First off, I should mention that I'm a licensed carer for the elderly, and during our education we had a lot of medical training, eg. which pills are for what and what to look out for. So I know a bit about what could be wrong and why, when I hurt myself ..
A couple of months ago, I happened to dislocate my shoulder - or rather partly dislocate it - as my bus stopped too abruptly and I was clinging to a seat so I wouldn't smash into the poor woman standing behind me. It got itself back into place rather quickly, but as the pain got worse and worse throughout the day, I went into the ER in the evening.
I got a really nice doctor and a rather nasty nurse there, they took x-rays and moved my arm and shoulder around and all that. Well, nothing broken, so just take a couple of paracetamol and go to bed. Nasty nurse proceeded to berate me for borrowing some Ibuprofen 600mg from my hubby, although I'd been taking them myself recently for another, unrelated injury. Well, they weren't prescribed to me and yadda yadda yadda blah .. Unfortunately I can't take morphine as it will make me get sick and throw up a lot, so .. paracetamol would have to do.
As it doesn't improve at all after a few weeks, I go to see my own doctor - Mrs. Sucky Doctor - who touches the shoulder here and there, moves the arm around a bit and says that nothing is wrong and it'll go away with time. Right then, more pills and go home ..
I start getting pretty painful sort of "attacks", where my shoulder would suddenly start hurting like heck, without any movement or anything at all. These get worse and more frequent as time goes by, and the pain doesn't subside as it was supposed to. So I go see Mrs. Sucky Doctor a few more times, and each time I'm told to stop whining, it doesn't hurt so bad, there's nothing there and that I'm just impatient The last time I went there, begging and pleading for her to at least arrange a scan of the shoulder or something, I'm told to stop wasting her time and she flat out refuses to do anything at all. I should just go home and shut up, basically
That's when I decided to switch doctors, even though it costs something like $10 around here. Mrs. Sucky Doctor agrees to transfer everything to him as soon as possible - but more than a week later, he still doesn't have my file .. sigh ..
It only took one short session with new doc, aka. Mr. Wonderful Doctor, to fiiiinally figure out what's been bothering me for the last 3 months. He poked around the right places and did the right diagnostic movements of shoulder and arm, so finally someone who took my pain seriously. At one point he poked right at the most sore and painful part of the shoulder, and I actually almost fainted from the instant, severe pain it caused - cue Wonderful Doctor: "If that's "nothing" as my colleague said, it sure as hell shouldn't hurt that much!"
Sooo, now I got diagnosed with a frozen shoulder and rotator cuff tear - which was missed and untreated for 3 months by Mrs. Sucky Doctor. I even got a referral to get the shoulder scanned and operated as soon as they get an opening, so I'm pretty much ecstatic - even though I'm not exactly looking forward to the operation. But it'll finally fix it, so I can sleep and function again, wooohooo!
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Mrs. Sucky Doctor, but I might be lodging a complaint somewhere - I'll certainly be sure to send her every scan and x-ray and paperwork from the hospital with a note saying "See, I was right, there was something wrong. Thanks for nothing, B****" or the like ..
A couple of months ago, I happened to dislocate my shoulder - or rather partly dislocate it - as my bus stopped too abruptly and I was clinging to a seat so I wouldn't smash into the poor woman standing behind me. It got itself back into place rather quickly, but as the pain got worse and worse throughout the day, I went into the ER in the evening.
I got a really nice doctor and a rather nasty nurse there, they took x-rays and moved my arm and shoulder around and all that. Well, nothing broken, so just take a couple of paracetamol and go to bed. Nasty nurse proceeded to berate me for borrowing some Ibuprofen 600mg from my hubby, although I'd been taking them myself recently for another, unrelated injury. Well, they weren't prescribed to me and yadda yadda yadda blah .. Unfortunately I can't take morphine as it will make me get sick and throw up a lot, so .. paracetamol would have to do.
As it doesn't improve at all after a few weeks, I go to see my own doctor - Mrs. Sucky Doctor - who touches the shoulder here and there, moves the arm around a bit and says that nothing is wrong and it'll go away with time. Right then, more pills and go home ..
I start getting pretty painful sort of "attacks", where my shoulder would suddenly start hurting like heck, without any movement or anything at all. These get worse and more frequent as time goes by, and the pain doesn't subside as it was supposed to. So I go see Mrs. Sucky Doctor a few more times, and each time I'm told to stop whining, it doesn't hurt so bad, there's nothing there and that I'm just impatient The last time I went there, begging and pleading for her to at least arrange a scan of the shoulder or something, I'm told to stop wasting her time and she flat out refuses to do anything at all. I should just go home and shut up, basically
That's when I decided to switch doctors, even though it costs something like $10 around here. Mrs. Sucky Doctor agrees to transfer everything to him as soon as possible - but more than a week later, he still doesn't have my file .. sigh ..
It only took one short session with new doc, aka. Mr. Wonderful Doctor, to fiiiinally figure out what's been bothering me for the last 3 months. He poked around the right places and did the right diagnostic movements of shoulder and arm, so finally someone who took my pain seriously. At one point he poked right at the most sore and painful part of the shoulder, and I actually almost fainted from the instant, severe pain it caused - cue Wonderful Doctor: "If that's "nothing" as my colleague said, it sure as hell shouldn't hurt that much!"
Sooo, now I got diagnosed with a frozen shoulder and rotator cuff tear - which was missed and untreated for 3 months by Mrs. Sucky Doctor. I even got a referral to get the shoulder scanned and operated as soon as they get an opening, so I'm pretty much ecstatic - even though I'm not exactly looking forward to the operation. But it'll finally fix it, so I can sleep and function again, wooohooo!
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Mrs. Sucky Doctor, but I might be lodging a complaint somewhere - I'll certainly be sure to send her every scan and x-ray and paperwork from the hospital with a note saying "See, I was right, there was something wrong. Thanks for nothing, B****" or the like ..
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