I read this article recently. I was also a fan of Mystery Diagnosis, where people suffer strange ailments for years because of misdiagnoses.
I have only encountered a misdiagnosis once, when my appendix burst two weeks after my son was born. I spent two weeks in a VA hospital while they futzed around, finally doing a “band-aid” surgery where they inserted a syringe and sucked out the pus.
Fast forward twenty odd years, when I had my hysterectomy, and the surgeon took photos. Lo and behold, there’s my appendix, intact and innocent. Did it grow back? We’ll never know.
I haven’t encountered any condescension on the part of medical professionals, though, but I know it’s not unheard of. Have you suffered because of a misdiagnosis or because a doctor blew you off?
Yup. One doctor told me I had cancer, he was positive. Glad he ordered a biopsy before scheduling surgery. Several doctors missed a serious blood disorder, the one that found it was in a totally different specialty but he wanted to check everything before making his own diagnosis. Then suffered for over a year because dumbass specialists weren’t up to date in their own field. Never stop checking until you get a confirmed diagnosis, then find the best specialists in the field for treatment.
When I was about 13 I went through a spell where I had *terrible *headaches all the time and would fall asleep at the drop of a hat. My pediatrician treated me for a sinus infection for about 6 months, which made sense because for 13 years he had been treating me over and over again for ear infections and strep throat so “your sinuses are wonky” was pretty logical.
I started having spots in my vision so I went to my eye doctor. The eye doctor said my optical nerve was splintered and I was either having a stroke or something else bad and he actually sent me to a specialist that night. I saw a pediatric neurologist and right away I was diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri, or too much spinal fluid. One spinal tap and one overnight hospital stay and I was good as new. Oh also I had to get off the antibiotics and hormones I’d been put on (by an endocrinologist) for my acne.
Oddly enough I still go to that eye doctor and the pediatrician is now my brother’s father-in-law. I don’t think he was too stressed by the misdiagnosis because he didn’t come rushing to my bedside or anything, and what I had wasn’t deadly (just could have blinded me). He remained my doctor until I was about 20, actually.
I am a woman with two torn shoulders, and I have seen a series of orthopedic surgeons about them. They were all men whose big claim to fame was that they were surgeons for major sports teams. All but one of them were extremely arrogant and condescending, spending more time telling me about their amazing qualifications than listening to my concerns. I wanted to know what’s going on with my shoulder, not hear some story about the medical problems of a baseball player I’ve never heard of. I finally found one who was really helpful (even though he was also surgeon to an NFL team), but it took a long time and I was very frustrated with the way I was treated along the way. I was also amused by the way each surgeon insisted that none of the others knew anything and he was the only one with the right course of treatment.
I had a wide excision on a mole that turned out to be benign. The doctor–who also wanted to intravinate me for mild dehydration–wouldn’t even do a shave biopsy first. His incision left an impressive scar, too. It looks sort of like the mark left behind when you smoosh a house centipede.
Another doctor diagnosed me with Restless Leg Syndrome that turned out to be nerve problems caused by thyroid disease.
Back in 1988, I was having lots of trouble with hypnogognic hallucinations and excessive daytime sleepiness. I went to a doctor convinced I had narcolepsy. She said “Everyone has bad dreams. Get over it.” Cut to 1998, I take a sleep test. I have narcolepsy. The doctor I was seeing then said “I’m not prescribing Ritalin for you. You’ll sell it to your friends.” This was our second meeting. No I have never sold or given prescription medication to anyone.
Always remember, Doctors “practice” medicine. It’s called a medical “practice”. I’m not saying that to slam doctors, just to point out it is important to level set expectations.
And then there are sleep studies. I had to get one to rule out sleep apnea, after the insurance company and my pulmonary specialist looked at the results and said i don’t have sleep apnea they kept on trying to sell me a CPAP machine. There’s a very specific definition for the symptoms, you have to have at least 5 disruptions per hour of sleep. I didn’t hit that threshold, they still kept trying to say I had it anyway. Their major justification, I have a large neck.
I spent 6 years going to the hospital every few months brya with terrible abdominal pain. The docs at St. Francis just said gastric distress and accused me of drug seeking.
Finally I went to Evanston Hospital, the ultrasound guy saw immediately that my gall bladder was basically one giant stone so it didn’t show up like a normal stone would.
Surgery 10 hours later. 11 years on and no more pain. Sent the film and bill for Evanston to St. Francis and told them not to ever send me a bill again.
When I was younger, I had to have a pelvic exam for only the second time. The first time was a really bad experience, so I was nervous and told the doctor as much. She stuck her fingers up inside me and stood there lecturing me about why I was a wuss to be uncomfortable with the exam. I was young enough that I was mortified and afraid to say anything to anyone. It took some years before I grew a stronger backbone. What a bitch…
Some years later, in the Navy, I’d been having some very painful periods, so I went to sick call. The doc who examined me said my uterus was the size of a basketball and I had cancer. :eek: Naturally, I freaked out. I was a bit overweight, but I didn’t have a basketball-size gut. When I went back to get the test results, I had a different doctor who told me, in not so many words, that the first doc was full of crap. I did have a couple of ovarian cysts, but no cancer. Shortly thereafter, the second doctor did surgery and I was fine.
A few months back, I went to an orthopedist about shoulder pain that had persisted for some months. I’m pretty sure her photo is next to “condescending” in the dictionary. Not to mention sitting in an exam room, waiting for over 45 minutes past my appointment times. I never went back to her, and my shoulder eventually got better on its own.
Spent three months in ever-growing and eventually excruciating stomach pain and upset, to the point that I lost 30 pounds in 2 months (not a great weight-loss plan, fyi). When antacids and blockers repeatedly did nothing, the official diagnosis became “stress” and I was told to go away and see a shrink.
I got a cat scan instead and discovered that my IUD had dislodged itself (probably a few months earlier when I was rear-ended) and had punctured my peritoneum. I was essentially dying slowly of abdominal sepsis.
GP was apologetic, but informed me that I hadn’t reported my pain adequately enough for him to know that it was something physically serious. This despite the fact that I threw up on him in his office, and was quite literally not eating or drinking for nearly a week because of the pain. :dubious: :eek: :smack:
I had a port put in so I could get my chemo drugs when I had breast cancer. So instead of having to dig for a vein in my arm, they just put the IV in my port.
I didn’t suffer because of a misdiagnosis, but it did freak my then-boss out, and did so by violating my medical confidentiality.
I’d gotten chemical pneumonia from work, and had to go get an x-ray to be allowed back after. They sent me to a doc-in-the-box place. Which called up my boss and told him I had a spot on my lung and had better go to my own doctor PDQ.
So, x-ray in hand, I went to my doc. Who confirmed a spot on one lung, and a spot on the other lung in the exact same place. And a row of spots down the center of my chest.
… They’d forgotten to have me take off my button-down shirt before the x-ray, and had diagnosed lung cancer from the button shadow. I didn’t call the doc-in-the-box place back, but the company did stop using their services, at least.