Should I go back to my doctor or try a new one?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi All ,
I’d like to stress that while I’m not looking for medical advice, if you want to throw some anecdotical advice my way it would be nice,cause I’ve got the wierdest set of symptoms I’ve ever encoutered, which is prompting this question.
Right, I’ll start from the begining. About six weeks ago I got out of bed as usual and found to my surprise that it was really (and I mean really) painful to walk using my right heel. I could walk with no pain if I didn’t put any weight on my right heel. So I toddle along to the doctor as this is an unusual thing to occur without any injury at all. He is as surprised as me, and can offer no explaination, but does some blood tests to check for inflammation (to rule out athritis) and perscribes me some anti-inflammitary painkillers (difene 50mg 3x daily) So I take these anti-inflammatories and the pain decreases enough for me to stop taking them a few days later. But about a week later my wrist becomes painful, and the ankle is still sore, but this time while resting, it is not painful at all walking. So back to the doctor, he says that I have probably damaged the ligament in my ankle and it takes 6-8 weeks for that to heal, and to just wear an ankle support, and the wrist thing was probably Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and since it wasn’t paining me at the moment he didn’t seem too bothered by it.

Am I nuts, isn’t Carpal Tunnel Syndrome a bad thing, a repetitive strain injury? I’m a software developer BTW, I type 8 hours a day.

But back to the story, so about a week after that my shoulder starts paining me, basically the action of looking at my watch along with some other movements were really painful, but on the whole I could move it a fair amount. I toddle back to the doctor (BTW eur 36 per visit, this ain’t free!) He is again puzzled and gives me more anti-inflammitaries and tells me to call him in a week.

So here it is about 2 weeks later, I meant to ring him a week ago to tell him that the pain was less, but it was occuring in both shoulders, but I didn’t manage to get in touch with him. But I find that now my right wrist is very painful, and my fingers feel like they are going numb when I drive, they never actually go numb, but it’s wierd.

So the question, should I go back to my normal doctor. I know it seems like a stupid question, he seems like an idiot from what I just said but he knows my history and he is ordinarily a great doctor, and will probably just refer me immediatly to a specialist. Or I could go to a different doctor, who will maybe make me go down the taking painkillers/anti-inflammitries for a few weeks before he believes me that this is serious. It will probably be about the same cost for my normal doctor or a new one, and although I can afford it, it isn’t all that cheap.

Any thoughts?

2

Good Luck there and I would go back one more time to your doc and tell him it is time for you to see a specialist. Your pain is real and it is spreading and that is not right.

3

IA(definately)NAD and have no idea what is causing your problems, but I did have the thought that you could ask your doctor to evaluate you for Lupus. Unlikely, but worth checking out. Good luck.

4

The way you describe your doctor makes him sound extremely blase about your symptoms. If your medical coverage allows it, find another doctor. Is there a physician’s referral service in your area? Try that. If you think you have carpal tunnel syndrome, you may need to see a neurologist. Don’t trust diagnoses that may come in in reply to your original posting. See a professional.

5

Defnitely see a specialist, either an orthopedist or a neurologist, although an orthopedist should know some basic stuff about neurology and vice versa.

6

I was going to suggest seeing a rheumatologist. The ‘movement’ of the pain from one area to another could be an indicator of lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, (or probably a million other things as well), but is essential that you get specialist care for this.

Good luck!

7

Thanks for all of your good advice.
Luckily, I’m almost certain I don’t have Lupus, the blood tests done initially showed nearly no inflammation and I understand that Lupus is characterised by inflammation, similarly with athritis I understand.
Chances are that it has something to do with how flexible I am. I could be hypermobile which I understand would cause symptoms similar to mine, I also understand that hypermobility is a symptom of Marfan’s syndrome, I do have a lot of symtoms which also occur in Marfans, But I’m really hoping that that isn’t the case.
I really should stop looking on the internet for causes of my pain, there are some pretty scarey things which fit my symptoms. I’m hoping that I can just go to the doctor and hopefully he’ll just tell me I’m low on Vitamin C or something.
Wish me luck!