RL Peeves
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@Aria I’m headed to my primary Monday to get a second opinion and probably argue for a surgery that I don’t want but know from family members with the same condition that if I don’t have it I’ll have permanent nerve damage which I might already have some because I’ve been having pain for ten years only the last two it has gotten to the point where I can’t function anymore.
And yeah, I really wanted to be like: “Do you think I like being like this? Do you think I want to be disabled and stuck in my house 24/7?”
My doctor was like “you know I see a lot of people who can’t work but just fill their time with travel and hobbies, and that’s no disability.”
Hobbies? Heh! I can’t even manage being active in a hobby that only requires me to sit at a computer and type! I wish I had hobbies.
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My doctor was like “you know I see a lot of people who can’t work but just fill their time with travel and hobbies, and that’s no disability.”
Seriously. These people. Do they just not hear themselves when they talk?
I once went to a gynecologist who - after telling me he would do nothing to treat the minor and easy to address issue that was causing me debilitating pain when walking - assured me that I shouldn’t worry, because it was still safe for me to have sex! A question which, notably, I didn’t fucking ask him.
I’m glad you’re working with your PCP, but I really do think the healthcare system would be better served by patients looking their doctors right in the face and asking them if they’re this stupid all the time or putting extra effort into it today.
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I’ve reached a point of strongly recommending that more patients (especially female patients) look their doctors in the eye and go “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Last year, I started having breathing problems. My O2 saturation was going down to high seventies; most people get delirious in the eighties, but apparently I have stern lungs. Good for me. Anyway, I went to my PCP, told him my symptoms, and he said, without conducting any tests, “Oh, you’re just too fat to breathe. You need to lose weight.”
Later that week things got worse, so I went to Urgent Care. In ten minutes they diagnosed me with bronchitis. They gave me half a week’s worth of steroids and the problem went away.
I never got up the courage to ask my PCP what the fuck is wrong with him, but I did ask to be transferred to another doctor.
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@GF Medical fat phobia kills people. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
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…but I did ask to be transferred to another doctor.
I’m a little confused about this part (though good, you definitely should get rid of that one). Is it an outside the US thing that you need to request a new doctor? I pick my own and so long as they’re in network, the insurance covers it. I could change designated PCPs every day.
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@TNP My PCP works at a clinic. They assigned him to me at random when I joined. I asked to have a different doctor.
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@GF Ah. You should also file a complaint. Sounds like malpractice to me.
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I’ve reached a point of strongly recommending that more patients (especially female patients) look their doctors in the eye and go “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Last year, I started having breathing problems. My O2 saturation was going down to high seventies; most people get delirious in the eighties, but apparently I have stern lungs. Good for me. Anyway, I went to my PCP, told him my symptoms, and he said, without conducting any tests, “Oh, you’re just too fat to breathe. You need to lose weight.”
I definitely feel this. Earlier this yeae I had a some light headedness, some wheezing, a cough, with difficulty breathing. He did my weight and got my BMI (as bullshit as that metric is). I’m pretty short (5’5") and my BMI came up as 30.1. I was told that I was having bad acid reflux due to weight, which can cause a cough. I pointed out that my daughter had a similar cough about a week prior and that I thought there were other kids at her daycare who were ill. No change to the prognosis. He prescribed me rx strength Prilosec.
Anyway so I wound up in urgent care because I had COVID.
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@somasatori just wtf. You’re so scrawny tho???
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@Cobalt a mix of grad school stress eating and weight lifting because it’s a quick way to do exercise without having to go somewhere.
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@somasatori said in RL Peeves:
grad school stress eating
This is so fucking real and so underdiscussed.
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Oooh medical peeves.
I have MS (it’s not about this but it ties in). Which means I’m in pain just existing. This also means that I have a very high pain tolerance because my body has adapted to my new normal.
I was injured and tried to walk it off, but I figured this is annoying pain I should go to the ER. I did. They did x-rays. The male doctor came in and sat down across from me. He gave me that patronizing smile and patted my knee. His words were along the lines of 'Sweetie, you just have a bad bruise. I know. I know. It probably doesn’t feel good. Just take an extra strength tylenol. You’ll be fine."
I had a moment that after the talk, he managed to make me feel like I had wasted his time over a bruise. I felt horrible. I felt like I can’t explain it. It was just not a good feeling.
We get my results of my x-ray. I have a fricken fracture. An easy to see fracture. My primary freaked out and demanded I come in. Cleared out her schedule to get me in to get it set.
So doctors sometimes suck.
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Oh honey. I’m an RPer. I know there are things far, far, far worse than death. Death is the easy out.
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@RightMeow said in RL Peeves:
Oh honey. I’m an RPer. I know there are things far, far, far worse than death. Death is the easy out.
WoD combat with 5+ participants.
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@RightMeow said in RL Peeves:
I was injured and tried to walk it off, but I figured this is annoying pain I should go to the ER. I did. They did x-rays. The male doctor came in and sat down across from me. He gave me that patronizing smile and patted my knee. His words were along the lines of 'Sweetie, you just have a bad bruise. I know. I know. It probably doesn’t feel good. Just take an extra strength tylenol. You’ll be fine."
I had a moment that after the talk, he managed to make me feel like I had wasted his time over a bruise. I felt horrible. I felt like I can’t explain it. It was just not a good feeling.
Okay, I know I’ve said this, like, three times in this thread in the last week, but.
I am not being sarcastic. I am not being facetious. I am not just venting.
There are entirely too many doctors in this country who dismiss and ignore their patients - patients with chronic illnesses, patients with mental illness, patients who are fat, patients who are female. They are used to going unchallenged even when they are condescending, deliberately obtuse, and in some cases, actively dangerous to their own patients. A friend of my mother’s died from ovarian cancer that got diagnosed too late, because she’d been telling her doctor for over a year that something was wrong and got ignored every time.
If you feel shy or guilty or demanding or rude for speaking up, don’t. If you need someone telling you it’s okay to ask for more and for better for yourself and your well-being, this is it. The next time a doctor is ignoring you, please picture an enraged little Aria sitting on your shoulder going “Do it. Do it. Do it now. Ask if they’re a fucking idiot. Stare them right in the eye as you ask. Do iiiiiiiiit.”
Granted, it will probably ruin your relationship with said doctor, but once they’ve told you to take a Tylenol for a broken bone that needs setting, Imma go ahead and say that’s probably not a doctor you want to see again, anyway.
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Luckily (unluckily?) it was an ER doctor. My actual primary was horrified by this.
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This tiktok seemed topically appropriate.
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@RightMeow Sounds like the first psychologist that my SO saw three years ago when she first started her nightmare process about trying to get an ADHD diagnosis as an adult.
Between the first one and the second was night and day. To the point where where the second psychologist, upon hearing who my SO saw first, there was a noted change in her expression, a sigh, and she literally muttered, “Oh. that asshole.”
Apparently, the majority of mental health professionals in my city hate the first doctor, for exactly the reasons you might think.
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A few fun things I’ve learned in the last few days about my bullshit situation that may help other people:
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At some insurers, the “in network” exception that @TNP referred to is called a network deficiency (or a network insufficiency). At least at my insurer, the process of filing one involves the insurer doing pretty much what I did last week - contacting a bunch of doctors and offices to try and find a provider within a certain mile radius that does this. (My understanding is that it’s 50 miles. Yours might be different.) Once this fails, they kick the request over to a medical doctor to review to see if it’s really considered necessary or if there’s an alternate treatment they can offer you. (This is where it might not stand up as well if it’s something like behavioral health diagnostics and testing - like @Testament mentioned, pursuing those as an adult is a pain in the ass, but fun fact: there’s laws about that which were passed in 2008, which is at least part of why I’ve included #2.) You can potentially speed this process up by documenting the number of doctors you’ve contacted and who they are, as well as having a case number recorded for any related interactions you’ve had with the insurer.
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Lack of access to an appropriate network of doctors is something you can file a complaint with the Department of Labor about, at least if you’re on employer insurance and the plan is “self-funded” (meaning your employer is paying the claims and the insurer is just the one managing them). The specific division of the DOL that you’re looking for is the Employee Benefits Security Administration and you can find the list of regional offices here.
Good luck and don’t let the bastards grind you down.
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