/EYE DOCTOR !!!!!

[Guest guest]

The first GYN I went to (the first time I had ever seen him)

told me he had just completed all his medical training three years ago. And he

said to me – I think you have Vulvodynia, and you need to see a

specialist. He then told me that Vulvodynia was only covered for fifteen

minutes in med school. At the time, that knowledge did not mean anything to me,

but now, oh my gosh – only fifteen minutes! But in the grand scheme of

things, when you think of what OB/GYN’s have to learn in school and

residency, etc., vulvar conditions are pretty small potatoes.

nne

From:

VulvarDisorders [mailto:VulvarDisorders ] On

Behalf Of snailsgal

Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 11:19 AM

To: VulvarDisorders

Subject: Re: EYE DOCTOR !!!!!

As a medical professional myself, I have to

reply to this posting. I

agree that GYN's in particular should be more educated on these

conditions. However, the only GYN that ever took me seriously only

had 4 patients in her whole practice with vestibulitis so it is

relatively rare compared to STD's or other infections of the uterus

and vagina. And, it seems to be a relatively new diagnosis, so older

professionals may never have discussed it in school. And, while it is

a huge inconvenience, and causes major disruption in " normal " life,

it

is not life threatening (unless it contributes to psych issues).

It is very frustrating to have to teach your doc about this. I've

been there. But, also remember the gamut of illnesses they are trying

to treat and if they are not a gyn or urologist, vulvodynia is far

from their scope of knowledge. I don't enjoy having to list my meds

for every doc either but most of them don't give me a hard time about

them. They consider the meds for interactions between other meds they

would like to prescribe or possibly discuss the risks of taking these

meds. Also remember that we live in a very litigious society which

unfortunately drives the medical field to " cover their ass " more than

is beneficial to the patient.

I'm not trying to downplay the importance of doc's taking initiative

to try and treat these problems once they have heard of them. Just

remember that many of them deal with more life threatening issues

first and there often isn't time to do research unless they are taking

their own time to do it. Hospitals and clinics push medical

professionals to maximum efficiency which is not the best for patient

outcomes. It all really comes down to keeping costs down and there is

a whole mess of politics that I'm not going to touch related to health

care dollars.

I hope everyone out there can remember these things and don't lose

hope when you have to explain something to a doc. If you know what

works for you, teach them and use their prescriptive authority.

Encourage them to do more research. Unfortunately, there is no one

right answer to cure everyone. This also makes it harder for the doc

to research and feel like their research time was worth while.

Anyway, I ramble.

>

>

> Last week or so I posted complaining about my 2 recent colonoscopies

> and female nurses - along with other professionals - having no clue what

> Vulvodynia was. I further expressed some embarrassment with the

> never-ending explanations. We all chatted on here a bit about that!

>

> Well, today I was at annual EYE DOCTOR appt. and I had to fill out the

> form again listing my meds....anticipating the inevitable question about

> " WHY " I was on Neurontin ???

>

> I got the question all right, but after I said " Vulvodynia " the

Dr.

> said..... " Oh yes, I actually saw that mentioned on Sex and The City

and

> googled it to see what it was. "

>

> So - good news............the Dr. googled it out of curiousity...bad

> news the Dr. is a SHE and about 45 years old and should know better and

> saw the show a long time ago.

>

> I do not agree with others on here that feel it is our responsibilty to

> " educate " our educated professionals ( that we are paying a

fortune to

> ) to learn something from a tv show and never pursue it another minute.

> She even admittd that - after I gulped and got courage to explain very

> briefly my own situation , her reply was " 'Isnt that interesting? "

>

> Maybe, I should just take a more positive spin.

>