Exactly. Plus it wasn’t allergies at all, it was a sinus infection + bad cold. It was her dismissive tone that rubbed me wrong. She was the same doctor that completely brushed me off (another time) because her previous patient “had more important things going on” than me and could I make an appointment for another day. She didn’t even know what my complaint was.
Not nearly as bad other poster’s bad medical advice, it’s just the one that comes to mind. I guess it was more “crappy bedside manner.”
In middle school, I was at a park district event as a performer when my sandal-clad foot slipped off a step and the toe next to my big toe caught on the edge of the step and was yanked sideways. Due to liability concerns, they sent me to the ER in an ambulance. The doctor looks at my foot - toe is swollen and draped diagonally over the big toe. He holds the X-ray up to look at it via the overhead room light (not a viewer), says, “that’s just sprained” and discharges me.
Weeks later I have my follow-up with my pediatrician, who looks at the toe - now not draped over the big toe but raised vertically higher than the other toes - and says, “that was broken.” He pulled out the X-ray, puts it on the viewer, and shows me the clearly-visible break. Now it’s healed, out of place, and I opted not to go through a rebreaking. I can’t wear shoes that are too narrow in the toe box. So, the bolded statement above is the first thing that comes to mind.
I grew up with serous lung issues [as in penumonia every year from when I was born until I was 12. Turns out I am particularly suceptible to strep] and the school I was in sent me to an allergist. After being scratched and poked all over, I was deemed allergic to 135 different substances - including rabbit, goat, dog, cat and horse, and 5 types of industrial dusts, molds and mildews. Seeing that I never had sniffles that were not associated with a head cold, and never came into contact with rabbit fur or goats :rolleyes: he wanted my parents to start some injections that back in the early 70s would have cost several thousand dollars a month and go on intermidibly, NO. The strep issue resolved when I stopped going to boarding school, I can still get strep at the drop of a hat, but we know to hit the doc up for antibiotics, and it has stopped rolling into pneumonia.
My worst advice back when I was 17 was in response to 1,1,1-trichlorethane poisoning. I was being exposed to it a fair amount at work, and developed migraines in addition to my hormone driven migraines. Went to a neurologist, and he put me on elavil. Elavil is better than LSD for me, I lay in bed and hallucinate when I can stay awake. I either slept or hallucinated for just over a week, when my mom called the doc. He didn’t even bother talking with her, he had the nurse call back and tell my mom to double the dose - it ‘would go away eventually’. Keeping in mind I emancipated myself at 16, you can tell how desperate I was to go home and stay at my parents house [my dad was away on business, only reason I went back. My roomie of the time had to drive me because I couldn’t stay awake long enough to go to work or drive anywhere. It was there or the hospital.] Mom took me off elavil totally and told the nurse to tell the doctor to go screw himself. Literally, she was pissed as hell at the whole issue.
Not bad advice, but I went through 4 OB/GYNs before I found David - everybody else just told me the nasty cramps and bleeding would go away after I was pregnant a few times:dubious: Interesting treatment for PCOS…he put me on birth control that handled it.
I can’t think of any stupid advice given to me by my doctor, but I do remember some rage at the fact that I was forced to continue seeing a pediatrician until I was 18. And none of the doctors said anything about it to my mom - none of them asked, “Hey maybe she needs to see a grown-up doctor now”. Not to mention she insisted on being inside the room with me every time. So much for trying to actually tell the doctor anything myself. :rolleyes:
Sometimes I miss my mom. Most of the time, I’m so glad she’s dead, terrible as that sounds.
When I was about 20, I developed an awful burning, swollen red patch on the side of my right knee that sort of curved around and up my thigh a bit. That patch was CRAZY itchy and burny, so I went into the college health center. The doctor looked at it and told me he wasn’t sure what it was, but that I should pick up some Lotrimin (the athlete’s foot spray) and spray it on my leg a few times a day.
Perplexed, I went and bought the foot spray, dutifully spraying that crap all over my leg for another day or two. Oh god, the burning! When things didn’t improve at all, I went to my regular doctor.
Regular doctor glanced down at my leg while he was walking over to the stool (didn’t even pause in his step-- just glanced as walking by) and said: “Oh, you’ve got shingles. Ouch. Yeah, we’ll fix you up quick.”
So, apparently, I had VISIBLY OBVIOUS SHINGLES, but the other doctor told me to spray athlete’s foot crap on my leg. Lovely.
Diosa’s story reminds me of something! When I was fifteen I got malaria from a trip to India, and none of the doctors in the States knew what it was! They thought hepatitis, or mono, cholera, or any number of sexually transmitted diseases, and gave my mom all sorts of advice. I didn’t include it because I don’t remember too much of those two weeks; I was sick as a dog and barely remember even my conscious times. Then, we called an Indian doctor who upon hearing the symptoms was like “Yup, that’s malaria; I’ll get her some quinine”.
In the American doctors’ defense, none of them had ever seen the malaria spirochete. (I think it’s a spirochete). Not even in the lab, just in pictures.
My SO was having major pain in his stomach and he was getting very bloated and feeling horrible and losing weight by the minute.
The doctor felt his stomach and then told us to go to Walgreens and pick up some Anti-Gas tablets and that should do the trick.
Luckily I am stubborn and we went to another doctor the next day.
My SO had a severe liver disease, the bloating was caused by ascites and he came very close to dying. He needed IMMEDIATE surgery ($65,000 TIPS procedure) and is now OK.
(There was a second idiot doctor involved who correctly diagnosed the problem, but told him there was nothing that could be done and he would be dead in six months. Stubborn as I was, we went to the third doctor who sent him in for the surgery that saved his life.)
I haven’t been given bad advice (that I remember, anyway), but my husband received some really stupid information from one doc and I was given terrible advice for my son by another two.
Husband had intense pressure in his chest, arm was tingling and couldn’t breathe. It passed, luckily, but I insisted he see a doc. The doctor didn’t bother asking about his family’s medical history or even my husband’s medical history. He didn’t ask for more detail when my husband informed him that he’d gained about 15 pounds in the last year and ate really poorly and never exercised. The doctor’s response? Well. If you’ve gained weight, you should probably get bigger clothes. That was it.
Eight months old and my son can’t breathe. As in, he’s got his mouth wide open in this awful, silent scream, thrashing, trying so hard just to get some air. He hadn’t eaten most of the day, so we were also worried about the danger of dehydration. So we head for the ER and our son passes out along the way because my husband had gotten him into a position where he could breathe and he collapsed from exhaustion (he’d been awake 18 hours, having trouble breathing for an hour). We get to the ER and he’s diagnosed with RSV. Instead of giving him anything at all (breathing treatment, inhaler, anything) to clear his airways, the doctor tells us to keep him in the position he’s in, give him some Triaminic and put him in bed. Not to worry, he says. He’ll be fine. That didn’t sit right, so I took him to his pediatrician the next day, who immediately gave him a breathing treatment, a prescription for albuterol and found that he had a double ear infection.
Again with my son. During his one-month checkup, we found out that the pediatrician we’d signed him up to see had chosen to leave the practice and we got whoever happened to be on rotation in the practice. This guy turned out to be a throwback from the 70s and told me that I shouldn’t bother trying to breastfeed him and that I should give him some sugar water so he’d “leave me alone.” We quickly found a different pediatrician and have been taking our son and now our daughter to her ever since.
Looks like it was bad medical advice, because the problem wasn’t even allergies!
For previous posters, including the person who said that doctors can “fix” allergies; it doesn’t work like that. Epi-pens are common prescriptions precisely because doctors can’t fix allergies! If the doctor had been right about his diagnosis, your two options would indeed have been “get rid of the cat” or “deal with it.” Good thing he was wrong.
I’m about to get allergy shots starting next year. Supposedly they will make my allergies significantly easier to deal with and possibly even “fix them” or pretty close to it. It will take a while, though.
Allergies are only your body’s own insane histamine reaction to innocuous things, so i’m sure technology will eventually find a way to make your histamine calm down except for a real threat.
I’ve also had the moronic insomnia comments.
Doc told my sister she had gas and sent her home (she was in a locked group home at the time). After another 2 days of horrible pain and suffering, she finally convinced the staff members to take her to the ER. They told her that if she wasn’t dying, they’d have her taken to juvenile lockup. Her appendix was taken out that night and was apparently the closest to bursting the surgeon had ever seen.
Not a doctor - the same sister just had a PT tell her to take excessive amounts of an NSAID for 3 days - minutes after she told him she’s on Cymbalta. Luckily my sister actually reads the warnings on her drugs. She called the pharmacist to confirm that it’s a bad combination and then warned her employer that their PT is giving out medical advice he’s not qualified to give.
I’m a bit confused by this. Pediatricians are doctors who take care of infants, children, and adolescents, sometimes up to age 21. Why would you switch to “a grown-up doctor” before age 18? The only other kind of doctor who would see you would be a family practitioner, and the only reason they’d see you is that they treat pediatric patients.
Also, doctors are supposed to ask parents to leave for part of the time once patients are 12 or so, but it may be very hard to do so if the parent insists on staying.
Not really bad advice as such, but last year I visited my doctor and described my symptoms to him. His reply was, “That’s weird, I wonder what it is”. Not really what I wanted to hear!
**Me: **Daily nosebleeds, obvious facial swelling, fairly severe pain.
Doctor: “Looks like a bad sinus infection. I’ll give you some antibiotics.”
Same doctor, several weeks later: “You’ve got a bad infection. We’ll try a different antibiotic.”
Same doctor, several months, four different antibiotics and lots of painkillers later:“These darn antibiotics aren’t cutting it. Maybe you’ve got nasal polyps. I’ll refer you to a specialist.”
Specialist (after a 10-minute exam) “Advanced nasal carcinoma. We’ll operate day after tomorrow, then set you up with 8 weeks of radiation, then some plastic surgeries to repair the damage…”
Me “Arrrghhh!!”
In fairness to the first doctor, it’s a fairly rare condition. He’d probably never seen it before.
My eye doctor sent me to a specialist to check something out. She examined my eyes, and it turns out that they are fine but pretty dry. She asks about lifestyle causes, and if I get enough sleep. At the time, I had an 11-month-old who (like a LOT of babies that age) didn’t sleep through the night - so, no, I wasn’t getting enough sleep. She said, “Well, you’ll just have to let him cry.” Nevermind that that’s a hotbutton issue among mothers, she was dispensing it as if it were medical advice, even though she’d never seen or met my son - and even though she was nowhere NEAR a pediatrician. She didn’t even know if we DID let him cry it out, or if he had special needs or medical issues or anything. Pissed me right off.
When I was 16 and severely depressed (because I was actively being abused at home) I went to my doctor who suggested that I knit or find a good book to read. When I said those weren’t very helpful, he said I was being difficult and maybe I should start going to church.
The same doctor said I had a “trick heart” because I often felt like I was dying of a heart attack. Turns out I was having panic attacks.
