What reality are you in? No, really?

[Kisa]

So I was at the doctors for a well visit. I had planned to ask for a script for pain meds. Long story short, I've had chronic pain for a while and no non-perscription medication does the trick. My usual doctor, who I love, was not in this particular day, so I saw a different doctor who I hated. I have only seen her twice in my life.

First Time

I am also a chronic allergy sufferer. I went to try to find a new allergy medication.

Sucky Doctor: What are your allergy symptoms?
Me: I have post nasal drip, drowsiness, and sometimes a runny nose and/or itchy throat.
SD: Do you have nasal congestion?
Me: No.
SD: Do you have itchy, watery eyes?
Me: No.
SD: Do you have trouble breathing?
Me: No.
SD: Do you have a cough?
Me: No
SD: Do you get sore throats?
Me: No, not really.
SD: *does some stuff, checks eyes, ears, nost throat etc.* Ok. I'm going to write you a couple scripts.
Me: Ok, thank you.
SD: Here's one for eye drops for your itchy, watery eyes.
Me: But I don't have itchy, watery eyes.
SD: Well, this will help. Here's one for your asthma.
Me: I don't have asthma.
SD: And one for nasal congestion.

It went on like this until I had 5 scripts (none of which were helpful, none of which I filled) in hand. She gave me one for every allergy symptom imaginable, EXCEPT the one's I ACTUALLY HAD!!

Second Time

She checked me over. I casually brought up the pain meds. She asked what the problem was. I went over my basic symptoms, and also told her I was seeing 2 other doctors for it but was unable to get a perscription because one doctor is on vacation and the other is helping the Peace Corps in Africa for 3 months. My main sypmtom is pain. Mostly in my abdomen, but also in other parts like my legs, sholders, ribs and back. She laid me down on the table and asked me where it hurt the most right now. I pointed out the spot which was near my hip. She then proceded to push on my stomach all over until I was in TEARS, sat me up, and told me the pain wasn't real.

SD: You are depressed and your depression is making you imagine pains.
Me: I'm not depressed. And I'm not making this up.
SD: You have stress-induced depression. You need to go on anti-depressants and you need a psychiatrist.

I then told her about a few examples of my pain. Once, my stomach hurt so bad I fell down the stairs because I couldn't stand up anymore. I lay there, crying, unable to move until the pain ebbed a bit. I was able to CRAWL into my room, but I couldn't stand up to get on my bed, so I curled up into a ball and cried on the floor for a half hour. Another time, I woke up at 3am because my stomach hurt SO bad. I took 3 Advil (I know you're only supposed to take 1-2) but it did nothing at all. I couldn't stand up, I couldnt sit, I couldn't lay down, I couldn't stand still, I had to limp around the room at a 85 degree angle. I couldn't stop crying, I was grinding my teeth, and I was in so much pain, I couldn't think straight. If the Advil bottle wasn't so far away, I would have taken 3 more in a heartbeat. Sometimes, my stomach hurts so bad, I throw up if I eat anything at all.

SD: Which is why you need anti-depressants.
Me: You're diagnosis doesn't cover all my symptoms.
SD: Acid reflux.
Me: I don't have heartburn or acid etching on my throat.
SD: Acid reflux and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Me: The pain isn't consistant with my stress level, or my eating schedule.
SD: Well that's what you have.
Me: Regular Doctor and Specialist Doctor both told me it was not anything to do with my digestive system or my emotions. Are you saying you are a better doctor than they are?
SD: No. I'm saying I'm right.

She told me I had acid reflux, IBS, stress-induced depression, anorexia and imaginary pain.
My other 2 doctors told me it sounded like Endometriosis or scar tissue in my intestines. Occam's Razor anyone?

In the end, she started telling me I was in denial and that I should stop being childish and see things her way. I saw red. I told her to leave now and to not say another word to me.

When Specialist Doctor came back from his Africa trip, he gave me Tylenol 3 that helps quite a bit. Not as much as I had hoped though...

[iradney]

Please tell me you reported Sucky Doctor? Writing scripts for symptoms you DON'T have is such a big, screamingly neon red flag....

[rose_metal_nz]

Please tell me you reported Sucky Doctor? Writing scripts for symptoms you DON'T have is such a big, screamingly neon red flag....

^ THIS. that woman scares me from several continents away.

[EricKei]

Indeed. Her insistence upon the depression and psych stuff, despite the evidence to the contrary, suggests a slightly-too-close connection to either a shrink, a place that makes depression meds, or both...>_<

[Sapphire Silk]

Is your regular doc doing any follow up to confirm the diagnosis?

If it is scar tissue, there may not be much that can be done.

Endometriosis, otoh, is treatable. Is the pain connected with your cycle? If not, I'd be more inclined to think of other things.

[BlaqueKatt]

Endometriosis, otoh, is treatable. Is the pain connected with your cycle? If not, I'd be more inclined to think of other things.

uterine fibroid tumors can be quite painful, as can kidney stones....I've had both, still have the tumors....

[Sapphire Silk]

uterine fibroid tumors can be quite painful, as can kidney stones....I've had both, still have the tumors....

I've had kidney stones as well . . . excruciating.

[Kisa]

Please tell me you reported Sucky Doctor? Writing scripts for symptoms you DON'T have is such a big, screamingly neon red flag....

I did make a call. Sadly, she wrote in my chart that I told her I had those symptoms so they changed my chart and apologised for her

Is your regular doc doing any follow up to confirm the diagnosis?

If it is scar tissue, there may not be much that can be done.

Endometriosis, otoh, is treatable. Is the pain connected with your cycle? If not, I'd be more inclined to think of other things.

The pain doesn't restrict itself to my "mentration days" but the pain does follow my (irregular and extreme) cycle perfectly. I'm seeing a gynecologist and I had 3 ultrasounds and a battery of tests done. They found a big cyst on my ovary and a few smaller ones. They shrank with bc, but I stopped taking them. Bc pills make me queesy....

[Kisa]

I added a post with a better discription of my symptoms. Link

[LadyAndreca]

I think I'm VERY lucky that my awesome-but-extremely-busy doctor added an equally-awesome doctor to his practice to help with the workload. Yours was nuts!

[XCashier]

I did make a call. Sadly, she wrote in my chart that I told her I had those symptoms so they changed my chart and apologised for her

Just from what I'm reading here, it sounds to me like she's pulled this stunt on other patients before. I wonder if there's any way they can fire her?

Are your ususal doctor and the sucky doctor the only two doctors at your clinic? Are there any others you can go to if Usual Doctor is unavailable? You don't need to deal with Sucky Doctor's crap on top of everything else.

[Sapphire Silk]

I did make a call. Sadly, she wrote in my chart that I told her I had those symptoms so they changed my chart and apologised for her

Not cool. Not cool at all. That's falsification of documentation, and it is a CRIME. She should be reported to the Medical Board.

The pain doesn't restrict itself to my "mentration days" but the pain does follow my (irregular and extreme) cycle perfectly. I'm seeing a gynecologist and I had 3 ultrasounds and a battery of tests done. They found a big cyst on my ovary and a few smaller ones. They shrank with bc, but I stopped taking them. Bc pills make me queesy....

Hmm. Sounds like a GYN problem to me. Did you talk to your GYN about a different type of BC? Did the symptoms go away on the BC? If they did, another formulation might work better for you, have fewer side effects.

But I understand the issue with BC. I quit taking it because it make me gain a lot of weight.

[Captain Trips]

Sounds like an "old school" doctor.

You say you have pain. You're a woman, so you're wrong. You don't have pain, you have an emotional need to pretend to be in pain so you can get the pills you addicted yourself to. You don't have pain, you have depression. Like all women. Oh, and you don't have any of the symptoms you were asked about -- you are a woman, so you are lying about that, too. Here are the meds to treat what you don't say you have -- and let's put this in your chart so that you won't be able to lie about this again...after all, you are a woman, so you don't know a darned thing about your own medical condition.

And this was a woman doctor that took this attitude? Just wait until SHE gets ovarian fibroids! (I'm not a woman, but being married to one for almost 16 years I've learned a few things -- like how so many doctors have their heads firmly planted in the 19th century!)

[Ben_Who]

I will never have a medical symptom as scary as a doctor who refuses to listen to me when I tell him that I have it.

I had a dentist where, if I explained to him about pain I was having, you could literally see his eyes glaze over. He simply wasn't interested in anything his patients had to say. It got worse if the pain was associated with something he'd already worked on (he gave me a poorly-fitted crown). THEN he got huffy. When the tooth became noticeably infected, he threw me out of his office.

I went in for my usual annual eye appointment. I've always been a bit deuteranopic, and said so when the clinician put up the Ishihara test. "That one's 37...that one's 5...I don't see a number in the next one...or the next...Nope, no number in that one, either..." She got a look of concern on her face and all but fled the room. A moment later, the opthalmologist himself was in the room asking me some questions in a Grave And Serious tone of voice. He said that the test had shown no anomalies last year...

I thought about that and said, "But you didn't give me an Ishihara test last year."

Turned out that the clinician who was supposed to have given me the test had forgotten, and covered up by insisting that I'd passed with flying colors, so to speak, and dutifully recording so on my chart. This gave the staff the impression that I had developed severe color-blindness over the course of a few months for no discernable reason. No wonder they were all freaking out.

[BrenDAnn]

The doctor in the OP would fit in well at the local band-aid station hospital/doctor's office. They (a PAC, by the way, not even a doctor, because hey, small town place, etc) managed to misdiagnose my mother not once but twice, when she had every symptom imaginable of pancreatic cancer. Needless to say, I don't go to said hospital or the doctor's office that is part of it unless I have something very minor--like a cut needing a band-aid, or the flu--going on with me.