from me. </p><p></p><p>I will say that along the way I HAVE found docs who are exceptional. I had an awesome doctor in HD's area who called me on a Sunday evening a few weeks after I had J to tell me that while my cholesterol levels were high, it was just because the pregnancy and they would go back to normal. He had just looked at them, realized that a copy had been mailed to me, and didn't want me to worry. He also did a LOT of research into arthritis variations and fibromyalgia and the nerve issues I have. </p><p></p><p>I had an incredible rheumy here in my current state. Amazing man, has a painful disorder of his own so he KNOWS what it is like. a friend of mine stood in a parking lot one night an we argued about how my doctor was better than her doctor - then we discovered we BOTH had the same doctor!!!! He was the one to find the vit D problem, to find the old records, and he went to not one but THREE conferences in large part because there were experts on Vit D that he could talk to about my case because it is so odd. He didn't stint on pain medications, but he also made sure that I was aware of the risks and problems. He also sent me to my amazing pain doctor who is the sweetest, kindest doctor I have ever met.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="susiestar, post: 550310, member: 1233"] I used to live in the area near where Hounddog lives and she is NOT wrong about that area. The stories I could tell would scare you away from hospitals forever. Heck, one of my great uncles went in for eye surgery for cataracts and they removed his GOOD eye and left the other one alone in spite of writing all over his face with a sharpie to mark what they were going to do. They mixed him up with another patient and let a doctor who was higher than a kite and reeking of whiskey do the operation. the other patient was to have his eye removed because it had an infection that was at imminent risk of going into his brain. That guy DIED before they could get him over the cataract surgery he didn't need and strong enough to have the correct surgery done to remove his infected eye. He spent 2 weeks in Hades from the infection that ate his brain. My great uncle felt lucky that he got away just having his eye removed! Same town they flat out refused to do anything to deal wtih my child's fear of hospitals and docs when he had to have tests done. My child was afraid because he had previously WOKEN UP during surgery (and we found out as he told us all about it - he was TWO - after he came home from the hospital!) and his blood pressure went so high during some tests that he almost had a STROKE but the docs didn't really seem to give a hoot. I was lucky to find a doctor there who LISTENED and CARED, but it took seeing at least 10 docs to find him. I actually got to this good doctor via referral from the OB who delivered me! It was the doctor he sent his grandchildren to, and with-o his referral I might never have been accepted as a patient. there are good and bad docs, but honestly, I don't think listening skills are stressed much anymore and it is very hard to get a doctor to pay attention to a patient, and even harder if that patient is female. Sorry, that may offend some and isn't meant to. I just know that my dad, bro, husband, male children ALL have easier roads to good medical care and prompt medical attention and appropriate services than my mom, mother in law, stepmil, daughter, and myriad other female relatives have had. EVERY SINGLE ONE of my daughter's childhood friends has been diagnosis'd with 'conversion' or some sort of 'it's all in your head and not real' diagnosis before the group of them hit 16. We are NOT living in the are that HD is in anymore, and I am talking about more than a dozen girls that J has been friends wth since age 6. I could see one or two fo them, but broken bones and bronchitis and pneumonia and strep are NOT conversion disorders unless you are female in this town. Cause those are generally the problems that get a 'conversion' diagnosis around here. Yes, when J was first given this diagnosis there were MANY here who urged me to go ahead with treatment for it, because it COULD be that - the brain CAN do strange things. But when we spent YEARS going to appts to get treatmetn for that from tdocs and psychiatrists and over and over they told us that they had NO clue how anyone could find this to be conversion, well, what am I supposed to think? Cause she has done all types of psychological therapy and her medical problems don't get any better. So my gut says it isn't a psychiatric problem but a bad neurologist problem and I hope to figure out some way for her to be able to go to college and figure out some kind of life. In my experience the best way to figure out what is wrong is to do some research and read and listen and follow your instincts. If the doctor insists it is something you strongly feeli t isn't, or if the treatment is causing huge problems, then it is time to read and ask questions and figure it out yourself. My vit D deficiency was noted on lab tests for almost 15 YEARS before ANYONE bothered to say a single word of it to me. We actually found copies of tests my mother kept from my teens that showed it back then. Vit D levels of 1 or even 0 and NO ONE bothered to say a word. Now? My teeth are disgusting crumbling ugly things and nothing will help them. My ortho surgeon who did the last disc fusion was AFRAID and almost closed me up with-o even trying because the bones were that thin. Bone building medications like fosamax are not possible because I don't have enough D in my body for the medications to put calcium back into my bones. My calcium levels are fine, but it is because it is coming out of my bones into the blood. I figure in another decade or two I will be a jellyfish. I wish it was a joke. I still have docs who insist that I should take super high vit D. At least they do until they realize that it makes me spend days nonstop vomiting and nothing stops it. Plus it never raises my D levels. had ANY doctor just LISTENED to the way my pain acts, or bothered to LOOK at the lab reports - which have bright red all caps bolded lettering showing that the results are dangerously low - then back when I was a teen/twentysomething they could have figured a way to deal wtih this. Instead several decades went by and now? No one can figure out how to teach my body to use Vit D for anything other than an emetic. A very effective, lasting emetic, but an emetic nonetheless. The last doctor who tried to force me to take the rx vit D supplement was told I would be happy to as long as he would stay right there by me for me to puke on the entire time it kept me puking - which was several DAYS. He allowed as how he had other things to do so we would try to think of something else. If I hadn't threatened to puke on him in his office he would have just written the rx and walked away from me. I will say that along the way I HAVE found docs who are exceptional. I had an awesome doctor in HD's area who called me on a Sunday evening a few weeks after I had J to tell me that while my cholesterol levels were high, it was just because the pregnancy and they would go back to normal. He had just looked at them, realized that a copy had been mailed to me, and didn't want me to worry. He also did a LOT of research into arthritis variations and fibromyalgia and the nerve issues I have. I had an incredible rheumy here in my current state. Amazing man, has a painful disorder of his own so he KNOWS what it is like. a friend of mine stood in a parking lot one night an we argued about how my doctor was better than her doctor - then we discovered we BOTH had the same doctor!!!! He was the one to find the vit D problem, to find the old records, and he went to not one but THREE conferences in large part because there were experts on Vit D that he could talk to about my case because it is so odd. He didn't stint on pain medications, but he also made sure that I was aware of the risks and problems. He also sent me to my amazing pain doctor who is the sweetest, kindest doctor I have ever met. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
General Discussions
The Watercooler
When doctors don't listen to patients (inspired by MM's thread)
Top