I still hold anger towards the doctors at the student health clinic on my college campus. I presented with severe tonsillitis. My throat was so swollen that the intake nurse called over everyone in the clinic to come stare at my throat as if I were some sort of attraction. I should clarify that she called these people over not to provide me with medical advice but just so they could gawk at how gross my throat looked. When I saw the doctor, he said it was the ‘most swollen throat he had ever seen’.
His plan of action for the pain? Take Advil. I told him I had been taking Advil and I couldn’t eat or drink anything because I was in too much pain to swallow. Apparently, though, they had a no narcotic policy at this particular clinic because of the fear of giving students narcotics. Even though they were trained physicians and I was in real pain. WTF?
If I were smart I would have gone to the local emergency room or other walk in clinic in the town where my college was. Instead, I took a five hour bus ride back home to see my family doctor who I trusted. The bus ride though, was excruciating. I was in so much pain I had to spit into an empty water bottle because it hurt too much to swallow my own saliva. The person beside me was nice enough not to stare but she surely was grossed out by sitting beside me for so long. If it didn’t hurt so much to speak, I would have explained my situation to her. But really I was in too much pain to care about her.
Fortunately, I arrived at my GP’s office just before he was finished for the day and he agreed to see me. Immediately he gave me a round of steroids and enough pain meds to take down Andy Dick.
It was the latter. The gastroenterologist put me on it in case I had GERD but before any tests were run. When her nurse called with the diagnosis that I had giardia, I asked if that meant I could stop taking the omeprazole, and she insisted I still needed it. They gave me a different prescription to get rid of the parasite. The only explanation the doctors after that gave for wanting me to stay on the omeprazole was that it was for my nausea/vomiting.
Ugh. My first pelvic exam was by the 2am on-call doctor at the ER when I was having appendicitis. They did a pelvic exam to rule out ovarian cysts. I, too, was a not-even-tampon-using virgin and he used one of the one-size fits-all METAL speculums, kept yelling at me to “relax” as I sobbed into the little pillow I was holding over my face. It felt like he was stabbing me in the vagina over and over with a knife or a pair of scissors or something. It was just horrible. And that’s on top of the rather large amount of pain I was already in on account of having appendicitis.
I’m aware of the symptoms of depression. I just don’t feel that they applied to me when I was “diagnosed”. This is why I considered the diagnosis (and subsequent prescription) to be stupidity on the doctor’s part.
They do! On Iphone it’s called “Period Tracker.” It’s rather handy-- it tells you when you’re most fertile, when you’re period should come, etc. And you can track symptoms you’re having, when you had sex, etc.
All this period talk reminds me of the lovely doctor who my mother took me to see when I was 12, vomiting and fainting with period pain. He took one look at me and said
“She’ll be OK once she’s had a baby.”
That and “take aspirin” were all the advice he gave me. Four years of utter misery later I got on the pill a month after my 16th birthday - a day I’d been waiting for with baited breath, but sadly it didn’t help. Only when one Dr finally, finally, FINALLY gave me Loxonin when I was about 19 did I get any relief. Oh and yes, the baby did help but he didn’t turn up until 19 years after that stellar advice.
I’m confused about what’s gross about a dot on my calendar. I know there are people who think their periods are so repulsive that even acknowledging awareness of them is disgusting… Is it that?
As for obsessive, I’ve had jobs and done courses that are very active and intensive. The time to find out that you’re due is not smack in the middle of a three-hour session of activity. Far from being complicated, it makes life way simpler (and means you have to think about it much less) if you know when you’re due.
Worst medical advice I’ve ever received was from my own mother, an RN.
I had terrible stomach pain – I couldn’t even button up a pair of pants. I was just out of school, working my first job, and I was still on her insurance 'cause my own hadn’t kicked in yet. So I called my mom, and she told me I was being a hypochondriac and that nothing was wrong.
But because I knew that pain on the lower right quadrant of the stomach often indicated appendicitis (thanks, random episode of “Riptide”!), I hung up on her and called my dad on his cell phone (I think he was standing right next to my mom at their house) and told him. He came to get me lickety-split and took me to the ER. Yup, it was appendicitis. Mom is a sucky nurse.
However, she quickly redeemed herself. The day after the operation, I asked the nurse for my blood sugar kit so I could test my blood sugar (I’m a type 1 diabetic). Then I asked her for some insulin. She informed me that since I couldn’t eat anything, I didn’t need insulin – and that I could start taking insulin again in a few days.
Really? And they let you work a grown-up hospital and everything?
My mother promptly kidnapped me and snuck me out of the hospital, so that I could recuperate at home with all the insulin I wanted.
Not to mention that there are a number of conditions for which a sudden change in one’s typical menstrual cycle can be a symptom. Endometrial cancer leaps to mind.
I’m just boggled that being aware of, educated about, and prepared for a bodily function is considered gross by anyone. Maybe you really are following 12-year-old girls on Twitter too much, voguevixen. I know that sounds snarkier than I mean it, but I am seriously nonplussed.
This happened to my son when he was 18 months (he’s now 45). While changing a diaper, my wife noticed a hemorrhoid. She mentioned this to her pediatrician who said infants don’t get hemorrhoids, he must have been passing a polyp. He should have a rectal examination to see if he has polyps. The guy never looked to see if there was a hemorrhoid there. So we took him to the children’s hospital and the surgeon also never examined him, but scheduled an exploratory. Naturally the kid was terrified to be in the hospital, especially since one of the other kids in the room had some problem with his penis, which frightened my son something terrible. So they gave him anesthetic (at 18 months they won’t stay still long enough for a standard colonoscopy). The surgeon came in afterwards to tell us no polyps. Great. Then, when he was half out the door, he briefly turned to us and said, “By the way, your son has hemorrhoids” and disappeared instantly.
“Period Tracker” is the name of my Android app, too. Not sure if it’s the same one–pink “daisy” flower icon? I was soooo happy when I found an app a couple of years ago and could stop tracking via Google calendar! As for why I track, since at least one person seems confused by the concept, my cycle is anywhere from 30 to 36 days. Knowing what day I’m going to start on is a crapshoot. When I’m “in the zone” according to my calendar tracking, I start wearing my Divacup and check it a few times a day until my period actually starts. That’s another nice thing about the Divacup–no wasted tampons/pads on “waiting” days.
This. When I told a doctor that I thought I was slightly allergic to my cats, she tried to convince me that I would eventually die from having my cats around because I have asthma. Bullshit. I’ve had asthma for nearly fifty years and cats for nearly forty-five, and all I get from my cats is a stuffy nose.
Luckily, the witless twerp was not my regular doctor.
I just went and downloaded it. I generally track by where I am in my pills, but that can be a crapshoot if my body decides to be fun and when I wasn’t on the pill I just didn’t bother because I pretty much never had a calendar handy so I was usually caught flat footed at the doctors.
My bad advice is nothing on the stories here, but I was horribly sick. Nauseous, tired, headaches. Went to the doc and the first time was told a stomach bug and stress, the second (same clinic different doc) said I had what was going around, here’s a script go home. Well the bug is now almost eight (and yes I’m aware of how much the two parts of my post are related).
Our 14-month-old baby has poor skin and gets rashes and various other things, as well as having a constant runny nose. Since he’s in day care, we thought the runny nose may be just part of day care. Beta-chan often got colds at about the same age.
We first took him to our normal pediatrician who would give him steroid creams. I asked if it was possible that he had allergies, but since he didn’t seem to suffer from a known food, the doctor didn’t pursue it.
After many months of this, we went to a dermatologist, who was better able to separate out the various conditions. He recommended that we have an allergy test done, and directed us to have a pediatrician do it, since drawing blood from tikes is difficult.
Our normal pediatrician had retired, so we went to a different one, who we selected because he advertised that he was a specialist in allergies. This guy wouldn’t do it, and wanted to make sure that we were doing “proper skin care” for a couple of months before running the test, which would only take 30 seconds and then the lab work.
Fuck that. We went to another doctor who did do the test, and sure enough, he’s strongly allergic to some foods, including peanuts and eggs.
So, the first pediatrician wouldn’t run the tests because he wasn’t positive it was allergies, and the second one wanted us to jump through his hoops before doing so.
We’ve now got anther specialist looking at him, so I hope we can make some progress.
Had a doctor, 2 months after my car accident. “Take off your back brace and go back to work, you are fine. Here’s another script for Tylenol 3.”
Called the insurance company and got approved for a second opinion…Dr. V hit the roof when he looked at my x-rays. Tailbone that had been crushed was not fully healed and I broke and separated 2 vertebrae. Ended up having 2 rods and a screw put into my spine the next January. (My x-rays now look like they are brought to you by the letter “A”)
I asked my OB about this once, it’s not that women don’t know when they menstruate, but that they might not know exactly when in their cycle they got pregnant, so doctors give a window rather than an exact date.
I ovulate really early in my cycle, right after my period ends. Some women do so right in the middle and some at the end right before their period starts. So in Doctor Doofus’ defense, the day you conceived can vary by a week or two even if you mark your calendar like clockwork every month.