Hey Pandas, What Is The Most Frustrating Experience You Had With Doctors? (Closed)
I keep having bad experiences with doctors and I know I’m not the only one. What about you?
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Not sure I it counts because it's not "technically" the doctors' faults, but I have a chronic pain condition in my wrist and it feels like no one cares. Almost all the doctors I've talked to were like "yeah, I have no clue what's wrong with you, you're just gonna be in pain forever." A doctor finally told me I probably have CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome) but it seems like it's just a kind of "well you don't have any of these other things, so you must have this."
I'm so sorry! I was in a similar situation in high school, but the pain was mostly in my legs. No doctor told me anything, just said I should see a physio, which didn't help much. Then a few years later I was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia, only because my mum was diagnosed and I said 'this is exactly what I've been feeling' and the doctor finally listened. Now, ten+ years after diagnosis, I am so glad I did get that diagnosis so that I could finally get treatments that worked. I really hope that things get better for you soon.
I had terrible pain in my knee (result of a hiking accident) and I could barely walk. I went to an orthopedist, in a very famous public hospital. He barely looked at my knee and stated that it was not so bad as long as I could still walk. He gave me painkillers and that was it (not more than 5 minutes).
Since I was literally crying with pain, I went to anther hospital and got an MRI the next day, and the diagnosis was "multiple meniscus lesions". They scheduled me for an emergency surgery. The lesions were so deep that the whole joint could have been affected. It was on the verge, but eventually it turned out well, the knee healed completely. I was really lucky.
The lazy side of myself treating me versus an actual doctor treating me:
Been seen by my regular doctor for a few years about belly bloating problems, been hard to nail down but we've made some progress with diet, etc. The last time I was in there the doc was not in the mood that day or something and dismissed what I was saying and came back in the room with like 4 years of chart data and implied my problems were because of weight alone. The data she presented showed that I fluctuated 10-12 pounds back and forth over the entire time I had been seeing her; haven't been back since.
Several years ago I went to the ER because I had a worsening extreme headache. When I saw a doctor he didn't pay attention to what I had to say, didn't want to examine me, and told me he thought I was a "drug seeker" faking pain to get pain medication. He told me to go home without any treatment. Left I sat in the ER waiting room because my headache continued to get worse. I was so desperate for help and even though I was a grown adult in my 30's and was 2,000 miles from my parents I called them for help. My Father just happens to be a doctor and my Mother is a hospital administrator. They called someone in authority at the hospital I was at and within 20 a couple of ER nurses got me out of the waiting room and back into the ER where I saw the doctor again. This time the doctor listened to what I had to say and ordered a brain MRI. The brain MRI showed that I had Superior Sagittal Sinus Thrombosis which is blood clots in my brain. I ended up spending 2 week in ICU. I was told that if they had not found the brain clots when they did would have died in a few hours. If I had not called my parents for help I would have died in the ER waiting room.
Knowing how bad clots of any kind are: You are l u c k y for getting treatment in time.
This was a little over 25 years ago. I was in my early 20s, and was trying anti-depressants for the first time. My doctor prescribed Prozac. I took it for a few weeks, but said it gave me an upset stomach. So we switched me to Zoloft. That made me feel high, so he switched me to Paxil, which erased my emotions. I’m old enough now—and the internet is a thing!—to know that he should have been adjusting dosages and/or easing me on to and off of the meds, but instead he was just shoving piles of samples into my hands. As you can imagine, my emotional state was chaos during this, but I didn’t know any better and trusted my doctor.
I was talking to a coworker about my medication and mentioned my doctor’s name. He said, “Is his first name George?” When I said yes, he let out a big sigh and said, “I should NOT be telling you this, but he’s in my AA group. He’s a wreck of a human being, and you should really find a new doctor.”
I did see him one more time, but that was just for a regular allergy shot. I ended up collapsing on a bus bench
C**p. I bumped submit too early. …drooling and begging passersby for help. Everyone ignored me. And being the suicidal, nihilistic wreck I was at the time, I didn’t bother going back to the office or calling them to find out what happened, so that’s just a big mystery. Epilogue: I’ve had excellent doctors since then.
so in 6th grade i went to the doctor for suspected scoliosis. got an x ray to confirm, i did indeed. we went to a special orthopedic hospital for them to treat me, they said i was almost done growing so bracing wouldn't do much cause if i was almost done growing than the curves would be too right? well my curves were at 30-40 degrees then. 6 months later, my next appointment. a five-degree progression for both curves and pain had gotten worse. guess who STILL was told bracing wouldn't work? another six months goes by, my curves are at 50. both of them. now eligible for surgery, they wanted me to wait a year to see if it stopped progressing because it had slowed. sooo now i'm just holding on till february.
That would be very hard to live with whole you wait to be allowed to get surgery! One of my brothers had scoliosis and he got a rod put in, but he was wheelchair-bound, which I think would have made it easier to cope with.
I was at the doctor's office to get my flu shot and the last few times I had gotten shots, I had fainted. We told the nurse in charge of administering the shot that I faint when I get shots. She didn't listen. I got the shot and my head started to pound. I stood up, as she said we should go because she was busy. I nearly fainted and she started panicking because I lay back down on the chair. For the next 10 minutes, I lay there all while trying not to faint and having the nurse try and get me to leave because she thought I was overreacting. When I was finally ready to get up, she rolled her eyes at me when I left and sighed.
Sounds like all the nurses when we had to get vaccines at school. A whole line of kids they have to get through, so I get they have to get through them as quickly as they can, but they seemed so uncaring.
On one of the occasions that I got hit by a car, I was still having severe back pain a few hours later. So, as someone that grew up on a farm does, instead of getting medical aid, I decided to have a hot bath to ease things up.
Needless to say, I got stuck. A few hours later, Gramps had kicked the door in, helped me dress and took me to the hospital.
The doctor that saw me asked when I had last had a bowel movement. 'Last night', I said, 'But I think it's probably more related to the car that hit me, and not when I last squeezed one out'.
'No, no, no' said the doc, 'You're just constipated, go home and have a poo'. I spent 20 minutes arguing with the langer to no avail. 'Go and have a poo and you'll feel fine', then discharged me.
That afternoon, I went to my local GP. Nice guy, former surgeon that developed arthritis. He took a look and my back, called an ambulance, and a few hours later I was having surgery to relieve the pressure on my spine.
Ironically, my GP said that I was just one big straining shite away from doing some serious damage.
I have a syncope disorder, and a thyroid problem.
I was 112 pounds the second time I went to the er, three days after my first trip. They gave me an ekg and told me I was just having an anxiety attack. I feel they looked at my mental health disabilities and not the fact I have a real problem. I fought out about that, and they literally accused me of starving myself even though my thyroid hormones were so low, the endocrinologist had no idea what was going on. Basically hypo with signs of hyper, and my dad didn’t help, saying I don’t eat a lot and said I was always exercising. I yelled at the doctor and they made me take Ativan. They think I have pots. And I got diagnosed with cancer :)
My wife was a member of a large hmo with a German name. She has a *lot* of problems and conditions, and every doctor she saw gave her more and more pills. Some doctors were good and caring, but most were pill-pushers.
When we moved to Alabama in 2022, she got one doctor instead of an hmo. Her new doctor was like "wtaf", took her off at least half of her meds and adjusted the rest down. I'm happy to say she has lost a ton of weight, breathes easier without coughing like a bullfrog, and her overall health has improved greatly.
Over COVID I started getting an autism diagnosis. MY DOCTOR KNEW and just thought I was, and I quote, 'quirky'. I went to see a specialist. She talked over me for the entire hour and a half appointment, made a bunch of sexist remarks, and parroted a TON of ableist rhetoric. It was horrid. At the end, she decided I was not autistic. Saw another doctor. They said I was 'obviously autistic' and it was 'a wonder' I wasn't diagnosed sooner. Overall, the process to getting a diagnosis was a nightmare
I hate when this happens. I was lucky to have the school interfere on my side to make them test me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be getting school therapy and disability care.
I went to see an orthopaedic surgeon because I was having a lot of knee pain and an xray had shown a bone spur just above my knee. He took the briefest look at the xray and said 'that shouldn't be causing you pain, there is nothing I can do' and shooed us out the door in about 10 minutes!
This is like when your parents tell you that "you're not in pain, you're faking it" because it's not red or swelling.
not exactly a doctor but a teacher-when i was younger, i was running outside for recess (at school) i tripped on a dip between the grass and pavement. i couldn't walk. the first aid teacher said it was a tense mucel... i broke my ankle...
I went to the doctors to have IVF. Since we had problems. First doctor I met with said things looked ok but put me on hormones and I was supposed to come back 28days later. Next doctor I met with was a stressed out young thing with an attitude, she glanced at my bloodtest saying ”Well, I can not see a significant shift due to the hormones, so it is my opinion that you should not waste my time here. You are unable to have children.” I started crying, she sighed. ”You really should have brought someone with you...” (my husband was parking the car, this news was delivered less than 5minutes after the meeting started) and the she looks at her watch, ”Are you going to keep crying because I want to go to lunch.” She then got a nurse to come and escort the crying me, and my chocked pale husband who arrived to me crying my eyes out whilst being led down a corridor. After informing the nurse so everyone in the waiting room could hear ”She can’t have kids. She is a little upset. Can you deal with this, I’m going to lunch.” The nurse was unprepared for all of this, sat me down in a room with pictures of smiling babies on the walls (that made me cry more) and gave me a pamphlet about adoption.
Husband just grabbed my hand. We walked out and never returned.
The coming months, of agony and pain, just because of this one woman were a special kind of hell.
(And three months later I concived naturally, so she was 100% wrong in her opinon, I now have a perfect little bundle of Joy)
That was so f*****g cruel. It reminds me that it’s not just male doctors that are this cruel.
Having to work with them every day can be frustrating in itself. I often find that their administration skills are appalling, which means that getting patient information from them takes far longer than is necessary and the information is too often inaccurate or incomplete. What I find most frustrating though is when they step outside their area of clinical expertise. Most of the doctors I work with are General Practitioners, they have a wide base of knowledge but rarely expertise in any particular area of medicine. I am a medical specialist, I have spent 13 years at university studying Physiotherapy and Biomechanics and over 20 years practicing it. So I get very frustrated when doctors try and diagnose and treat conditions that they don't have expertise in and I end up having to correct their diagnosis or inappropriate treatments.
