My trust in doctors is so low right now

[Anonymous]

It’s not any one doctor but the general experience of being passed around from specialist to specialist- with pricey co pays and tests and too much time spent- none of whom seem to think outside the box of their specialty. I had a gyn tell me yesterday that she could prescribe topical HRT (lotion), but not systemic HRT (patch and pills) because her practice doesn’t ’do that’ - not for any particular reason she could explain and she said she’s a proponent of HRT.

I’m not dying but I’ve had ongoing fatigue and headaches and some related issues- probably mostly hormone related and I’m on HRT and thyroid meds- and no one seems interested or able to address it well, other than being happy to shuttle me off to another doctor under their umbrella center for tests and more tests that typically come back ‘green’ eg, fine (although I’ve noticed no one bothers to note if my test results are borderline low normal or high normal as example)

I know I’m lucky to have good health insurance, and if I had cancer or another serious illness, I’d probably be happy to have doctors treat me, but everything else? Eh. So uninspiring and so expensive too.

[Anonymous]

Doctors can't really handle anything outside the normal issues. They are rarely interested in investigating. The doctor shows on TV are hilarious when they show personable doctors who care about finding the underlying problem. That's not been my experience at all. I've solved medical mysteries for 3 relatives and friends and I have zero medical training. It's ridiculous.

I'm sorry about your symptoms. I assume you're trying all the normal stuff like good sleep hygiene, healthy diet, regular exercise?

[Anonymous]

I highly recommend this for some comic relief:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Qz2qWXy3xJo

[Anonymous]

Maybe stop going to them for "fatigue and headaches" if nothing is actually wrong?

[Anonymous]

I was just thinking today how I am treated at doctors exactly the same as I was 30 years ago, and surely there’s more advanced… stuff they could be doing for me but I suck at research and have no idea what to ask for, and it’s a shame it’s on me to be proactive and I can’t rely on doctors to be at all innovative or forward thinking. I am going to die of something preventable because I didn’t know what to ask for.

[Anonymous]

OP I hear you! I have been dealing with bad migraines and symptoms of autoimmune issues (joint pain, swelling, fatigue, mysterious rashes that appear out of nowhere) and it's like there is no one who can help me. Then I had a weird incident with my eye where there was no pain but I had these weird vertical lines traveling across my line of vision. I talked to my opthamologist, thinking it might be something with my retina, but he thought it might actually be something called an ocular migraine, which I'd never heard of. So then I went to my neurologist who was also like "I've never heard of that" and also seemed weirdly uninterested in something that seemed like a pretty alarming symptom to me. The migraine med I was on gave my a scary rash (like hives territory, rapidly spreading rash all over my upper body after I took it) so I stopped taking it, but the neurologist said "you don't really have to worry unless your throat starts to close." Meanwhile I have all these other skin issues that seem like they might be autoimmune (weird bumps behind my ears that come and go, random rashes, and these occasional pimples that are like a single cyst of cystic acne, but my dermatologist is like "I've never seen anything like this before). I want to get a new neurologist but waitlists are long and in the meantime I want to see either a rheumatologist or an immunologist (or maybe an allergist?) for the autoimmune stuff but my insurance is being weird and wants a referral and my GP is like *shrug* "I don't know."

Mostly I just feel like no one cares. I go, I make my copay, sometimes they prescribe something, sometimes they don't. When I come back and say "this didn't work" or "this worked but I have this weird side effect" it's like there's no interest in figuring it out.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I never feel more alone and uncared for than when I go to the doctor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I hear you! I have been dealing with bad migraines and symptoms of autoimmune issues (joint pain, swelling, fatigue, mysterious rashes that appear out of nowhere) and it's like there is no one who can help me. Then I had a weird incident with my eye where there was no pain but I had these weird vertical lines traveling across my line of vision. I talked to my opthamologist, thinking it might be something with my retina, but he thought it might actually be something called an ocular migraine, which I'd never heard of. So then I went to my neurologist who was also like "I've never heard of that" and also seemed weirdly uninterested in something that seemed like a pretty alarming symptom to me. The migraine med I was on gave my a scary rash (like hives territory, rapidly spreading rash all over my upper body after I took it) so I stopped taking it, but the neurologist said "you don't really have to worry unless your throat starts to close." Meanwhile I have all these other skin issues that seem like they might be autoimmune (weird bumps behind my ears that come and go, random rashes, and these occasional pimples that are like a single cyst of cystic acne, but my dermatologist is like "I've never seen anything like this before). I want to get a new neurologist but waitlists are long and in the meantime I want to see either a rheumatologist or an immunologist (or maybe an allergist?) for the autoimmune stuff but my insurance is being weird and wants a referral and my GP is like *shrug* "I don't know."

Mostly I just feel like no one cares. I go, I make my copay, sometimes they prescribe something, sometimes they don't. When I come back and say "this didn't work" or "this worked but I have this weird side effect" it's like there's no interest in figuring it out.

I have been getting migraines since my 20s. They used to be what you read about, pain in one side of head, nausea, vomiting. Even diarrhea. My challenge was to crawl out of bed before the nausea made me throw up my meds.

In my 40s I started getting auras. Typically they were dancing zebralike black and white snakes with some color. Or a shimmering.

Now I get the shimmering or a blurry field of vision. My meds take care of it.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I get ocular migraines, though less frequently now that I figured dehydration was a trigger for me. I get wavy lines in my vision, sometimes colorful zig zag ones, then a headache on one side of my head. A doctor who has not heard of an ocular migraine is an idiot.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24961-ocular-migraine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I highly recommend this for some comic relief:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Qz2qWXy3xJo

Yep. Exactly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doctors can't really handle anything outside the normal issues. They are rarely interested in investigating. The doctor shows on TV are hilarious when they show personable doctors who care about finding the underlying problem. That's not been my experience at all. I've solved medical mysteries for 3 relatives and friends and I have zero medical training. It's ridiculous.

I'm sorry about your symptoms. I assume you're trying all the normal stuff like good sleep hygiene, healthy diet, regular exercise?

Yep, all of that.

At this point, I’m not even sure what good doctors are for at all, even including normal issues. I used to be able to depend on them giving me antibiotics when I had an ongoing nasal infection, as example. And now it seems I have to fight with my primary care for that- last year they told me to use a Neti pot- so what’s the point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I hear you! I have been dealing with bad migraines and symptoms of autoimmune issues (joint pain, swelling, fatigue, mysterious rashes that appear out of nowhere) and it's like there is no one who can help me. Then I had a weird incident with my eye where there was no pain but I had these weird vertical lines traveling across my line of vision. I talked to my opthamologist, thinking it might be something with my retina, but he thought it might actually be something called an ocular migraine, which I'd never heard of. So then I went to my neurologist who was also like "I've never heard of that" and also seemed weirdly uninterested in something that seemed like a pretty alarming symptom to me. The migraine med I was on gave my a scary rash (like hives territory, rapidly spreading rash all over my upper body after I took it) so I stopped taking it, but the neurologist said "you don't really have to worry unless your throat starts to close." Meanwhile I have all these other skin issues that seem like they might be autoimmune (weird bumps behind my ears that come and go, random rashes, and these occasional pimples that are like a single cyst of cystic acne, but my dermatologist is like "I've never seen anything like this before). I want to get a new neurologist but waitlists are long and in the meantime I want to see either a rheumatologist or an immunologist (or maybe an allergist?) for the autoimmune stuff but my insurance is being weird and wants a referral and my GP is like *shrug* "I don't know."

Mostly I just feel like no one cares. I go, I make my copay, sometimes they prescribe something, sometimes they don't. When I come back and say "this didn't work" or "this worked but I have this weird side effect" it's like there's no interest in figuring it out.

I have been getting migraines since my 20s. They used to be what you read about, pain in one side of head, nausea, vomiting. Even diarrhea. My challenge was to crawl out of bed before the nausea made me throw up my meds.

In my 40s I started getting auras. Typically they were dancing zebralike black and white snakes with some color. Or a shimmering.

Now I get the shimmering or a blurry field of vision. My meds take care of it.

What meds are you on?

[Anonymous]

100% agree. If they’re infuriated by patients questioning their knowledge, they have no one to blame but themselves.

[Anonymous]

OP, go back and tell her that’s fine, you are just going to buy HRT from India off the Internet. Her loss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, go back and tell her that’s fine, you are just going to buy HRT from India off the Internet. Her loss.

Wut?