Gaslighting’s toll

December 17, 2019

If you had asked me a few weeks ago if I had ever been the victim of gaslighting by doctors, I would have said no. Which is sort of funny, because this blog is full of examples, written over the past 8 years. Somehow, I didn’t see it.

Sure, I knew that doctors had told me that it was all in my head. Or that I was making it up in order to get attention. But that’s not the same thing. Except as it turns out, it is.

My therapist used the word last week as we discussed this topic. As soon as she said “gaslighting” it clicked that yes, that’s what had been happening. A few days later, someone used the word again as they talked about medical professionals. And it all fell into place.

I have dealt with gaslighting by doctors for almost 30 years, so no wonder I get nervous about appointments. No wonder I have an inherent distrust of doctors. It makes sense that on dating apps, I avoid doctors and other medical professionals. It all fits.

The problem is, I still need doctors. I need them to order tests and to write prescriptions. Sometimes, I even need them to help me figure things out. The problem is, I don’t trust them. That’s why I was so surprised by a simple suggestion several weeks ago. I was debating whether or not to take a prescription. My symptoms had gone away before I had been able to start it, and I didn’t want to take it unnecessarily. Talking to my therapist about this conundrum, she suggested that I ask the prescribing doctor for his advice. Wow, I hadn’t thought of that! She wasn’t surprised. I learned a long time ago not to trust doctors. I figure things out for myself as much as possible. Still, in this case it made sense to ask, and I’m glad that I did.

I know there are good doctors out there. Some have them have been incredibly helpful. Not all of them subjected me to gaslighting. But just like I clearly remember the time I backed into a telephone poll while parking last month but have completely forgotten the dozen other times I parked in that same spot without hitting the poll, it’s the doctors who treated me badly who stand out most in my mind. They are the ones that scare me, that put me on edge, even when I know I still never see them again.

Sadly, I am not alone. There are many of us who have been subjected to this horrible treatment. It is no wonder so many of us distrust doctors and the overall medical system. I am now working on this with my therapist. I will never undo the damage that was done to me physically by ignoring my symptoms, but maybe one day I will have just a bit more trust in medical professionals? Maybe. Until then, if you have been, or are currently being, gaslit by your doctor, know that you’re not alone. And if you can, find someone better.

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Posted by chronicrants

The all-too-elusive “day off”

December 4, 2019

I don’t have a job, but I work damn hard. Every day is long and full. Some days I go to medical appointments; some days I see friends, though not as often as I would like; some days I stay home and work on a long list of tasks. None of those are relaxing. Even when we don’t work traditional jobs, we need days off. As I sat down to write today, this felt familiar, so I did a quick search on this site and found that I’ve written about this before. In fact, I’ve written about this several times, and the past two were last December and the December before that. Hmm. That might be telling me something.

2019-12-03 09.08.11

I have been making more of an effort to give myself space for relaxing time. In August, during a couple of abnormally not-incredibly-hot weeks, I took several afternoons to sit outside and read a book or work on some writing. It was lovely. But a full day? That was rare.

This week we got a snowstorm. In the Boston area this isn’t odd, but it doesn’t usually come so early. I saw the forecast, looked at my calendar, and decided that I needed to take advantage of the strange weather. I was exhausted. I needed a break! And I had a big week coming up, too.

So I took a day off. I didn’t feel too sick to do things; I simply didn’t do them. I puttered around the house. I did some laundry, but now that I have laundry in my apartment (such luxury!) that’s not much of a chore for me. I chatted with a friend via video for a couple of hours. I spent at least a couple of hours reading a novel. I baked cookies. I watched the beautiful snow falling outside, clinging to trees and coating cars. My plan had been to spend a few hours watching tv while crocheting in the afternoon, but somehow I never found time for that. I still did it after dinner, though, like I do almost every night.

Several times during the day, I felt at a loss. I was supposed to be doing something, right? What was I supposed to be doing? What was it? I kept looking at my “to do” list for the day, which is always on my desk. But this time, it was mostly empty, just containing reminders to clear snow off my car, read a book, relax.

I somehow filled the day, and felt so good by the end of it. I needed that. The next day came part 2 of the storm and I wanted to take another day off, but I had too much to do. Still, it was a reminder that I need this. We all do. We need days when we aren’t trying to get lots done. I may not do a lot in a typical day by most people’s standards, but for me it’s a lot. It’s now 3pm and I have made several phone calls, gone to physical therapy, gone to the bank, answered some emails, eaten lunch. For me, that’s a lot, but it’s more than that: it’s the obligation. What I need is days without those obligations. Days of freedom, where I can do whatever I want, whenever I feel like doing it. Again, I think that we all need that sometimes.

Not to sound like a broken record (do people still even know what that means?) but I’m going to make an effort to take more days off. So far, I have succeeded in giving myself afternoons without obligation. Now it is time to give myself more full days without obligation. These will be days for myself, with no appointments, no plans, no lists of tasks to be completed. It can all wait. One more day won’t cause problems. It’s time. So from now on, I will aim for one day off every month. Wish me luck!

Do you take days off like this? Do you find it difficult to schedule them in, or easy to do? Please comment and share your experience with days off while disabled.

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Posted by chronicrants

How my doctors’ office lost their phlebotomy lab

November 29, 2019

I emailed my doctor a reminder that I needed to have some blood tests repeated. When I first started going to that office, I lived less than a mile away. On days that I felt well enough, I walked there. Now I live a 30 minute drive from there, so it’s harder to get blood work done. That’s why I figured this was good timing; I had an appointment the next day with another practitioner in the office. I wasn’t prepared for my doctor’s response. It basically said, the order is in the system but they no longer have a phlebotomy lab, and it listed some other places I could get my blood draw.

WTF?

The next day, I saw the other practitioner and I asked about the loss of the phlebotomy lab. Was it temporary? Why on earth would a medical facility no longer have the ability to draw blood?

Her answer was simple and terrible: it was not considered cost effective by the hospital that was now in charge.

Several years ago, this independent facility became part of a local hospital system. This happens a lot in my area. For me this was good in some ways, because now they took my insurance, while they had not previously. On the other hand, the doctors lost some of their independence. Where before they referred patients to the best doctors they knew of, now there was pressure for all referrals to be within the hospital network. Not exactly putting patients first, were they?

This year, that hospital joined another hospital network. The hospitals are now separate, but connected. The new hospital network is bigger, though, and has more power. And the new network says that the phlebotomy lab is not cost effective. It’s not worth the money, even though it’s important for the care of the patients. How does that make sense? Isn’t the entire point of this building to provide care to patients? Apparently not.

My doctor had giving me a list of alternate places to get my blood drawn. Unfortunately, it was an additional two weeks before I was able to get to any of them. I have a car and am often mobile. Several years ago when I could barely leave the house more than two or three times each week, this would have cost me more. Some people don’t have cars, which will make many of these locations harder to access. For some, it will be impossible. What will happen to them? What will happen to all of us, as hospitals continue to make decisions that favor the bottom line over patients?

Because that wasn’t the only bad news. My practitioner also told me that the hospital is considering moving the entire staff of that building. The new location would be nearby, but due to traffic, it would be much harder for me to access. Due to less public transportation access, it would be impossible for others to access. The reason they are considering this is because it’s cheaper. The office has occupied this building for many years. However, it is now considered prime real estate, and the hospital would rather get more money by moving everyone. Maybe this will work out ok, but I do wonder what will happen to the many patients who rely on these excellent doctors and who can not get to the new place. Have they been taken into consideration at all?

This situation isn’t unique to this one office. We are seeing it more and more. There are cutbacks in all kinds of areas. What will be next? And what kind of impact will it have?

Have you experienced medical facilities prioritizing money over patients? Please share it in the comments.

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Posted by chronicrants

Was it all Celiac to begin with?

November 16, 2019

The earliest potential Celiac symptoms I remember began when I was 12. The first time a doctor suggested that I go gluten-free I was 32. Hmm. A bit of a problem there?

I went to the doctor for the extreme constipation I had as a child. I drank a lot of disgusting prune juice and still had rare, difficult, painful poops. Eventually that seemed to resolve itself. End of discussion.

A year or so later I had unexplained joint pain. I was told it was tendonitis for a long time but even the doctors had to admit that didn’t seem to fit the type of pain I had. I was told to wear braces on my wrists. The pain came and went. They didn’t know what else to do. I spent many years trying to figure out this pain but as far as they were concerned, the discussion was over.

As a teen I had horrible stomach pains, nausea, and diarrhea but had no idea how abnormal this was and told no one for several years. Eventually I did talk to a doctor. I asked to be tested for lactose intolerance. I was told there was no such test (a lie!) Instead, the doctor told me to keep a food and symptom journal. After a few weeks I gave him my notes. He told me that he showed it to a nutritionist and that it wasn’t lactose intolerance. End of discussion. No further examination of my obvious problems. A few years after that I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. I did some research and saw that my symptoms didn’t quite align with IBS, but it was the only diagnosis I was given, so I went with it.

Later in my teens I was far too thin. I occasionally skipped dinner. I was diagnosed with anorexia despite the fact that I ate breakfast, lunch, and snacks every day, I only skipped dinner 2-3 times per week at most, I had digestive problems, and I was so alarmed by my own weight loss that I was the one who went to my parents with a concern that something was wrong and asked to see a doctor. The doctor put me on a high calorie diet. I eventually gained a little weight. End of discussion.

Around this time I was diagnosed with depression. I was sent to therapy that did nothing. I was put on anti-depressants with horrible side effects. After less than a year I was taken off of the medications. The depression was magically gone. End of discussion.

And lest anyone think that my medical history fell through the cracks, all of this occurred at one medical facility, where all of the doctors could see all of my records. How did they all miss this?!?

Was this necessarily Celiac disease? No, of course not. But when a child has constipation, diarrhea, weight loss (I was down to 89 pounds! I’m short, but I should never have lost that much weight – I should have been at least 100-105 at that point), joint pain, depression, nausea, stomach pain, and more, how did they not at least consider this possibility?!? This was the 1990s and while Celiac wasn’t as well known then as it is today, there was plenty of awareness. The doctors should have known.

An interesting thing has happened in recent weeks. After some time on hydrocortisone, my brain fog has been lifting and I am thinking more clearly. I have less fatigue. With that layer of haze lifted, I can better feel and understand what is happening with my body. I can think it through more clearly. And I wonder if maybe all of my problems actually stem from Celiac disease.

As regular readers of this blog know, I have a long list of diagnoses. But the thing is, a lot of them are comorbidities with Celiac. Many others are known to be secondary or tertiary issues. For example, I have polycystic ovary syndrome, but after many years of struggling with PCOS symptoms, they finally went away once I was on a proper dose of the right thyroid medication and fully gluten free. I now get my period at least every other month and I rarely have super heavy bleeding. I was recently diagnosed with SIBO, but it’s known that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth is more common in folks with Celiac. My digestive issues, aside from some SIBO symptoms, have all completely resolved now that I am 100% gluten free. I still have constant joint pain, but it has improved greatly thanks to treatments and, I suspect, being gluten free. My adrenal fatigue, one of my most disabling conditions, was caused by long term chronic illness. My Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is a comorbidity with Celiac.

All of this makes me wonder, what if I had been diagnosed with Celiac at age 12 (or younger)? If I had gone gluten free back then, could this have been avoided? Maybe the joint pain would have resolved. Maybe Hashimoto’s would never have developed? Mostly likely, if the Celiac and Hashimoto’s (if I even had it) had been treated properly to begin with, adrenal fatigue would have never begun. That means I would have never become too disabled to work.

That’s hard to think about. This was avoidable. Somewhat. I would still have had problems, of course. I would still have had to avoid gluten, which would have probably been a lot harder as a child in the 1990s than as an adult in the 2010s. I would have still gotten glutened and had to deal with the fallout. I would still have had autoimmune disease and would likely have had some fallout from that; some folks with Celiac feel fine, but others don’t. My health would not have necessarily been perfect. But it would have been a lot better.

This is only speculation of course. I can’t be sure that all of my health issues stem from Celiac. Over the years I have had several other theories about how my health issues all connect. Each one has felt closer to the truth, and this one does as well. I don’t know if I’m right, but I suspect that I’m at least close.

We need better screening here in the U.S. and around the world. Estimates of folks with undiagnosed Celiac are high, as much as 90%. I don’t want to see others live with what I have had to live with if it can be avoided. And I’m one of the lucky ones; some folks die from undiagnosed or late diagnosis of Celiac. If you or someone you know has several of the 300+ Celiac symptoms, please consider testing. You can see a shorter list here, but it is missing a lot of categories. And if you have experienced something similar to what I have described, please comment below. It is important to gather these stories in order  to highlight the need for more testing and awareness.

Leave a Comment » | Fatigue, Frustration, Gastrointestinal, Healthcare, Limitations, Rants, Symptoms | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

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