RE: go home...good little girl...ouch!

[Guest guest]

The word doctors have used with me is "PSYCHCOSEMATIC"

Janet

[Guest guest]

I had to add my 2 cents here of some experiences..... don't be so sure your

dumb doc story can't be topped ....

During the process of trying to find out what was wrong with me, before I

even realized all my kids and husband's health problems were also related, I

had seen a lady endocrinologist at a prominent university hospital. All I

knew at this point was I had chronic fatigue syndrome, my pituitary gland

was found to be not working well (hence nearly going into menopause at age

23), and chemical smells were starting to bother me. (this was several

years ago) I was to fill out a questionnaire prior to the appointment. I

did so honestly, even on questions regarding depression and family's past

medical history, including alcoholism in the family and abuse, etc.. Big

mistake! This lady had made up her mind what she felt was wrong with me

before she ever talked to me....all based on the questionnaire.

For at least an hour and a half she humilated me by telling me nothing

physically was wrong. It was all in my head. It was all related to the

fact that my father had been an alcoholic and that he was physically

abusive when he was alive. It was all psychosomatic she said. I was

wishing myself ill to get attention I did not receive in early years. The

hilarious part now.... she failed to pay attention to the fact of my age,

what age I was when my father was killed, and the important part that I have

never had any recollection of my father because he died when I was 3!!!! I

could somewhat understand this philosphy if I had been older, had any memory

of those years of childhood whatsoever, had remembered seeing any of the

abuse. The honest remarks about abuse are only from what I've been told,

not what I've seen. Of course, if she had listened to this she would have

said it was repressed or something I'm sure....

So she goes on to tell me to drink herbal teas and walk at least a couple

miles a day at 5:00 a.m. to cure my chronic fatigue. Anyone out there with

CFS that can get up at 5:00 in the morning and walk a couple miles daily? I

sure couldn't. At that time I was taking 2 or more naps a day, plus getting

10 hours of sleep a night.... I was in the mold home at the time. And,

remember she was an endocrinologist, not a psychiatrist! I have no idea why

I sat there through all that humilation. I was only sent to her after

seeing a " real " doctor that tested all my hormones and found them all to be

wacko. He had thought she could be of further help. Wrong!

Then, regarding strange involuntary eye movements that my son developed

while we were in the mold home, we had a pediatric neuro-ophthalmologist

tell us that our son was doing these eye movements for attention. Can you

believe that one! Funny, I guess he hasn't gotten enough

attention....because he's been doing it since Sept. of 2000....over 3 years

now! The eyes move upward in a diagonal direction... it literally looks as

if the eyeballs jump/dart out of the white of the eyes. They move together

at the same time. Can you make your eyes do that? Anyone? So, needless to

say, even specialists can't always be trusted. This too has made me very

leary of doctors. There are other horror stories, much worse....but I can't

go into them without getting really angry.

This condition with our son still needs to be further evaluated if anyone

knows of mold docs dealing with the neurologic aspects. We've had another

caring pediatric neurologist say it looks like a condition called

" opsoclonus " which can sometimes be caused by a neuroblastoma (tumor). The

problem is they wanted to use general anesthesia for a chest MRI. Our son

reacts very much to many meds now, and we felt it's quite a risk to use

" general " unless it's an emergency. I couldn't bare if I were to lose him

due to anesthesia anymore than any other way. So far we can't get anyone to

do a CT or MRI (abdomen, chest, pelvic region) without general anesthesia.

I bet we could fill several days of digests with doctor horror stories

during our quests to find out what was making us sick.

Beverly

Message: 1

Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 16:40:03 -0000

From: " erik_johnson_96140 " <erikj6@...>

Subject: Re: go home...good little girl......ouch!

Arrogance isn't limited to male doctors.

I went to a she-doctor in Truckee and described my symptoms.

I said I felt " like I had been poisoned " and she asked disdainfully,

" How would you know what it's like to be poisoned. Have you ever been

poisoned? "

" No, except maybe a bad hangover. I'm just trying to describe how I

feel as best I can. "

She started talking about hyperventilation as a hysterical response to

emotional fear and I said " Look at the rash I've got. Look at the

veins standing out on my arms. Do I look like I'm hyperventilating

right now? " she said " That looks perfectly normal to me " .

" Not for me, it's not "

I told her that I was a hang glider pilot and some of the symptoms

felt like hypoxia kicking in above 14,000 ft. altitude and suddenly

she interrupted me with; " So who do you think is trying to poison

you? "

" Good God, I don't think anybody is trying to poison me, I'm only

telling you how sick I feel " .

She really seemed to think that a surprise interjection was going to

startle some paranoid delusional confession out of me.

Then she said " Well there is nothing PHYSICALLY wrong with you but we

can repeat the tests if it makes you feel any better but I don't think

we'll find anything " .

" Not with your attitude, we won't " .

Actually the whole encounter was so hilarious as to be well worth her

fee. When people compare dumb doctor stories, nobody can top this one.

-

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