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Stupid/Cranky and arbitrary doctors: rant warning!

Messages
15,786
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."
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
And for that, you had to waste precious energy getting there; and back again; and enduring being patronised....
and now you're wasting precious energy being mad, and probably even more energy being mad at yourself for getting mad and wasting energy on it....:hug:

(That's what I do anyway...)
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Lol, seems obvious to me Valentijn, pity it wasn't obvious to your doctor. Here is what I think the mindset might be though. The doc doesn't care much about causes, and is wanting to treat symptoms. Five new things is five new symptoms to treat. Causes are not being considered. That would be complicated, and complicated takes even more time.
 

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
Valentijn I am kerfuddled. You are in Holland, right? And yet it sounds suspiciously like the kind of thing UK GPs now adopt! :) You get 10 minutes and need to carefully plan your attack. They can't handle more than one thing at a time. I tell you it takes more thought than planning a full-scale invasion of Iraq. And my muddled head simply cannot handle it sometimes. Have lost count of the number of times that after leaving I have thought - buggar - I forgot to say... All reminiscent of the Atos medical approach. Not all doctors. Mine isn't bad. But it's like I am the adult and he the child sometimes. In need of spoon-feeding :D
 
Messages
15,786
Valentijn I am kerfuddled. You are in Holland, right? And yet it sounds suspiciously like the kind of thing UK GPs now adopt! :) You get 10 minutes and need to carefully plan your attack. They can't handle more than one thing at a time. I tell you it takes more thought than planning a full-scale invasion of Iraq. And my muddled head simply cannot handle it sometimes. Have lost count of the number of times that after leaving I have thought - buggar - I forgot to say... All reminiscent of the Atos medical approach. Not all doctors. Mine isn't bad. But it's like I am the adult and he the child sometimes. In need of spoon-feeding :D
Yeah, it really is like going into battle. "Which strategy should I adopt for this problem? Start off by telling the doctor what it probably is, and risk her getting offended and spending the appointment convincing me that nothing at all is going on? Or feed her ego and let her figure it out? Or list the symptoms first, then show that they are commonly associated with a specific issue in ME/CFS patients?"

It's easier with my normal GP because we see her a lot more and have been respectful of the ego issue on a number of occasions. So there's less of a defensive attitude. Plus this was the same doc that prescribed the antibiotics that didn't work, so maybe she was defensive about that even though we only mentioned it in passing. She explained that they often don't work because it's 90% a virus problem and 10% a bacteria problem, so the antibiotic doesn't handle the virus aspect. We didn't bother to ask her how I was still getting copious amounts of "virus" snot two months after onset, or how a nose spray is going to make the virus go away :p

On the way out we made an appointment (confirmed to be with my usual GP) for a full 20 minutes instead of 10 tomorrow morning. Honestly, 10 should be plenty since it's a cluster of new symptoms popping up right after going in a couple times for a cluster of other symptoms that popped up, and the new symptoms actually EXPLAIN the other symptoms :p But whatever!
 
Messages
15,786
And for that, you had to waste precious energy getting there; and back again; and enduring being patronised....
and now you're wasting precious energy being mad, and probably even more energy being mad at yourself for getting mad and wasting energy on it....:hug:

(That's what I do anyway...)
Pretty much ... instead of listing the new symptoms and tying them into the symptoms which started a couple weeks ago (which allowed her to start dealing with symptoms one at a time while ignoring the context), maybe I should have just shouted "BARTONELLA" as soon as she called my name in the waiting room :p
 

vamah

Senior Member
Messages
593
Location
Washington , DC area
Pretty much ... instead of listing the new symptoms and tying them into the symptoms which started a couple weeks ago (which allowed her to start dealing with symptoms one at a time while ignoring the context), maybe I should have just shouted "BARTONELLA" as soon as she called my name in the waiting room :p

Ha! I actually pretty much did that once. The result was the doctor leaving the room to go look up "bartonella" on the internet. :confused:
 

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
I had to look it up myself - but then, I'm not a doctor.

Sometimes I suspect that by the time a person gets through their medical education (especially the horrendous residency system) they are all used up, so there's not much left for us patients. And that could partially explain why I have much better results with nurse practitioners than medical doctors.
 

Lala

Senior Member
Messages
331
Location
EU
I doubt she has ever heard the word "bartonella. Anyway if you are not satisfied with your GP, you can go to mine, she has always precise diagnosis - most of the cases are "virosis acuta"! It does not matter this virosis has lasted for years. You can always catch a new one or be reinfected.
And if your temperature is too high, it is because of weather, there was too hot, recently...
Now I wonder if they learned these types of rubbish in medical school? Most of them should return their diplomas and go back to school immediately.
 

PNR2008

Senior Member
Messages
613
Location
OH USA
At my last GP visit, she asked me if -------(a rival prestigious hospital) could help me!!!!!!!!! And believe me I really dumb it down when I go in, no more than 3 syllables.
 

Misfit Toy

Senior Member
Messages
4,178
Location
USA
Hey Valentijn, it's Spitfire. Name change for business reasons. I feel the same way you do and I also saw my doctor today. How's this one for you....my doctor looks over an Enterolabs test from 2004 TODAY and tells me TODAY, 9 nine years later, that I have Celiac disease. Right as rain there it is on the test result. How did he miss telling me that for 9 years?

I didn't get enough time, he didn't think or say much about my low iGa results and I could feel his frustration at my 4 major major symptoms.

Anyway, I feel your pain. Clearly, this doc you saw knows nothing of ME or CFS. Aren't you tired of being the doc?
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
Hey Valentijn, it's Spitfire. Name change for business reasons. I feel the same way you do and I also saw my doctor today. How's this one for you....my doctor looks over an Enterolabs test from 2004 TODAY and tells me TODAY, 9 nine years later, that I have Celiac disease. Right as rain there it is on the test result. How did he miss telling me that for 9 years?

I didn't get enough time, he didn't think or say much about my low iGa results and I could feel his frustration at my 4 major major symptoms.

Anyway, I feel your pain. Clearly, this doc you saw knows nothing of ME or CFS. Aren't you tired of being the doc?
Wow fancy missing that. But the good thing is you know now, will be interested to see how u go now changing your diet. Maybe u dont have cfs/me after all?? i hope so for your sake.

cheers!!
 

globalpilot

Senior Member
Messages
626
Location
Ontario
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 k aignore 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'm so sorry to hear this. Had the EXACT same thing happen to me years ago with my GP. Several symptoms all came at once. I mentioned their must be one underlying cause. She disagreed. I looked her in the eye and said "So, you think all of these symptoms that started exactly at the same time are all completely separate incidents ?" And she said yes. One of the stupidest things I've ever heard in my entire life.

Can you find a better doctor in your area ?
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
Misfit Toy :)

Can you sue ? I would sue.

But its great news.

Gluten has been one of my problems - the NHS didnt even bother testing for it. When I asked the G.P. I was told there wasnt a blood test. Lies.

I was very slow to see a difference , months and months, but it has helped a lot.

good luck.
 

Misfit Toy

Senior Member
Messages
4,178
Location
USA
To golden, I can't sue, because he is the only doc in the area that treats CFS. I am so baffled. I have had many issues with him, but he knows me like no other as to what I can take and so forth.

I am very confused. I have been gluten free for years, but cheat a lot. I am wondering, how accurate is this test. I don't know enough about enterolabs and you are supposed to have a biopsy, which I haven't had. The only way you can have the biopsy is if you are eating wheat and gluten. No can do. The test showed that I have Celiac by as much as 95%. And, my allergist doesn't believe in the test and wants me to have a biopsy by a gastro doc. I just can't do it. I can't. I can't do another test with a regular doc.

heapsreal, I still have CFS. I have not always had problems with gluten. It's been since 2001. As the years have gone on, I have become more and more unable to eat much and I have developed more illnesses.

I am really upset actually. I am not happy about this diagnosis because it's one more diagnosis. I don't know how many more I can handle.

Now, I have to try and heal my gut with ridding gluten completely, but I have to take glutamate. A little nervous.

I just feel so baffled by docs. I walked out of his office feeling like I had been hit with a frying pan. I mean, 9 years later. WTF?

And you know what? No doc is that great. One can say, get a new doctor...but why? So I can tell my story of 24 years of being ill and have to go through all of that BS all over again??

Let's face it, so many doctor's suck. Even the best. They are only human, only have 20 minutes and it's not their body....so it's not as important.
 

rosie26

Senior Member
Messages
2,446
Location
NZ
@Valentijin

Really it was nothing but a nonsense visit to the doctors for you and you had to pay for it as well ! And you didn't even get to talk of the other problems you have been having as well that have been causing you a major bother as well !!