Going to the Doctor's office in about 3 hours

January 27, 2005

As I posted before, I was recently diagnosed. After leaving the

hospital I went to see my own doctor and she had a lot of blood work

done. Today I go for follow up with her, any ideas what I should ask

her?

January 27, 2005

Hi Clayton,

Not sure about the specific stuff that you should ask but I think

that it would be helpful to you to get an idea of what approach

this doctor will take with you - how involved she will be with your

care and treatment. She may want to let all of your pancreas

problems be handled by another doctor. For example, all of my

issues are being addressed solely by my pain doc...no GI wants

to be involved as those around my area do not think CP needs

continuing care and they are not comfortable prescribing pain

meds. Basically it will be nice for you to have an idea of what kind

of long term monitoring she recommends (as far as blood tests,

radiology, etc), if she would recommend that you be seen by a

pain doc, what you should do in case of emergencies and who

to call (that is, will she call ahead to the ER to have orders ready

for you or will you have to handle the ER docs by yourself - which

can be very hard to do). Ask what you can do for yourself on a

day by day basis - as far as food, medicines, diet, activity, etc.

Oh, of course, you need to find out how bad your pancreas really

is!

Depending on your doctor's attitude you will have an idea of how

detailed to get with your questions. Alot of docs will totally blow

you off and tell you that this is not really a disease or if it is that

there is nothing that medicine can do for you so just go home

and learn to live with it and if you have " other " problems or

emergencies to let them know - otherwise they really don't want

to be bothered with your symptoms. Hopefully you will have a

doctor that will treat you and be there for when you have pain

flares or other problems that get to be more than you can handle

on your own.

Good Luck!

Laurie (being a little cynical today I know....)

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