LymeNet Flash: Who has faith in "regular" dr's anymore??

This is topic Who has faith in "regular" dr's anymore?? in forum Medical Questions at LymeNet Flash.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/1/33160

Posted by Nal (Member # 6801) on :

I know that my faith in dr's has pretty much gone straight down the tubes!!! The only ones I trust right now is my LLMD, gastro dr and maybe my kids pediatrician and even that is questionable. I just hate regular dr's and the way they tend to treat people. For years I was told "Its all in your head", "You are just stressed out" and "You are suffering from Military Wife Syndrome--WHAT??" I swear I would love to slap each one of them now!!!

Nancy

Posted by duramater (Member # 6480) on :

I'm sorry about your doctors. I'm wondering if this is more appropriate for General Support.

=========
Not meant towards Nal, but we've had quite a bit of posts here lately that are not appropriate to Medical at all.

Posted by paulscha (Member # 6334) on :

I'm not sure why a question about which medical professionals we still trust belongs somewhere other than Medical Questions, Duramater. And you know I'm not saying that to be difficult, I think the world of you.

This theme of distrust seems to me a vital part of every encounter I have with doctors now, and it affects my medical decision-making in important ways. The stress of dealing with doctors in that context of distrust has definitely taken an added toll on my health and made my recovery more difficult.

In other words, it wouldn't even have occurred to me that this was an inappropriate topic here.

Why not spell out the criteria you use, DM?

eg, "Unless you are posting a about a specific symptom, test, drug or non-drug treatment, you should be posting in general support."

I might agree or not, but I'd be clearer about what you mean. Thanks!

Posted by TheCrimeOfLyme (Member # 4019) on :

Im too sick with something called lyem to really give a crap where someone sticks anything.

Anyways, to answer the question:

Yes, I am tired of Doctors. Im fortunate to have an excellent, sweet GP that I wouldnt give up for the life of me.

Posted by HEATHERKISS (Member # 6789) on :

I just switched to my old PCP. I TRUST HIM.
I believe he is on his way to being an LLMD.

He asked for all the Specialty Labs info which I gave him along w/ DR. B's guidelines.

I also gave him pamphlets that I got from LDF and other organizations.

He is overseeing my progress and wants reports from all the doctors I'm seeing.

Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :

Yep, down the tubes!

My new GP has Lyme, so I'm in good shape now! That, and a wonderful LLMD...so I'm ready to roll!

------------------
oops!
Lymetutu

Posted by timaca (Member # 6911) on :

Heatherkiss~ Good for you! How lucky that you are educating a doctor that wants to learn! May they all be that way!

I hope to do the same. And I figure the good docs will listen. Those that are too busy or too full of themselves won't.

Nal~ maybe at some point in the future, as you learn more about lyme, you can go back to all the docs who missed your diagnosis and let them know what you have....that is my plan.

Good luck....Tina

Posted by Nal (Member # 6801) on :

I won't be speaking to any of those dr's ever again-period. Now I have to try and find a GP dr who will take my diagnosis seriously. FYI, most military dr's here in CO do not. If anyone knows any, let me know. Also sorry, I didn't realize there was a differen't posting board on here. This probably would have been better off being posted there.

Nancy

Posted by Beverly (Member # 1271) on :

Hi Nal,

I know what you mean.

I do have faith in my family doctor though. I have given him stuff from my LLMD and he is getting real educated about lyme.

He is gonna be treating my Mom and younger sister, and I just found out he has a few lyme patients also....so who knows??

And he is willing to use IGeneX labs too..(keeping my fingers crossed) He did offer me IV a while ago, but I said no...

Atleast he is willing to learn stuff.

Posted by tikbit (Member # 6629) on :

You know how I feel about dr.s I've made it abundantly clear. And how could we think anything else after all the crap we've been told. There are good dr.s out there, they are almost as hard to find as LLMD's. Ihave a few in my life but they are few and far between and it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Posted by duramater (Member # 6480) on :

quote:
Originally posted by paulscha:
I'm not sure why a question about which medical professionals we still trust belongs somewhere other than Medical Questions, Duramater. And you know I'm not saying that to be difficult, I think the world of you.
This theme of distrust seems to me a vital part of every encounter I have with doctors now, and it affects my medical decision-making in important ways. The stress of dealing with doctors in that context of distrust has definitely taken an added toll on my health and made my recovery more difficult.
In other words, it wouldn't even have occurred to me that this was an inappropriate topic here.
Why not spell out the criteria you use, DM?
eg, "Unless you are posting a about a specific symptom, test, drug or non-drug treatment, you should be posting in general support."
I might agree or not, but I'd be clearer about what you mean. Thanks!

Whew! Tall order to make explicit what is implicit, but I'll give it my best with the caveat that I may be forgetting an appropriate topic or two.

So there is Off Topic which seems appropriate for things not related to anything Lyme/medical; after that, really, we could say that everything else is related to Lyme/medical, so it should go there. What use then is General?

My (implicit) distinction between Medical & General (which is still Lyme/medical related) was Medical was for: Lyme/coinfection treatments (conventional, supplemental and alternative (although it would be nice to have a distinctive categories here as well)), testing issues, diagnosis/symptom issues, and ancillary medical issues (e.g., gallbladder disease, yeast infections, "hypercoagulation").

I would think everything else would fit nicely in General (e.g., political action, potentially weaponized borrelia, broader discussions of the medical field (such as docs & trust), etc.

While the borders are certainly murky, it seems to me that General is under-used/inclusive and Medical is over-used/inclusive. But hey, I'm not trying to play border guard here, its just that the recent spate of political messages and biowarfare hypothesizing makes it hard to wander through the actual "medical" stuff and since we have a "general," why not make use of it?

Like I said (I think), really EVERYTHING that is N0T overtly unrelated could be construed as belonging in Medical. I just think that the overinclusivity of topics in Medical makes it hard to find/wade through the clearly-related stuff that is getting buried these days.

That's my (current) best shot, Paul. And I'm left wondering what your distinction among the 3 primary categories might be given your request for me to elucidate mine...

PS - apologies (A) to Nal for coopting this thread to answer Paul's query and (B) for something that should, based on content, be in 0ff-Topic!

[This message has been edited by duramater (edited 10 April 2005).]

Posted by tikbit (Member # 6629) on :

the only problem with general is no one reads it or at least no one answers it. If I feel desperate and in need of an answer medical will get me an answer. I wish it were not so, but this is the place where I and most of us feel safe and if we have to weed through a few more posts to do it then I hope that's ok.

Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tikbit:
the only problem with general is no one reads it or at least no one answers it.

If everyone would check General Support at least once a day, alot of problems would be alleviated.

We've all broken the rule of posting non-medical stuff over here, but fewer would feel the need to do that if everyone would read and answer posts over in General.

------------------
oops!
Lymetutu

Posted by HaplyCarlessdave (Member # 413) on :

My take on it is thus:
An argument could be made for consolidation. In Buddhism there is a concept that is referred to as, "Oneness of Body an Mind" (Shikishin Funi is the japanese term for it-- it means "body, mind- two but not two. What happens in your mind is eflected in your body and vice versa.) There is someting like that going on with the medical-general quandary. In some sense, every question is a "medical question". But of course we must keep the off-topic section strivtly separate; political debate can be very tiring and frusterating....!

However, I do feel that we should try to reserve "medical questions" for the more pressing or crucial questions, since we want the information to get out to the maximum number of the most critically ill among us. Since when one is really sick its very hard to even sit at the computer for long, we should not be too quick to just stick something in Medical, as the most important posts may then get lost at times of high activity (i.e., bouncd down to page 2 or higher). I check all the forums to see if I can make helpful comments, and I encourage others who are far enough along in their recovery to do the same.
And yes, it would be really good if we could get the Lymenet local search engine working again, since the password wall keeps the outside search engines (like google, alta vista, etc) from indexing the lymenet pages.
DaveS

Posted by JillF (Member # 5553) on :

I don't even check general reguarly because everything I'm interested will be posted over here.

But then again, I miss quite a few posts (I find them when I'm bored or when I'm searching for something) simply because so much stuff is now posted over here.

Now to the question at hand.

I have lost all trust in the medical community. I really feel that I myself has the best outlook for myself and my family's health.

Doctors these days are way too busy, rarely take enough time with patients (I've had doctors who have seen me several times yet have to look in my records for my name when talking to me) - you spend more time in the waiting room and then waiting in the examining room than you do with the doctor or nurse (1 hr wait to see the doctor 5-10 minutes), the doctor prescribs all this medication, never stoping to think if all the medication can be taken together and tries to get you out the door as quickly as possible (at least this is how it is in my case).

I have seen doctors with major god complexes, doctors who rolled their eyes at me, doctors who 'glanced' at the first few symptoms on my ever growing symptom list (last time I checked, 6 pages printed) and tossed it to the side like it was nothing - all the doctors told I needed anti-anxiety medication and I would be fine.

After the crap I had to go through just getting diagnosed (since they could not figure out what was wrong with me, than obviously it meant that there was nothing wrong with me - so let's pin these symptoms on the sick person) and the way I was treated, it will be a cold day in hell before I trust another doctor 100% with my life or the life of my family....

Posted by tikbit (Member # 6629) on :

[Amen and might I add I am no longer going to jump through hoops for them either. Might I add they have lied to me to my face about medical information that validated what I was telling them and compromised my daughter's care.

When I had my gallbladder out, I thought I was having a heart attack. No one told me until the next day and it was a tech. that did, that I should have my gallbladder checked since the symptoms are identical and many a HA have been cured by gallbladder surgery.

So When the Card. came in and told me I was fine and she was doing a heart catherization to be sure. I requested a gallbladder scan.

She argued and acted like I was being stupid, no surprises there, and said ok. Then proceeded to schedule the heart procedure and totally ignore my request.

I had to pitch a fit from hell to get them to do the gall. scan before they did the heart cath. It came down to the wire and I literally had to tell them no cath unless I get my scan.

Guess what a scan miraculously appeared on the horizon. So I'm waking up from the cath and the dr.s signing my release papers. They are sending me home and they haven't even looked at the gallbladder test results.

So I ask the dr. still groggy from the surgery if she's seen the results yet, and she again looks at me like I'm a bug she'd like to squash and says, "oh ok give me her chart back".

Next thing out of her mouth is oh my God that's the biggest gallstone I've ever seen. It was as big as my gallbladder.

So I say, well I'm not going home and having another attack like this, I want it removed. Next day surgeon comes in as I'm being prepped for surgery and tells me everything going to be fine, where have I heard those words before.

I have just finished reading and signing the release form that by the way stated that under no circumstances was a gallbladder bigger than so many cm to be removed via a laperoscopic procedure.

You know how the insurance co love that surgery since supposedly you heal faster and they can send you home the same day of major surgery. UNbelievable!

Any way my stone was way bigger than their statistics that they were saying not to for. So I tell the dr to please make a regular incision instead of the bandaid surgery lap.one because the stone is too big for removal through that little hole they make with the lap.proc.

He turns too me, and I kid you not, and I'm 48 years old, pats me on the head and says don't worry about it.

I tell him, well I am worried about it since thus far I have had to diagnose myself and then insist that the test was done and read and I didn't feel like trusting anyone right now.

Would he please listen to me and remove it through a reguar incision. And he tells me "oh no I couldn't do that, it would be medically unethical". But it's not unethical to rip my abdominal wall trying to remove a stone that is way to big for that tiny lap. hole.

After I woke up and was in considerable pain, he came in and said well it was a little bigger than I thought.

Was he blind or just stupid. Or is that arrogance. Maybe it's just the same old tried and true, you can't be right because that means I was wrong and that's not possible syndrome. Either way I had a rough row to hoe. Ther are too many stories like this one in my history for me to ever trust a dr again.

Posted by lou (Member # 81) on :

I think we are in a buyer beware situation now with medicine.

Disgusting that we have to know almost as much as the doctors in order to avoid problems caused by their haste/boneheadedness.

Posted by tequeslady (Member # 6832) on :

"Regular" doctors don't use their brain anymore. All they seem to know is how to order typical tests and go through their "cookbook" process. If your symptoms don't match their "cookbook", well then, you must not have anything wrong with you, expect maybe with your brain.

Why they can't listen to you and try to figure it out, I'll never know. Laziness? Incompetence? No problem solving skills?

They seem to not have the ability to think out-of-the-box.

I have totally lost faith in them. They are a complete waste of money IMHO unless you've broken a bone or something like that.

Posted by paulscha (Member # 6334) on :

Yep, haste, boneheadedness, dishonesty, arrogance, and if you've got my bad luck a nice whopping dose of sadism to wash it all down.

Nothing - NOTHING - connected with this disease gives me more grief than dealing with doctors.

Having said that, I don't think I'm guilty of demonizing them. Some I have some respect for, others I think should be put behind bars, but they are only part of the problem.

There are two words that sum up the worst of it: "managed care."

Note to Duramater - if you can figure out what forum to post it in, and think it's worth pursuing, we could start a separate thread on how best to make use of the forum divisions. If you start one, I'll be happy to comment.

Posted by duramater (Member # 6480) on :

Note to Duramater - if you can figure out what forum to post it in, and think it's worth pursuing, we could start a separate thread on how best to make use of the forum divisions. If you start one, I'll be happy to comment.

Paul,

I have to say I feel both duped and disappointed. You asked me a hard question and I tried to answer it and did so here - I didn't ask you to start another thread or email me or anything. When I asked the same of you, you are blowing me off. Like I said, duped & disappointed...

~DM

Posted by Nal (Member # 6801) on :

I agree with all of your comments!! Im sorry, but I will never, never, never fully trust a general dr again as long as I live! I think some of them spend to much time concentrating on "text book" illnesses that they arent willing to look outside the box and consider "maybe there is something here that I just can't quite put my finger on and it should be investigated". Whatever. Ill go and see them when I have strep and such but otherwise no more.

Nancy