fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2594 ]

Let me be clear that I don't have any kind of grudge against the medical profession. It's just that I have had so many bad decisions made and advice given by doctors over the years. Nothing extremely damaging, but still idiotic.

For example, I told my family doctor that prevacid wasn't working as well for me anymore, and she told me to go on prilosec instead. I was green for a month under this advice until I saw a GI who told me that prilosec is *weaker* than prevacid. The same went with my anxiety meds -- my family doctor told me I needed to ween off klonopin, when I finally got my frazzled ass into a psychiatrist's office, he said I shouldn't have stopped and I should be on more. He was right.

Said doctor has also prescribed my father meds so strong for his diabetes that he kept getting close to passing out from low blood sugar until she could be convinced that he needed a lower dose.

And finally: throughout my childhood I had a history of severe constipation. Very very severe. We're talking a month+. My mother took me to a ton of doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and back then they were far less likely than now to say, "Honestly I have no idea." (I don't want to get into extra details about my condition, but to this day I can't find anything like it in medical literature, and now doctors will actually say, "yeah I don't know. That's weird". But it got much better with puberty anyway, thank God.) One doctor actually had the nerve to tell my mother that she was imagining things and that I was sneaking off and pooing while she wasn't paying attention.

Just...commiserate with me, if you wish, about bad doctors and bad medical advice.

Doctors in Japan pretty much sucked. They would prescribe pills for anything and everything, even if they didn't know what was wrong - an experience that the doctor was blatantly clear with me. He basically said, "You're fine, these symptoms that you've had for weeks are no big deal. They'll go away. Here's a prescription."

I was also really disenchanted when a nurse (in America) asked me the typical pre-doctor questions, such as do you feel safe, are you sexually active, etc. Then, the next question was "do you participate in bisexual practices." I kind of stuttered, like, I am bisexual, why is that a question. She kind of jumps and then says bisexuals are at more risk for blahblahblah. I was pretty offended, because I'm monogamous and don't even date often, not very sexually active especially for my age group, but suddenly having had sex with a guy and a girl was a health risk? What? I don't know if that question is typical, but ugh.

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nyxelestia - 2014-02-09 05:45 (UTC) - Expand

My granddad went to the doctor with difficulty breathing and severe shortness of breath. The doctor told him he was depressed and not to worry about it. Which, okay, his wife had died not long before, and he actually was also grieving and depressed, but depression doesn't usually mean going to the doctor because you're unable to breathe.

Two months later my granddad was in hospital on permanent oxygen. There was a shadow on his lungs, but by that stage he was basically too fragile to risk going in after it. He died within a month.

We didn't have an autopsy done, so we're still not sure what the shadow was, but best guess says pneumonia.

Not my personal experience, but a close friend, whose father died because he was deprived of oxygen for hours by a really careless nurse. My friend is a really composed person but whenever she talks about it, she tears up and it makes me really mad too. I get real, honest misdiagnoses, but depriving a man reliant on it of oxygen for hours? How do you just make a mistake like that?

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(Anonymous) - 2014-02-09 01:39 (UTC) - Expand

The only doctor that my mom trusted was a crazy old D.O. who said and did all kinds of weird unhelpful shit. Basically, he would do anything to avoid actually practicing modern medicine. If something would be easily fixed with a pill, he wouldn't give it to you until you tried a bunch of home remedies that never worked.

He was pretty much just like Dr. Vindaloo from Courage the Cowardly Dog.

I was sent to a psychiatrist as a pre-teen, one that supposedly was the best in our town with handling children's problems. Fuckwad went the freudian psychanalytic route all the way. I lost half an hour in complete silence every wednesday afternoon for two years, my parents couldn't hear how I disliked it, and he and never ever questioned his methods! I was only freed when we moved out.
Turns out I'm autistic, psychanalysis works shit with this kind of wiring, and all this gave me additional trust issues.

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caerbannog - 2014-02-09 08:06 (UTC) - Expand

I got told that my asthma was solely due to my weight and that my asthma meds wouldn't be adjusted until we saw if losing weight helped. Even though I've had asthma since I was a skinny 5 year old.

Recently I had a doctor who didn't want to prescribe me the one drug that we've found that works for my migraines and yet couldn't suggest anything she thought would work better. She just didn't want to write a prescription for a narcotic even if I should actually be on it.

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philstar22 - 2014-02-08 22:57 (UTC) - Expand

I once had two doctors for the same condition. Each recommended a different medicine at different doses. Each told me that the other doctor was wrong and I shouldn't listen to him/her. I eventually told them to talk to each other and work out together what I should take. (Thankfully, they wound up putting me on the stronger medicine. When that didn't work, I switched to the strongest medicine available, and now I take it regularly.)

"So we're just going to give you some pitocin to move things along, ok?"

um, things are moving along just fine, thank you. I am progressing normally. It's just that an asshole doctor has a golf game to get to and is trying to fit my baby's birth into his schedule. Fuck that, I'd rather just have the nice nurse do it than you pit me to distress so you can do a nice quick c-section.

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(Anonymous) - 2014-02-09 03:45 (UTC) - Expand

The first rheumatologist I saw was this creepy old guy who basically took my word for it that I have fibromyalgia and handed me a sample of Lyrica with instructions to take "half." Lyrica comes in capsules so that's pretty much impossible. He was also generally inappropriate in ways I don't really want to get into, so I never went back after the first visit.

The second rheumatologist I saw told me that I have all the symptoms of fibromyalgia, but I couldn't possibly have fibromyalgia because she personally had never seen it before in someone so young. So she didn't know what I had, but it couldn't have possibly been fibro because only middle-aged women get that. Luckily though she referred me to my current doctor, who politely informed me that that was a load of bullshit.

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dimestoresaint - 2014-02-09 04:39 (UTC) - Expand

When I was five, grandma had taken me to doctor with a fever and odd red spot on face. Doctor said it was just a mosquito bite.
Later I spent three weeks in a hospital, being treated for Lyme disease.

I've only been to the doctor twice since I've been in double digits.

The first time the doctor said I pulled a muscle, the doctor I went to for a second opinion after another month of excruciating pain said "wtf you dislocated your rib" (that may be paraphrased) and popped it back in.

The second time I had my dentist freak that I needed IMMEDIATE extraction of my wisdom tooth or I could lose feeling in that side of my face. The oral surgeon said "lol girl idk what he's on about, you good, have the antibiotics you asked your dentist for, get that tooth out whenever" (also probably paraphrased).

Based on those two experiences I would have to say I recommend getting a second opinion.

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(Anonymous) - 2014-02-09 02:55 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-02-09 02:55 (UTC) - Expand

I broke my two front teeth in half in a gym class accident in middle school and I had the shittiest dentist ever to repair them.

He knocked one kind of off-kilter so it was kind of sideways and stuck out a lot further than the other one. When my mom was like "the fuck, fix this" he was basically like "WHATEVER, DON'T CARE" and that's why I spent a great deal of middle and high school not smiling. Because he messed up my teeth and didn't care to fix them. D:< I mean I'm glad that the nerves were covered back up so they weren't dangling in the air, but I would've liked if he didn't knock the damn things out of alignment so carelessly, and then not give a shit that he'd done it.

It took a year to convince my current doctor that I have migraines. A year I went without any help for the pain.

Another doctor shamed me and "tsk tsk"ed me, essentially treating me like a small child, because I hadn't gotten a pap smear. I then politely informed her that I had gone to a gynecologist and they essentially said, "Why are you even here? My smallest speculum won't fit, you've never had sex, and you're super young. Go home. See me in a few years or if something bad happens." So I got to feel stupid twice. It was great.

Nurses keep insisting I get a test for chlamydia and won't remove it off my chart so every time I go to the doctors for something else it pops up and the receptionists try to get me to do it and make me pay for a lab I don't need or want.

No doctor will even touch my blocked ears but all of them refuse to believe they have no idea what's causing it. They don't know.

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diet_poison - 2014-02-10 02:57 (UTC) - Expand

When I was small, I had some white spots at the back of my throat and two doctors I went to said it was tonsillitis, gave my mom a prescription for antibiotics and sent me back home. I went through all those antibiotics but nothing changed, until I went to a third doctor. Turned out my tonsils have spots where, over time, harmless stuff collects - like plaque does on teeth and that it was no big deal and would go away after some time. I had been perfectly healthy all along and had needlessly taken antibiotics for a long time. Yay.

Not me, but a friend: She has lots of problems with her digestion and it's very painful, so after all kinds of other tests, she finally made up her mind to get a colonoscopy - something she really wasn't looking forward to. The doctor basically told her she was overreacting and that she probably had fun "having people stick stuff into all her orifices". What the hell.

TW for eating disorders, numbers.

My psychiatrist who, every visit, demanded that I have WLS for my fibromyalgia... never mind that gastric bypass (my gf had it done) has side effects of not being able to take anti-inflammatories which is kinda required for my RA, and that it also affects how birth control is absorbed, which is required to keep my PCOS and PMDD in control (otherwise I bleed constantly and suicidal -- and this is something that could perhaps be PERMANENT, and she KNEW about).

Mind, I'm under 200lbs, and because I'm 4'11, I am supposed to be "under 100lbs -- 100 lbs is overweight". Even though, at my thinnest, I was never under 120, because I have a heavy, broad bone structure and extra bone weight from the scoliosis (which she also knew about).

Also, when I asked her what this had to do with my mental health, which is what I was seeing her for, she said "Nothing, it's for your fibro"... WHY THE HELL ARE YOU SUGGESTING SURGERY FOR A CONDITION THAT YOU ARE NOT SPECIALIZED IN!?

... I got rid of that psych, and my new one is awesome (and was duly horrified when I explained what happened, and asked her not to bring up weight stuff because I have triggered disordered eating -- I'm fine, until someone starts telling me I should lose weight, etc, and fat-shaming me, even though I'm not that much overweight -- which my former psych also knew and continued to push even after I told her that it was a trigger.)

Grrrr, I'm STILL pissed off about this and I got my new psych last summer.

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(Anonymous) - 2014-02-09 01:44 (UTC) - Expand

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elialshadowpine - 2014-02-09 03:36 (UTC) - Expand

A couple years back, I was having a lot of gas. Like, constant, terrible gas. So I went to my school's health clinic and when the person who saw me there realized I had an anxiety disorder (I had counseling at the health clinic every week), she decided that my problem must be that I was compulsively swallowing air. Which led to me spending weeks freaking out over how I could possibly be swallowing so much air without realizing it and just getting really anxious over swallowing, and the problem kept not going away no matter how I swallowed.

Later I went back and saw a different person, who recommended that I try an elimination diet to see if the problem was that my body couldn't handle some allergen or other. Turned out I'm gluten intolerant and my anxiety had nothing to do with the problems I was having.

I've also had some pretty shitty therapists. One of them just wouldn't listen to me at all and was constantly talking over me. Another kept telling me that my glasses were too feminine and also thought it was appropriate to refer to me as "she/he" in a letter of recommendation.

I live in Florida, so picking out the single stupidest thing a doctor has said to me is really, really tough. One relatively recent contender is from my (former) primary care physician, who called me lazy when I asked if he'd help me get a handicapped parking decal, even though I have severe arthritis in my hips, knees and ankles and have to walk with a cane. When I told my rheumatologist about it, she said "Seriously? What the hell?" and signed the form for the decal. This same primary care physician told my dying grandmother that her abdominal pain was caused by constipation, which was caused by her painkillers, so she should just stop taking them and it would clear up. Yeah, further testing by another doctor revealed severe scarring and distortions in her intestine that were in no way related to pain medications of any kind. The original doctor rolled his eyes when informed of this, and made no apology. He is still very highly regarded by his peers. Welcome to Florida.

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cakemage - 2014-02-09 20:59 (UTC) - Expand

My mother has a litany of illnesses and is on a lot of medications. We're talking a nearly two-page list.

When I was in college, she had to go to the hospital. Don't recall what for. Despite being given her list of medications and told how important they were, they took her off all of them. Obviously, she started acting weird (I remember calling her and her not being able to hold a conversation because her short-term memory had degraded to the length of about 5 seconds), and when my father tried to tell the staff, they brushed it off and said that he was imagining things and that there was nothing wrong. They continued to brush off his concerns until finally, a nurse happened to walk into her room when she was in the middle of having a fucking seizure.

She had to go to a rehabilitation center for three months because of their ineptitude. They nearly killed her.

Actually, Prilosec isn't "weaker" than Prevacid, they're different medications in the same family. Some people respond better to Prilosec or some people respond better to Prevacid or some people respond better to Protonix.

When it comes to medications, often the physician is not the know-all, end all. Doctors only take about one class that involves medications when they're in medical school. When it comes to medicines, your pharmacist is really your best resource.

This whole thread kind of rubs me the wrong way, just because I think we really need a health professional's opinion on a lot of these 'complaints.' Many of them seem to be just a result of people not understanding medicine in general.

I nearly died during birth because of something the doctors missed. It was only a family friend being nearby who noticed that the monitors for my still-in-utero self were going crazy, and avoiding surgery was no longer a viable option. If she hadn't been there, I may not have survived being born.

And perhaps more recently - I went to a gynecologist's office at my local university medical center, and my doctor/nurse-practitioner mentioned that the CDC recommended everyone my age get tested for chlamydia, even if they didn't think they needed to. For context, she already knew I had almost no sexual experience at the time, and certainly none in the preceding few years. However, the phrasing made it sound like it was a data collection issue, so I agreed to the test. Guess who got a surprise bill asking for several hundred dollars for the test a few months later? -_- Luckily, after a few more months of back-and-forth, the hospital administration agreed the test was entirely unnecessary for my situation and dropped the charges, but still - total bullshit.

What sucks is that I loved my immediate experience with said nurse-practitioner, both in terms of 'bedside' manner, and just someone who was really aware of a variety of birth control methods and what they require in terms of lifestyle, non-judgemental, etc. If it hadn't been for her recommending a test she knew I didn't need and that I strongly suspect she was getting a kickback for, I would have whole-heartedly recommended her to everyone I know.

A few other visits later, and I think I'd prefer to stay away from that entire complex if I could. Unfortunately, there are not too many other places around here that accept my insurance, so even though more often than not I would rather go elsewhere, I have to go there. >.

I was having a consult specifically about the side effects of the medication she had started me on a few days prior, and the entire session he kept insisting the illness was due to pregnancy.

Even after I said I was gay he stil made me do a pregnancy test and kept saying it was probably the reason omfg.

I got a call later in the day going "oh I just saw we started you on new meds that might be it"

YES. That I spent the ENTIRE SESSION trying to TALK TO YOU ABOUT.

Did not go back to that one.

Also an old fully haired male doctor joking about how I shouldn't be worried about the significant, abnormal hairloss I was experiencing. Didn't go back to him either.

Every so often, I have lumps that swell up around my lips. For the life of me, I don't know what triggers it. I figure it must be environmental, because it'll happen after I eat and when I haven't had breakfast yet. I went to the campus doctor (because I was too old for parents' insurance) and she insisted I buy an epi-pen, and then spent twenty minutes berating me for my weight. I wasn't terribly overweight, but I wasn't skinny either...but either way, wasn't I here for swelling lips...? I didn't go back after that.

I once had a sore throat that made two lymph nodes on the front of my neck swell up to what felt like golf ball size. It interfered with swallowing and hurt horribly every time I tried. I didn't have insurance at this time, so I scrounged up the $100 for a local doctor visit and counted the seconds to when the doctor could spare me from my agony. The doctor spent less than five minutes with me. I don't even remember her feeling my neck. She just told me to go home and drink fluids. My boyfriend was waiting for me in the car when I was done and I just fell into my seat and started sobbing uncontrollably. I was in so much pain and I thought that would be at least the beginning of the end, but I got nothing. Instead, my boyfriend stayed up all night and woke me up every two hours to drink two gulps of Gatorade. And yes, I did marry him.

And currently, I've been fighting with two doctors. I had one doctor, a gyno, that told me I needed to be taking thyroid medication. She had upped the dose twice to 100 mcg, then left the practice she was in to go to a city over an hour and a half away. I didn't really want to talk to the next gyno about it (I got judgey vibes from her and I'm still overweight), so I figured I could just talk to a regular doctor. Two doctors, two blood tests, and two new little cysts on my thyroid later, and nobody but that first doctor thinks I need medication. I was on 100 mcg, how can I suddenly just be "okay"? And apparently the cysts are "nothing to worry about" but that side of my neck is always tender now. So yeah.

I had minor surgery on one of my big toes (ingrown toenail) and I admit, I handled it badly, but the doctor who was to check up on it and remove the stitches did not seem to recognise that it had a bad infection in it.
I ended up going to another doctor who saw it's state and treated it, cleaning it out and making sure it healed properly.

I also have a thing about doctors with foreign accents so strong I have trouble understanding what they are saying.

this is pretty minor compared to the other stuff on this thread but I once told a doctor I had had a tubal ligation and the doctor's immediate response was "why?"
um, because I don't want to get pregnant?