Paediatric Endo appt today!!

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Hi All,

Well, we have been. What a fiasco that was. The Paed was adamant that there were

no clinical signs of hypothyroidism in spite of my Daughter presenting with a

very large number of symptoms. She seemed to ignore most of these, or not even

make a connection. She said that my daughter's puffiness was due to her being

overweight and that she needed to do graded exercise to build up her stamina - I

shot her down in flames over this one, I was very annoyed that she was taking

such an attitude. She did a physical examination - checked the glands on her

neck, but, not her thyroid. She ignored the buffalo hump which I had to point

out to her as she did not look. She did not ask my daughter if she had any

problems swallowing and I did forget to tell her about this. She wrote down that

she has had recurrent UTI's, that she had asthma, that she has light

sensitivities, has constipation etc. etc. but still there are no clinical signs

of hypothyroidism. She was totally unconcerned about the saliva test results,

asking me why I had had it done! However, on a positive note she is arranging a

short synthacen test. Apparently a coeliac screen has been run that I didn't

know about, but, this was done years ago anyway by another Peadiatrician in the

days when my son was having problems with gluten. I mentioned that my son has

IgA Nepthropathy, that my Mother had Pernious Anaemia and that I was diagnosed

with fibromyalgia. She mentioned that she would run some blood tests to check

her thyroid function. I asked, exactly what she would be testing - guess what?

TSH and T4!!!! I said that these had already been done and shouldn't we be doing

free T3 and antibodies. She gave a point blank refusal to do either of these.

When I started talking about T4 and T3 and about T4 being a pro-hormone and that

it was T3 that was important to the body, she asked where I was getting my

information from and anyway she was the endocrinologist having trained at

Birmingham Children's Hospital for two years and therefore hse knew what she was

doing. If I wasn't happy I could ask my GP to refer my daughter elsewhere!

AFter further discussion after I made a point of writing down that she was

refusing to run the free T3 and antibodies test she said that she would run the

antibody test. I then asked exactly what antibody test she would be running and

she said TPO - so I asked about TgAB - she said that there was no such thing!

She did mention something, but, I couldn't get her to comfirm to me what it

was. She said that she would ignore any high antibody test results anyway as her

TSH was absolutely fine. She kept repeating that there was no clinical

indication for testing free T3.

In the end it was clear that we were not going to get any further, she kept

saying that is what I am doing I will not do anymore. I asked what can we do to

improve my daughter's energy levels and was there anything we can give her now.

There was no real answer. She said that she did not want to do anything to harm

my daughter or casue her undue distress.

I made the point that we were at breaking point as a family and that we could

not carry on like this, something had to be done. Basically it all fell on deaf

ears.

The free T3 test will be done tomorrow together with antibodies at a private

hospital.

My son agrees with me that we can'ty carry on and that his sister is regressing,

both children ask me why are we bothering with the NHS when they won't listen,

why don't I just go private and do things myself!

Sorry for the length, but, it has been a difficult day and I look forward to

hearing any advice.

Oh, I forgot - she is referring her to an opthalmologist about her eyes and the

headaches!

Best wishes,