• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Stupid/Cranky and arbitrary doctors: rant warning!

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
Do you get the feeling that that some individual animals are introverted and some are extraverted, like people? Or would that be anthropomorphizing?

I know your question was put to Moxie.. but Ive found that animals can certainly be introverts or extraverts like people are. When I was caring for some rescued kittens there was both extremes of this in the same litter, very different personalities there. Anyone wanting to get a pet should not just go by looks but consider what personality they would like their animal to be too.

I wonder if extraverted people like extraverted animals and visa versa? (it wouldnt surprise me if that was the case).
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
Yeah, it does seem weird. The symptoms are being taken seriously (by my GP at least), but then it seems like I'm being blamed for having them when she talks about focusing on symptoms too much. It just doesn't make any sense.

I think part of the problem might be that GPs aren't equipped to handle chronic illness. It's either acute or it's not their problem. And when acute problems arise (possibly due to the lack of proper preventative/diagnostic specialist care) it's mixed in with chronic problems which they can't even begin to untangle.

So I think they end up in an impossible situation, which can provoke a wide variety of dysfunctional responses. I shouldn't complain though - at least my GP is willing to see me and test stuff :p

I agree completely with what you said here.. GPs do seem to be able to handle acute things better then chronic ones in my experience too (LOTs of experience in doctors lol). The irronic thing is that when we do end suddenly having very major symptoms and have to go to the ER due to them, we are often told that they wont help as our illness is "chronic" and to "go and see your GP/MP".

Those with our illness just fall into a big hole in the medical system.. a hole in which specialists are not being trained to deal with us, doctors cant handle our chronic illness and hospitals wont help us even when someone flares and gets extreme as they arent for those who have chronic illness. A system which hugely lets us down and then doctors wonder why we are such an upset and angry patient group... doh.

If we didnt have to deal with such a dysfunctional system not set up for our illness things would be much better. How many severe other illnesses dont have a specialist field they actually come under? is there any other illnesses like this?

ME is meant to be Neurological according to WHO but neurologists arent even trained in our illness.. we dont even have a medical field area in which specialists are trained to deal with us except some would say psychologists who had training in CBT and we all know that doesnt do much for our symptoms at all, that's a bandaide for how we may feel about our illness rather then actually try to treat it.

The medical profession needs to stop blaming us and instead take this illness seriously and give it a speciality field be actually properly come under be it immune, neurological, autonomic or whatever (or even create a brandnew field for it eg neuroimmune, which may even be a better idea) and actually then train specialists in it!!!

Till that is done.. we have no hope of having the dysfunction medical system we find ourselves in, becoming better. Till we have an offically recognised "place" we wont fit anywhere.
 

Bluebell

Senior Member
Messages
392
I agree completely with what you said here.. GPs do seem to be able to handle acute things better then chronic ones in my experience too (LOTs of experience in doctors lol). The irronic thing is that when we do end suddenly having very major symptoms and have to go to the ER due to them, we are often told that they wont help as our illness is "chronic" and to "go and see your GP/MP".
Those with our illness just fall into a big hole in the medical system.. a hole in which specialists are not being trained to deal with us, doctors cant handle our chronic illness and hospitals wont help us even when someone flares and gets extreme as they arent for those who have chronic illness. A system which hugely lets us down and then wonder why we are such an upset patient group... doh.

I was watching a set of videos on methylation last night by an ENT surgeon who has transferred over to working with kids with autism and possibly also with adults with CFS-ME (I'm not precisely sure what he does - I had to listen to his videos while I was doing other things --- because I was about to flip out and scream due to the number of times he repeated, "Do you get me?" "Do you understand yet?" - he said those about 3 times per minute, for over an hour! Therefore, I don't really recommend the videos. I was just watching them to see his explanation and approach to methylation. He's got his own private methylation supplement range, etc. (Dr. Kendal Stewart, the link is the last one on my list of methylation links.))

I also watched a 5-min clip where he was addressing a medical conference.

In both those videos, he said to the audience that most doctors do not like it when patients come in with a host of chronic problems or a new condition that is hard to explain or that is hard to do anything concrete for, like dizziness (or something). He said they dread to see such patients.

He asked the doctors at the medical conference if any of them were glad to see patients with those issues walk in the door, and only 1 (in presumably a large audience) raised his hand. (Later, 2 more raised their hands.)

He was chuckling about it. (Oh ha ha ha, how silly. :mad:)

It takes a special kind of person to want to carry on investigating after some dead ends, to empathize, to listen closely, to spend adequate time.

This kind of person is rare in the population generally, and many of them probably are turned off by a career in medicine because of all the hoops to jump through - high gpa throughout high school and college, heavy concentration on science courses to the exclusion of other subjects, financial cost of medical school, etc., and the inhumane work requirements - in the US educational system anyway (during those years when they have to work and study all hours of the day and night; right now I don't remember what it's called) - and after they get through all that, then have to deal with insurance companies' inane policies and definitions, tiptoe around malpractice issues, fend off (or cultivate) shady pharma sales techniques etc., be involved in ridiculous, backwards payment/billing processes, try to keep up to date with the ever-expanding amount of new publications and treatments, and they are middle-aged by then and often don't know their own children very well, might be tempted by extra-marital entanglements, face one of the highest rates of depression and suicide of any profession, etc. I read a few years ago about a study that showed that something like 50% of American doctors would have chosen a different career, if they could go back and start again, but now they feel trapped and have to stay in medicine.

It is a wonder that there are any caring, patient, curious, undaunted, tenacious doctors around...
and the few who are like that probably charge a fortune, and aren't accepting new patients. :rolleyes:
 

Leopardtail

Senior Member
Messages
1,151
Location
England
I had an appointment today that I thought was with my usual GP, but was with the other one (they're both part time). They're both quite intelligent usually, but she seemed to be in a bit of a mood this morning :cautious:

I've had 5 or 6 symptoms all appear at the same time over the past week or so. She wanted to look at EACH symptom as a SEPARATE BLEEPING PROBLEM. And then she bitched about me having too many symptoms at once since the appointment wasn't long enough to deal with all of them.

Okay, for the dimwitted and/or cranky-in-the-morning doctors out there: 5 BLEEPING UNCONNECTED PROBLEMS DO NOT ALL APPEAR AT ONCE. Apparently I have an antibiotics reaction (starting 5 weeks after finishing them), allergic rhinitis (tested negative to pollens and such), stretch marks from being fat (no weight gain in years), constipation causing stomach pain (15 minutes after I had a normal BM), joint pain on one side of the body (we just ignore unexplained pain if there's no swelling or redness), and increased full body swelling (right, maybe we can ignore swelling after all) all magically appearing at the same damned time!

And I didn't even mention my sore throat, oxygen, and heart rate problems :p

But golly, when a ton of symptoms all appear at exactly the same time, do you think it's POSSIBLE that they might have ONE underlying cause? When you try to make each symptom into a separate diagnosis with a separate analysis and treatment, don't bitch to me about coming in with too many problems! It's probably one problem, but you want it to be five simple problems, and that's your bleeping issue, not mine.

Seriously, how does a GP even deal with a normal case of flu with this mindset? "Oh, you have body pains? Exercise helps with pain, try some of that. And a fever? You need to turn down your thermostat. What, you feel exhausted too? I don't have time to deal with that, I already addressed two of your problems. Make another appointment if you want to discuss anything else."
I had this for seven years running when my doctors was telling me "I was too aware of my symptoms" or "one things at once". Took me 12 years to get diagnosed because he was missing the big picture. What kind of idiot would knowingly tell a doctor half their symptoms, or idiot doctor want to hear incomplete symptoms.

Rant on girl, rant on... !!!!