Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Good doctor, bad doctor
I'm sure I've harped on before about the importance of having a good doctor. Even if you're a relatively healthy person, a good general practitioner is a must. I have seen a number of different doctors since I move cities almost 4 years ago. While I was a healthy person (ie before CFS), I never really worried about the quality of the GP I was seeing for the minor health problems that inevitably crop up occasionally.
All that changed when I had glandular fever and later chronic fatigue syndrome. The doctor I was seeing at the time has turned out in hindsight to have been a bad doctor. I ditched her after she sent me to a psychologist because she thought I was depressed when I was not recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome. She also never bothered to investigate why I suddenly became iron deficient after having glandular fever, brushing off my concerned remarks about the fact I had never been iron deficient before, despite going through a 2 year phase of not eating red meat. And one day, before I had realised I had chronic fatigue syndrome, she brushed of my suggestion that my tiredness etc might be caused by food intolerances or coeliac disease, saying "Oh, no, that's very unlikely".
And now I am furious, because I saw my new, wonderful, inquisitive GP yesterday because I have been having unusual abdomenal aches, and she was shocked that no one had bothered to investigate why I was iron deficient, and also raised the possibility of coeliac disease being a potential cause for the anemia and possibly other things. So, I'm off to have a suite of tests and then we'll see what we see, but I tell you what, if it turns out I have coeliac, I swear I'm going to throw a brick through the window of that previous doctor. Well, not really, but I feel like doing it already.
Get yourself a good doctor. And if your doctor isn't inquisitive, get rid of them even if they haven't proved themselve to be bad yet.
Labels: CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome, doctors
