LymeNet Flash: Need help on Picc line dilema

This is topic Need help on Picc line dilema in forum Medical Questions at LymeNet Flash.

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Posted by SOBS (Member # 23469) on :

I need help from you scholarly folks because the medical practioners in my town are driving me up a wall right now! I have had Lymes with bartonella and babesia for 4 years now and have been on oral meds for 2 years treating the problem. While I have seen some minor progress - my LLMD still notes that I still have a lot of symptoms and problems. Therefore he has prescribed that I have a picc line installed to try and lower my overall counts. Makes sense right!?

Here's the rub - my LLMD is two hours from my home in Virginia so he has made a request to the local yocals in my town to cosign my order so that the interventional radiologist can install it. In the last three weeks, I have talked no less than 5 physicians and no one will help sign off on this order. This is why it took me two years to get diagnosed here because everyone kept handing me off or telling me I just had to live with my symptoms. I feel like I'm living in a third world country... [bonk]

Has anyone else had problems like this and do you have any suggestions? If I try going to a doctor near my LLMD's office it will still take time because they have never seen me and my LLMD does not have hospital privileges there.

Please - any guidance or sanity check [dizzy]

would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Posted by sammy (Member # 13952) on :

I'm sorry to hear that you are having such a difficult time scheduling/arranging your PICC placement. Too bad your LLMD does not have any hospital privileges.

The only thing that I can think of is try calling the hospital. Talk with the receptionist for ambulatory surgery or outpatient procedures (or whatever your local hospital calls that department).

Share your story. Ask what they would recommend you do. They might be able to recommend a liberal physician who would cosign your PICC order. They might be able to refer you to a certain clinic. They have ways of working things out. It is their job to help patients get their procedures scheduled.

If there are more than one hospital in the area you might be able to find one that is willing to take your LLMD's order without a local cosigner.

I'm sorry I can't think of anything else right now. Just keep trying. Keep calling around. You will find a way to work it out.

Posted by SOBS (Member # 23469) on :

Thanks for the encouragement Sammy. I'll keep calling...

Posted by Pocono Lyme (Member # 5939) on :

You can try infusion companies or home health services.

There are registered nurses who are PICC certified.

Posted by ladycakes (Member # 12619) on :

I had to drive the 3 hours up north to get mine placed at my LLMD's local hospital. My PCP wouldn't sign off on it either, because he doesn't think I have Lyme disease.

Doc: "I think you have Fibromyalgia"
Me: "Okay. Why would that get better on antibiotics, though?"
Doc: "Oh, it wouldn't."
Me: "But I did get better on antibiotics."
Doc: "Yeah, that's weird."

Somehow, he finds it more likely that I have some kind of magical Fibromyalgia that improves on antibiotics than that I have Lyme.

Posted by SOBS (Member # 23469) on :

Thanks for the help everyone - I did have success at the LLMD's local hospital so I will have the PICC line put in on Monday. I also have home health care visiting once a week so I don't have to drive two hours each way every week.

Thanks very much!

Posted by MariaA (Member # 9128) on :

For those who are paying out of pocket for a PICC line, what is it costing you?