Would you go back to this doctor or find a new one?

It hurts when I take a deep breath. Some days it’s worse, some days it’s better. Sometimes it hurts in my chest, sometimes in the muscles around the ribcage, sometimes one one or the other side just below the ribcage.

I went to the doctor about a year ago regarding this. He happened to have a person in the office that day doing stress tests, so he had me do one.

That showed no problems at all. So my heart is fine. The office called me to tell me that, and that the doctor said to lose weight.

Since then, I’ve tracked the problem, and found that it gets worse on an approximately 4 week cycle.

Here’s what I’m having problems with - the doctor came to a conclusion that it was most likely heart problems, and when that didn’t pan out, he sort of blew me off - he didn’t go any farther to make sure there wasn’t something else causing a problem. And I really don’t want to wait to get real health care until I’ve slimmed down to an acceptable weight. Add in that while I have no problem with his religious preferences, it seems to be creeping in more and more into his practice. When I went to him, he muttered something along the lines of me being sent on the right day. OTOH, he’s pretty good about it if I request getting something checked out. And (some people will think this is terrible) I could get just about any prescription if I made a decent case for it. (Since I avoid medication where possible, I’m not going to have problems some people have).

Did I mention that he’s never touched me, except for listening to my breathing this last visit?

(35)

Change.

If you don’t feel your doctor is taking things seriously enough, then definitely change. As for the chest pain, IANAD but I’ve experienced similar on occasion. It was finally tracked down to me being a bit dehydrated, which was causing the membrane surrounding my lungs to ‘stick’ to my rib cage when I breathed and the pain was it pulling off. Again, IANAD and chances are it’s not that, but maybe it’ll give you a lead or something.

You should always change physicians when you lose faith in their medical decisionmaking. Your doctor would tell you that, too.

I don’t know, I always thought a physician dragging god or religion into the diagnosis and treatment plan was a sign to bail out and find someone who wasn’t so much into woo. God should not be involved in a treatment plan unless he is a hispanic physiotherapist named Jesus.

I’d switch docs as well.

If this hadn’t been going on for a year, I’d be thinking along the lines of a cracked rib or intercostal muscle strain. Before this pain started, did you have any big hiccup, sneezing or coughing fits?

Are you open to going to a chiropractor? From my own experience, there are a few “mechanical” things that might be causing this.

He didn’t make you feel better, didn’t figure out what the problem was, and didn’t refer you to someone else who could.

Get a new doctor.

Don’t go and see a chiropractor for chest pain. The sort of chiropractors you should be open to seeing are the ones who won’t blow smoke up your ass about how they can treat everything by poking at your spine.

I wasn’t talking about that kind of faith. :slight_smile: