You Know You Have a Bad Doctor When He Says It's All in Your Head - And Your Gut Tells You "No"
by Tamara Wilhite
(Bedford, TX)
It was my first real job out of college. It even had health insurance, though very limited, but it covered both me and my new husband. When I started having nausea and stomach cramps, I first chalked it up to anxiety. My boss winked at coworkers and whispered it was probably pregnancy. (A pregnancy test proved it wasn't.) Finally, I gave in and saw a primary care doctor.
He asked very few questions, told me to take peptobismol, and blamed it on eating out at a less than ideal restaurant. What did I think? I thought he might be wrong, but paid the copay went home. The next week, told me to upgrade to Kaopectate. A week and a half later, I was losing weight from the growing nausea that was gnawing at my insides. I didn't want to eat, because that made me feel bad. I went to the same doctor. He told me it was food poisoning, gave me an anti-nausea prescription, and sent me home. Later that week, eating made me throw up. I was back in his office. He told me that I had been given many treatments after all these visits, he didn't have any answers for me.
"Then the answer is that you need to run actual tests instead of whipping out a diagnosis and prescription pad."
"No, it's just stress or PMS. Go home, and don't bother me unless you are really sick." Unfortunately, he put the same notes in my file. When I tried to get a referral to a specialist, it was denied for that very reason.
I nearly passed out at work a day later. I was escorted to HR. Fortunately, this was a real live human being with common sense. I explained the symptoms. She happened to be the health plan manager, as well, for this small company. She saw my list of visits. "Look, I am sick. Really, sick. I need to see a real gastroenterologist, and not someone who is influenced by the quack who has been dismissing these symptoms."
"The health plan requires a referral."
"This doctor won't give me a referral."
"See a different primary care doctor."
"They all have two week or longer waits, and I can't wait that long. I nearly passed out and was even more nearly hit by a forklift as a result. You're the health plan manager. Can't you do an over-ride and authorize a referral?"
"The plan won't pay for it."
"I'll pay for it. All I need is the referral." She had me sit and wait while she made some calls. Then I was handed a referral and an appointment with a gastroenterologist down the street the next day.
He did a number of tests while I was there. His verdict? "I don't know what's wrong, but I do know you have internal bleeding. We're going to have to do an EGD and colonoscopy." They were done the next week. Those results showed a vicious infection that had eaten hole in my gall bladder. I did have an infection - that would have been shown by any real tests - and I was bleeding internally. Being situated on the gall bladder, any time I ate food that required gall, the gall bladder was irritated. Eating not only made me nauseous, from the infection, but the act of digesting made the internal bleeding worse. Hence the growing weakness. I had surgery before the weekend was out. Three days in the hospital with antibiotics cleared up the infection.
I had known all along something was not right with the first doctor. He dismissed my symptoms without asking enough questions to get a real diagnosis. He pocketed repeat co-pays without giving valid advice, then dismissed my symptoms as in my head when I questioned his results. I should have run from him when he responded to questions of my health as if it were a question of my sanity. Call it a gut feeling.
