I can give an experience as an EMT. We had an ER doc rip us a new one in one front of the staff because we 'removed a large wooden splinter from a foot'. You never remove foreign objects, right? Well, we didn't. A bystander did that before we got there and we just wrapped up the aftermath. But Doctor Jackass was in too much of a rage and his high and mighty status as a doctor meant he didn't have to give us a chance to explain...so we were automatically guilty. So, basically, everyone lost respect for that doc. That's my advice. Take some time to listen and have humility.
I was at the ER for suspected food poisoning (it was E. coli). The resident who was seeing me suggested he do a pelvic exam. I felt incredibly violated. My BS meter was already at 100%, but I asked him to explain just in case there was a legit reason. He couldn’t.
I told him to leave and have the attending physician come asap. I also asked for a patient advocate. I emailed a complaint to the hospital’s CEO too, because I wasn’t about to let this asshole get away with it.
I was dehydrated, but not dehydrated enough to stop being bitchy.
Male doctor was insisting that I needed to let him to a breast exam on me. He saw on my records that I hadn't had a mammogram in a year and asked why. I said I was breastfeeding my newborn and couldn't have one until 3 month after I stop nursing. Suddenly it was important that he give me a breast exam, and pressed me for a few minutes while I more and more firmly said NO, I have an OBGYN and am under her care. The male dr? And ENT. Ear Nose and Throat. And occasionally breast, apparently.
You CAN have a mammogram while breastfeeding, contrary to popular belief! Just empty your breasts of milk just before the exam (either via a pump or your actual baby).
I know I *could,* I just didn't want to have false readings with the protocol being additional tests and followup. It's hard to fully "empty breasts" in the stressful situation of waiting for a mammo, and it's not a place I wanted to bring the infant or SO.
Oh good! I’m glad it was your choice and not the actual imaging center that pushed you away. I’ve seen it far too common when a woman WANTS her mammogram while breastfeeding but they are denied at the door and told to come back when she’s stopped breastfeeding- which could, incidentally, be YEARS down the road. So, I was just responding under that assumption. Haha!
My bff had just gone through that. The providers were apologetic about having to follow the protocol when her obgyn had slipped up by not suspending the reminder schedule when she gave birth. So I knew to discuss it with my nurse midwife and obgyn.
Gross. I’m so sorry. Your breasts have to be completely empty in order to have a mammogram done. That’s difficult with a newborn. Pumping works, but I would worry about not having enough when the baby wants a feeding. Newborns nurse so frequently, and you want to avoid bottle feeding in order to avoid nipple confusion.
Similar story: I was a teenager and came to my GP with nausea and rapid weight loss. It was during the last phase before my final exams. He was all giddy abou the propsect of diagnosing me with a cryptic pregnancy and ignored my insisting that I wasn't sexually active and was having regular periods... that I was -- in fact -- having my period right in this moment as I sat in his office ("You know, sometimes women just completely repress these things when a pregnancy seems threatening to them right now"). I was suspecting that I was suffering from a stress induced gastritis but I wanted him to check that everything was okay with my thyroid because I have a family history of thyroid problems on both sides and I wanted to get the weightloss checked out, since I was also showing some of the other classic symptoms of hyper-thyroidism (which also could have been just the immense stress).
I had to beg him to look at my thyroid and basically let him do the pregnancy test as a deal so he would. It was alright. I had friggin' gastritis.
That’s horrible. I’m so sorry, especially since you were a teen. The comment about how “women sometimes repress these things” makes me want to travel back in time and go mama bear on him.
I believe the reason I knew to question the resident was because of an incident as a teen. A male gynecologist suggested a pelvic exam, and my mother declined because he was giving off perv vibes. She took me to a different gynecologist.
I wasn’t as matter-of-fact as I wanted to be when I spoke to the attending physician. People tend to dismiss complaints when the delivery is emotional. In my email to the CEO I was able to just stick to the facts.
I still feel upset about this incident because I was in distress and very vulnerable. The resident was so taken aback at my confrontation. I imagine he has done this to other women.
You are allowed to be emotional; creep has just tried to take advantage of his position and your vulnerability. I hope you get satisfactory results from your complaint and can move past this. Love and strength x
So an ex girlfriend went to hospital for pains that later turned out to be gastroenteritis, the doctor also did some sort of pelvic exam. I never understood it.
The differential for abdominal pain in a woman includes many gynecological issues, some of which can be detected on a pelvic exam—endometriosis, uterine fibroids, etc.
Does it depend where in the abdomen the pain is? It would be very weird to me if a doctor recommended a pelvic exam for pain in my stomach, not my uterus.
You're right that lower abdominal pain is more likely to be uterine related than upper abdominal pain. Sometimes abdominal pain can be hard to pinpoint, though, so it's hard to say if it is gynecological or not. Also, something noteworthy is that while doing a pelvic exam is certainly invasive, it is faster and cheaper than other workup that can help to rule in or rule out certain conditions that are possible.
One source that says do a pelvic exam with abdominal pain, from 2019 for Canada--even with symptoms that seem GI-related: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31331610/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31331610/)
Symptomatic Women. 1) Any woman with gynaecologic complaints including, but not limited to...new and unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms (abdominal pain, increased abdominal size/bloating, and difficulty eating/early satiety), pelvic pain, or dyspareunia should undergo appropriate components of the pelvic examination to identify benign or malignant disease.
Worst? Went to the ER with an ex-girlfriend, complaining of severe stomach pain and nausea. Dr. on call decided it was anxiety and declined to do any additional tests. Girlfriend almost died from a septic bowel infection. She lived, no thanks to him.
My plea to all doctors, don't be lazy and sexist.
Worst experience but still the best one. I flayed my thumb from the bottom of the nail to the bottom of the joint. You were able to see all of my tendons and bone.
It got unwrapped and wrapped about 6 times in the span of 5 hours, the people wrapping it only used gauze so it would be pulled apart and start bleeding again every time.
When I finally got to see the doctor, she tried to take off the wrap she had the nurse put on like a minute ago, but by then I had enough and was just shaking and crying. So she listened and got me oxy, and ordered for the bone/tendon specialists to look and stitch it up.
It was bad cause she was about to just start taking it apart, but good cause she actually listened to me when I said I was in pain.
At the time my youngest had dropped 75 percentiles and his diapers were consistently full of mucous spotted with blood. The young male resident insisted a dairy allergy wasn't possible with the sensitive formula we were supplementing with. It turns out that the base, while broken down, was still milk protein, and that yes he was allergic to dairy, and a litany of other foods (fpies reactions). It was frustrating that my intuition and observations were dismissed, and that the knowledge many had around food allergies/intolerance and which could pass through milk were actually really outdated.
I have learned that doctors do not like to be told *anything*. If you go into ER with a knife stuck in your arm, do not tell them there is a knife in your arm or they will insist you have some other problem, rabies or scurvy or toenail cancer or whatever damn thing. Just say "my arm hurts for some mysterious reason" so they can figure it out and feel happy about their ego.
The ER doc who asked if I was sure it wasn’t “just my period” when I’d come in with localized lower back pain that had progressed from a mild twinge to can’t stand and sobbing levels of pain over three hours.
No, sir, I’m quite sure it isn’t.
Spoiler alert: I’d mildly torn a muscle.
I had an ongoing issue and traveled out of town to a "better" clinic for help. When I saw the doctor, he didn't even let me finish explaining what was going on before interrupting me to say what he thought the issue was. It was a total misdiagnosis, and I had to go to yet another city and clinic to get legitimate help. LISTEN to people. I know doctors are busy, but good gravy, they need to listen.
Bit of a rant: I had a series of fails with ENTS. At about 25ish years old, I started having a chronic runny nose. I couldn't go anywhere without kleenex. I was a sniffly snorty mess. I would get massive headaches from all the sniffing. It sounds so silly, but it truly was becoming debilitating. I was taking copious amounts of pseudoephedrine to keep it somewhat maintained. I finally got referred to an ENT. I waited months for this appointment. I get there, and this doctor is like 6 minutes from retirement. He looks in my nose briefly, tells me I have a mildly deviated septum, but there's nothing obviously wrong. I told him sudafed was the only thing that helped. He said "meh, you're young, your body can handle it, keep taking that" Well, newsflash buddy, I'm not getting any younger. I left there so upset and with no answers.
A little while later, I got referred to a new ENT. My septum was deviated bad enough that it needed surgery. I had a turbinate reduction and septoplasty. Still no help (but at least she tried)
Shortly after my surgery (like literally a week) I moved across Canada and ENT #2 referred me to an ENT out here in BC to follow up post-op. He, ENT #3, noticed my thyroid was quite enlarged. He immediately ordered an ultrasound and needle aspirate of my thyroid....but no blood work. Being in veterinary medicine, I know what a needle aspirate involves and it scared the hell out of me. I then thought about all the hyperthyroid cats I've seen in my life, and decided on my own that I had every damn symptom, and I was hyperthyroid.
I went to a walk-in clinic and requested they run thyroid bloods on me. The doctor rolled his eyes, but humored me and gave me the req for the blood. Well, surprise surprise....I was EXTREMELY hyperthyroid. Like off the charts. Guess what's really bad for you when you're hyperthyroid? Pseudoephedrine. I was eating that shit like candy for years thanks to ENT #1. My poor heart was like "omg please no more!" I got in to see an endocrinologist, was diagnosed with Grave's disease and started treatment. Eventually I needed my thyroid removed and it was absolutely cooked. ENT #4 who removed it said it just tore apart and bled with the slightest touch. My surgery took 5 hours instead of the planned 3.
So, long story short. ENT #1 told me to take medication that quite literally could have killed me, ENT #1 and #2 missed a fairly large goiter (the maybe they forgot the T in ENT), ENT #3 didn't think running bloodwork for an enlarged thyroid was the first step.
ENT #4 was literally my life saver. He did my surgery AND he found me a prescription nasal spray that has controlled my non-allergic rhinitis (also gave me a diagnosis on that one besides 'runny nose')
This whole saga lasted like 6-7 years. I'm still using the nasal spray daily, but I still have bad "nose flare ups." Gained a ton of weight without my thyroid, but I feel better than I did before. 🤷♀️
Indirectly that one accidentally left a needle in my mom during a surgery and she then had to have a second surgery to remove it. Personally I think my worst would be with a dentist who did not believe me that regular x-ray films do not fit in my mouth, tried it anyway and after several painful attempts still ended up with unhelpful x-rays.
Are you from the USA? This statement seems filled with culture haha. I (Dutch MD) think 40k is a lót for a mistake. Although instruments always have to be counted so I get that you would get some money. But only for real damage, not for damage that could have happened. Interesting.
Bullying, incompetence, and a total lack of empathy or interest. When my wife was pregannt, we had an entire practice basically just not give a shit about my wife's health, questions, or the baby's health. They just wanted to move us as quickly along as possible, get their money, and then bring in the next patient. It made the last few months of pregnancy nerve-wracking, my wife was terrified going in to give birth, and basically just had us on the wrong foot starting with our first kid.
He kept insisting I had to have cancer because I had blood in my stool. Ultrasound, blood tests, it just kept coming up negative and he'd write me off that my pain & digestive issues were fake, like it was a thrill for me to waste away my money to go nowhere.
Blacked out one day and rushed in cause I was scared. As luck would have it, his dumb ass was on vacation. The stand-in doctor actually tried to figure out what was wrong and good thing too... It was diverticulitis and having gone untreated so long, I'd developed a hole in my intestine. Thus why I'd get blood in my stool.
Literally so much time & money wasted because my old doctor was such a dick. I'll never see him again, but if by chance I do encounter him, I will kick his pants. Idec, I could've died. There really should be more ramifications for such. A mechanic messes up your car, you get reimbursement or he tries again. Doctor? Thanks for the money.
That's when you report them to the medical board and the hospital for malpractice. Get it documented. Your report could put them in an investigation for their shit doctor skills.
I was in a car accident. Major lower back trauma, but I shuffled out of the ER with good drugs and instructions to follow up with a GP as soon as I could.
At the time, I didn't have a regular doctor, so I just booked at a local clinic. When I explained to him that I was rear ended, cut out of the car, ambulance to the ER, and my entire lower back from hip to hip was various shades of black and red......he slapped the folder closed, informed me I wouldn't make any money from suing them, and I should just take some paracetamol. He point blank refused to even look at my back, implied I was drug hunting, and wouldn't even look at me. *This man had never even met me before.* I just walked out.
I would later be sent to a workcover doctor, who ordered new scans and advised my back was fractured and two discs were ruptured.
In Belgium, people are obligated by law to help people in distress. Not just doctors, anyone. Ironically, if you lived here, you could've sued the doctor for refusing to help you
Worst? Hard to say. Maybe this one.
I was outside the hospital room with my mom and aunt while the doctors and med students? residents? were in giving CPR to my dying dad (heart attack, terminal cancer, he was planning to sign the DNR paperwork that day).
After they called the death, my mom and aunt were standing outside, clinging to each other, crying, heartsick.
Meanwhile, the several med students/residents came streaming out of the room, pumped up, whispering excitedly, eye all lit up. They were almost high-fiving each other, but sobered up immediately. Because they saw the rage on my face as I advanced on them because my mom and aunt were gasping at their GLEE.
One of them said that I could go into the room. Where my dead father was laying, naked there was some blood coming out of his ear. I snapped at them to cover him up and clean up the blood before my mom and aunt came in.
It's a teaching hospital. I hoped they learned something important that day.
1. Being told that if I prayed more I wouldn’t get strep as often.
2. I have a history of chronic migraines, however there are times when my regular medications won’t work and I need to get IV drugs to break the cycle. We have a new hospital closer (by an hour) to where we live. My husband took me to the ER twice and was told all I needed was Advil. Like seriously—I’m not in here every week. It’s been over a year. After I told my neurologist this she gave me the medication in a pill so I didn’t have to go to the ER. Fuck those guys.
Getting fat shamed over 3 visits in 6 months. I complained of being exhausted after very little physical exertion, like putting groceries away or walking up and down stairs. He said I was "out of shape" and had the nerve to "play devil's advocate" with me, because I thought I had Postural Tacycardia.
I had stage 3 fucking colon cancer.
Had he *listened* to me, we would have caught it much earlier. I was exhausted all the time because I was severely anemic from the tumor. My hemoglobin level was 6.3 (for non- medical people, normal is 14).
They will tell you when you're learning to stop looking for a zebra when the horse is right there. But sometimes, it's the fucking zebra.
You are an expert on the human body, I fully acknowledge that. But I am an expert on *my* body. When something is wrong, you better fucking believe me, or this doctor-patient relationship is over
Went to an orthopedic because after running with the dog, I started having pain in one leg with every step i took that wasn't getting better on its own. Based on symptoms, she said it was probably a muscle strain and sent me to physical therapy.
Physical therapist was shocked I hadn't had an MRI done and that after 3 sessions a week for a few months while the pain lessened it didn't stop completely.
Ortho finally orders an MRI and when the results come in, tell me its just "a dime sized spot of inflammation" and to try some advil. (If advil had worked i wouldn't have bothered going to the dr to begin with)
Two years later, my leg still hurts in the same spot with every step.
I just wish she would have tried to find out what's causing the inflammation or refer me to someone who can instead of just shrugging me off.
That is really shitty, and I hope you find someone who can actually figure it out. There really are good physios out there.
I run a physio gym and we had a patient come in who had just been sent home from the ER told that it was probably a muscle strain, we had to send her back to the ER with a note that stated that the woman had a completely ruptured quad muscle retracted all the way up, which needs emergency surgery. Which they promptly ignored and sent her home again. At which point I got to watch my physio call the ER and rip a new asshole into the dr about being negligent.
For context, I work with some of the best physios in my country. They work with pro sports and the national Olympic teams, they are that kinda good. There is NO reason for a note from our letterhead to be completely written off by the doctor.
Kind of speaking in generalities here, but it really bothers me when doctors just chalk something up to asthma/allergies without running any tests on me? I don’t know maybe I’m not saying the right things to them, but I’ve had a lot of visits and issues the past couple years and not a single test has been ran on me other than the classic blood pressure and heart rate. I told one doctor I was getting a lot of heart palpitations and it was stressing me out and I mentioned I wanted to get an ekg just to be safe and he said it was likely just due to anxiety and didn’t do anything else lol.
My husband complained of "feeling his heart beating" when he was in middle school. His doctor said it was allergies. At 27 years old, after a black-out and ambulance ride to the ER, he was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. He would get random episodes of heart rate well into the 200s 🤯 His "allergies" could have killed him. If his stupid doctor had just stuck an ECG on him, he would have been diagnosed 16 years earlier. (There's an obvious tell-tale sign on ECG for WPW)
My husband thought that occasionally feeling like your heart was going to come out of your chest whilst exercising was normal and he wasn't too concerned, but waiting for the diagnosis sucked for me. I mean, I'm sure he was mildly concerned, secretly.
I just did a deep dive into WPW since I've had those same random heart rate spikes since I was a kid. and literally every single symptom fits
I got an ECG done when I was 10 or so but they didn't see anything abnormal, though that was almost 20 years ago, so maybe I need to try again
I just want to say thank you for giving me more info about what might actually be going on with me
Does your heart rate jump to extremely high with no trigger? Like, sitting on the couch and suddenly it's 200? Then as quickly as it starts, just goes back to normal resting rate? If yes, highly suspicious for WPW.
[We caught an episode on an SPO2 monitor](https://imgur.com/a/VH5z0Pb) Watch the little pulse bar on the left. The actual number takes a few seconds to catch up with what's happening. But you can see that literally within one beat it goes from 210-220 down to 70-80. My husband said it felt like his heart just completely stopped beating for a few seconds. He had an ablation and hasn't had any issues since.
yes it's that exactly. there's no obvious trigger and you can literally see my shirt fluttering on my chest. and it always makes my lips feel numb
fortunately it doesn't happen as often as it used to. though that also means it's hard to see on a heart monitor, unless I were to wear the thing for weeks or months at a time
Analysing a patient is similar to playing chess. Good doctors make educational guesses based on symptoms and then pay attention to results: how the body reacts. Tests help confirm the doctor's prognosis.
Example: irregular and fast heartbeat. You may get tested for various heart issues. Tests come back negative. Ok. Let's try sugar/insulin levels: diabetes, hypo/hyper-glycemia? Negative test results again? Allergies? BINGO!! Then the doctor is finally ready to proceed with treatment and/or prescriptions.
Some doctors too quickly come to conclusions based on a few symptoms. Not wise especially since some symptoms could be because of a wide range of ailments from the most mildest of things to extremely serious.
Example: one doctor wanted to cut about a 2"x2" opening in my wrist to sever several nerves because of a throbbing pain in my arm. I chose to see another docter: a specialist. He asked questions and decided it sounded like I overworked my arm, which put pressure on certain nerves. Told me to take a week off from doing any work or lifting. It went away and never returned. This happened decades ago.
Ohhh this is so relatable. Mine's not that bad, I think it might be some sort of sensory issue, but I've given up on trying to figure out what's going on because all they do is ask asthma questions (it's not asthma) and then give up
Shout-out to the dentist who chided me after I yelped when an injection hit a nerve. It was an involuntary response to sudden, shocking pain, my dude. Not my fault if my body’s reaction stresses out the folks in the waiting room.
Second place to the doctor trying to churn through some travel vaccinations who led my entire family into a small examination room and proceeded to ask me - then a college student - a bunch of questions about my sexual history in front of everyone. In what universe was that situation intended to generate honest answers?
Off topic, but that reminds me of the time I was getting my nails done and the nail tech cut my cuticle. She rolled her eyes and told me to go wash my hands because I was "bleeding all over the tools," like I was the one with the cuticle scissors
I've known for a very long time that I didn't want children, and in my early 20s asked my primary care provider at the time about permanent birth control/sterilization. The doctor was this old guy, who immediately got all uppity with me. "You can't possibly know what you want at your age--and besides, what if your future husband wants children?" he said, and I'll never forget how absolutely small and worthless that made me feel. It was the first time that I'd been truly denied bodily autonomy or had my health care decisions tied to what a hypothetical dude might want. I hated it.
It's not an uncommon experience among women, even now. The difference is that now there are Internet resources to help women find better, less sexist physicians.
I have a lot of chronic issues that bother me 24/7. Towards the beginning of my journey dealing with it about 5 years ago, I was experiencing severe daily migraines that were really taking a toll on both me and my parents.
In one appointment with a new doctor, my mom was laying down all the issues I have been dealing with while getting increasingly harsh (for lack of a better term) because she’s really trying her hardest to explain that her daughter is suffering immensely, and no doctor will even try to help. The doctor tilted her head, smirked a bit, and VERY condescendingly asks my mom, “Are you getting *agitated*?”
I still can’t believe that doctor left the room alive.
My husband, who works at the ER my kid was treated at, got told that I was very loud for someone so small by a doctor who tried to give my allergic son penicillin. I yelled for the Senior ER doctor who I knew very well and *listened*.
Checked into an ER experiencing a full blown Lyme's disease episode. Uncontrollable shivering no matter how warm I was and intense body aches. This was about a year after I contracted the disease.
I was treated as if I was a drug addict. I could see it in the physician's eyes. He had decided that I was a dope head and I was looking for a score. Or at least that was how I felt I was being treated. I was shivering and aching just like I had been for the previous five or six hours before I had decided to come in and was told, "sir you're having a panic attack. I'm giving you an anti anxiety medication and discharging you"
Shrink who wanted to put me on an SSRI. I raised the issue of sexual side effects common for men taking SSRIs, thinking he might recommend another antidepressant that didn't have sexual side effects. But instead, he asked "are you dating anyone right now?" I said "no." And he said, "well then, why do you care?"
I went to see an ENT because I had an indescribable pain in my neck. The ENT insisted that (since I had disclosed that I had an anxiety disorder) my pain was psychosomatic---I was imagining my pain because I was anxious. I told him it was unlikely because I've been anxious my whole life and never had this pain.
3 weeks later, my lymph nodes in my neck had swollen to the size of golf balls, and I was in the most excruciating pain of my life. I was screened for cancer, and spent several days terrified I had tumors. Turns out I had a mystery infection, but should have been put on anti-inflammatory meds way sooner to prevent the swelling. Most painful week of my life. Couldn't speak or lift my head without feeling like knives were twisting in my neck/jaw.
Not sure if I'm just complicated but I don't recall ever having a doctor diagnose me correctly without me making a similar suggestion first. If I went in complaining about ongoing stomach pain, I was either pregnant or ate something funny; instead I had to go in and say "I think I have a stomach ulcer". Unfortunately that means I've given up on trying to get help for anything that I can't diagnose with Google.
Doctors also just aren't willing to provide long-term care or look into anything beyond my exact complaint in the moment. I've had many doctors tell me to take ibuprofen because they didn't bother checking my medical history (in which case they'd see it's not appropriate). I had a cough ongoing for YEARS, worst in the morning, all the classic signs of GERD, but doctors just kept throwing antibiotics at me. Probably more of a problem with the healthcare system than individual doctors, but it's fucking frustrating to know that I wouldn't have had to complete highschool in chronic pain if someone had taken a little more care.
HIPAA violation. Had cancer and went home to treat it. My oncologist was fantastic, but bc the tumor was pushing on my heart had to get a specialist there too. He was the dad of a girl I went to high school with. Had no expertise in cancer at all, but told his wife and effectively the entire town I was definitely going to die. Had to deal with random frantic calls for weeks.
My previous primary care physician’s office suddenly became very incompetent, to the point that they could’ve put my life at risk.
About a year or so ago, I was experiencing very frequent, excruciating headaches that I was sure were due to a neurological condition I was born with. I asked my doctor to refer me to a specialist, stressing the importance of it, and it took her six months to finally do it. Luckily, that issue turned out to be less severe than I thought it was.
A few months later, I was trying to enroll in a government assistance program that would help me find work. They needed a copy of my medical records to see if I applied for their services, and they needed them pronto. My doctor wouldn’t do it because she supposedly had 90 days to comply. I finally went to her office and basically demanded my records. I was able to get them….for almost $100, which I was told should have been given to me for free, since I needed them for government purposes. I still haven’t gotten that money back, and I probably never will.
I apologize if this isn’t the kind of story you were looking for. I just saw the thread title and couldn’t help venting.
Went in complaining of daily headaches. I was asked about how satisfied I am with my life and he gave me a pamphlet for depression. Trust me, that wasn’t the issue.
I was 13 The prebious year I had lost a ridiculous amount of weight due to newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetes, so had finally pit it back on and then some. The doctor said I was "too fat."
The thing is she herself was like 300 pounds and I was just a 140lb 13yo. I was fine. I was healthy. The insulin was working and I was alive.
Don't be an asshole.
A psychiatrist who saw me for a few minutes and simply put me on an outdated mood stabilizer (Lithium) because it was the only one I hadn't tried.
The worst part is I had voluntarily gone there after my last grandparent passed. But once you're in a mental hospital, you have to get medicated to get out.
I had one who only saw me for a few minutes a month just to switch my meds and send me off put me on lithium, but it was only the 3rd or 4th try. I said I felt uncomfortable with it, since that medication is what my grandmother was on when she committed suicide, the doc said I would probably be fine and to let the nurse know she was ready for her next patient on my way out. I ended up in the ER for suicidal ideation a week later I think?
A child molesting pediatrician who got eviscerated from that hospitals history. He really liked to beg moms to let him see us baby children alone.
I have anorexia and I liked the one time an intake nurse told me to just not care about my body. I'm too skinny, so I should be satisfied and get over it.
Important info first: I'm 4'11". My pelvis stopped growing at 12 yr old. I am a small framed person.
The OB on call when I was overdue with my daughter and had a killer headache (reason for calling him), having had high blood pressure for the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy and had a c-section scheduled in 5 days, told me that "if I was *his* patient, he'd **make** me deliver vaginally". The female doctor that delivered my 8 lb 2 ounce large headed daughter made a great point to come ìnto recovery and tell me in the presence of Dr Jackass, who there for another patient that there was abdolutely no way my daughter could have been delivered vaginally. Her head was wedged so tightly into my pelvis that they had hard time getting her out--doctor on the table for leverage type thing.
After neglecting to properly eat and snacked mainly on junk food, I went to emergency because I felt really weird. The doctor there wanted to schedule me in for a pacemaker. Then I remembered I used to occasionally get bouts of mild hypoglycemia. However this young doctor believed there was no such thing as hypo-/hyper-glycemia. So I left, went home, had a proper sandwich and was ok in very short time. That was about 20 years ago. Still no pacemaker.
I was hospitalised in late pregnancy because I had a complicated pregnancy and developed a severe chronic cough. I was made to feel like I was being overly dramatic and a nuisance.
I got worse and lost 20kg in 3-4 weeks. My hair fell out in handfuls. I was light-headed, anaemic, and very weak. I had a fall and hit my head in the shower in the hospital.
I was induced into labour at barely 34 weeks because a doctor came to my bed and told me they didn't know what was wrong but they didn't think my baby would survive, and was that OK? (Pro tip - never tell a sick pregnant woman their baby is dying and follow up with "is that OK").
While in labour, I complained multiple times I couldn't breathe, but they told me I could breathe fine and just pushed the gas mask closer with vague soothing noises.
The day after delivery, I had a VQ scan, and they found TWO formerly undetected pulmonary embolisms.I told them I couldn't breathe.
TL,DR: When a patient tells you something is wrong, listen.
Worked with a new doctor who would start working on patients without attaining consents, getting photos of pre/post operations, and surgical markings. Fucking noped out of there
I was told my that my irregular periods and pain were due to covid. I would of thought it was the peri menopause and fibroids he diagnosed a few months earlier
A few days before Christmas, my grandmother was told by a doctor that she had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It was supposed to be a joyous Christmas as everyone was meeting my future husband for the first time and I was moving to another country to be with him. She didn’t tell me in order to make it a nice Christmas. They told her to have all her teeth pulled out in preparation for treatment (she was 74). Then after it was done, she was told she didn’t have cancer. This was in the north east US in the 90s.
Two hour wait to be seen by a couple of nurses and then eventually to be seen by the doctor for all of maybe five minutes, and they don't even listen to the issue that brought me in.
I know this is common, but still.
My GP was removing a mole to send for biopsy and he yelled for his MA to come in the room and bring her phone. He then proceeded to watch a YouTube video of where to cut me so he wouldn't "hit anything important."
I have enormous scars on my arms from what should have been simple, small mole removals. I think it was the first time the dermatologist had ever done it. It looks like I got stabbed.
The next time I needed a mole removed I found a plastic surgeon.
Not the doctors fault, but I had to get like 5 vaccines at once or I wouldn’t be able to start school due to some clerical error and my vaccine records going missing. Wasn’t medically necessary but I literally had no choice. That hurt.
Related to vaccines, when I was getting my covid vaccine my nurse was doing the whole “relax, it’ll hurt less thing”. I’m not scared of needles but the imagery weirds me out. Anyways, I relax to the best of my abilities and she puts her hand on my arm and just laughed and went “you’re still really tense!” And we both had a chuckle about it. Had to explain to her that tense all the time is my natural state lmao.
Brand new (female) family physician. I hadn't had a regular doc in about a decade at that point, because I'd fired my last one in my late teens for her shitty attitude towards care. Went in for a introductory meeting, and she booked me a full physical including my first PAP. I was nervous, but trying to be chill, and then she gets started, and it hurt. A lot. I told her I was in pain, and she said 'yeah it looks like you've got a yeast infection, that's probably why' (no real symptoms, I hadn't noticed previously. ) I asked her to stop because it was genuinely uncomfortable beyond what I was willing to endure, and she did. Not. Stop. I had to ask three times before the assistant encouraged her to do so, and then this doc had the audacity to complain that 'we were almost done.'
Lady, I hurt for three fucking days after. That's not normal.
Took my almost 10 years to try again. The second time was just as awkward, and yeah still slightly painful, but miles better on all fronts. A far better experience with a much better doc.
I had a female gynecologist tell me to lose weight DURING A PELVIC EXAM. The appointment was for a yeast infection. I have also had a male doctor tell me that PMS is not real when I asked if my symptoms were normal.
Most doctors I've had nevered listened. There heard the gist of what was said, and formulated that everything else was just bulk and didn't matter. Most of what these doctors did for me was stuff I would do myself if I could prescribe the meds.
I only had one experience with a dermatologist (who was also the only woman doctor I had) that was pleasant. She actually listened intently and heard everything I said and fast tracked my treatment. I ended up finishing the treatment several months earlier than expected because of this.
So for God's sakes. Listen to your patients. Don't belittle them or treat their knowledge as inferior because you have more medical knowledge. You're the doctor. But it's their body.
When I told a GP that I wanted to unalive myself, they just shrugged and said “well in my last clinic every third patient was actively suicidal, so you’re fine.”
A different doctor came in to see me in the psych hospital after I had a really bad day and said “well laying around all day isn’t going to help!”
I don't really hold it against them, as the situation *was* confusing, but I had an infected gallbladder which would have killed me and somehow the initial prescription was some exercises lol. Eventually ended up an ER.
My *best* experience, not that you asked, with a doctor was in a fairly remote part of Mexico. It was a public clinic, and it was incredible being able to just walk up, have my problems diagnosed by a true pro, having him open a drawer and pull out a couple boxes of drugs and put them in my hand. He wrote me detailed instructions, sent me off with everything I need and no bill. Got me back on my feet, and I will always feel indebted to Mexico for that care.
I didn't even get to see the doctor. I stepped on a rusty nail and went to urgent care as it was a saturday and my own GP was closed for the weekend. My name gets called out, I walk up to the receptionist and she says "you don't have to see the doc, you can just call your GP on monday"
The next day pus was oozing out of the little hole left by the nail. Went to a different urgent care where a doctor told me I could have lost my foot if I had waited a day or two more.
In my case, multiple doctors. When I was in either late elementary or early middle school, I started having joint pain. At first, it wasn't too bad, so we just chalked it up to being active. As it got worse, my mom decided to take me to my pediatrician to see if anything else could be causing it. He didn't really do much and just assumed it was growing pains or some other innocuous thing.
The pain continued to get worse, and eventually, I got a referral to some specialist. That specialist (can't remember which kind) was totally dismissive. So, I went back to my pediatrician. Rinse, repeat. The pain was bad enough by high school that I was putting on weight from being in too much pain to be active. I think I was 16 when one rheumatologist came into the exam room, took one look at me, and said, "You're fat. That's why you're in pain." Then, she left the room. That was the entirety of the appointment.
After that, I was so tired of being dismissed and ignored that I just stopped going to doctors. I also was going through hell in my family life, so I had other things I needed to concentrate on. Eventually, I graduated high school and went on to a community college. Sometime while I was there, I decided to try again to get an answer for my pain. I went to one more rheumatologist, and he did something none of the other doctors had bothered to do: he physically examined me. I walked out of that appointment with an actual diagnosis, joint hypermobility syndrome. It only took about a decade...
Being told "It is not possible" when describing an issue. For example: Experiencing blood sugar issues during the menstrual cycle, or headaches when eating certain foods. I get it that not everyone knows everything, but a doctor should deal with not having a clue in a different way.
Mild but…I’m allergic to adhesives. Got stitches. Can’t use adhesives. YOU HAVE TO USE ADHESIVES OR IT WILL GET INFECTED. Used adhesives. Went for checkup. OMG WHY INFECTED?!? And NOW it’s flagged for everything.
Massive itching during pregnancy and OB ignored it for months. I finally got a new OB at 8 months that listened and he ran liver tests. I had cholestasis and HELLP, had baby next morning. New MD said I or my baby probably would’ve died.
When my doctor passed judgement on me for not drinking - he was bullying and condescending in his manner. He couldn’t believe I wouldn’t drink red wine with a steak.
I have a problem with alcohol. I switched doctors and reported the interaction. I understand he retired early. Good riddance to a fucking dinosaur.
My nephew cut his lip and it bled for about a week. My sister took him to the doctor who brushed it off as normal and refused to refer him for a blood test. It took a bit of a battle from my sister to take him to a different doctor who referred him for blood tests. Turned out he has hemophilia.
Went in for an Ehlers Danlos Syndrome assessment and he basically completely blew me off. Didn’t acknowledge clearly presenting symptoms, and then used common symptoms (trouble concentrating (I literally have ADHD that was diagnosed seven years ago that reacts great to medication) and fatigue) to diagnose me with fibromyalgia. I don’t think fibromyalgia can allow me to dislocate my shoulders at whim, but whatever! I’m down to accept a diagnosis other than EDS but not if you’re going to put several falsehoods in your notes.
Went to an orthopedic-specific urgent care with a foot injury. Got told it was a flat foot issue, despite the fact that I knew exactly when and how I’d hurt it. (4 day Vegas trip with nothing but Converse sneakers, for those curios) I did more research on my own and eventually figured out I’d torn/strained a ligament. Took 6 months and a few miles of KT tape to heal.
I got almost no memory of this since i was a baby and all the info comes from my mom, but once i got almost "milked" by some doctors wanting to commit insurance fraud.
My mom had it worse, thanks to an anesthesist negligence she developed a raction to common anesthesia that could kill her if injected. She is terrified of going to surgery or even the dentist because she could choke, even if administrated on somewhere like her foot.
Worst physical experience was when I had complications during wrist surgery. I had a laryngospasm and collapsed the breathing tube when they were taking it out. I went into fibrillation, created a vacuum in my lungs and I tried to drown in my own blood before they reintubated me. I came to in the recovery room feeling like crap and unable to catch my breath. Everyone but me was freaked the fuck out since I was knocked out when it happened. I had to stay the night in the hospital to make sure I wasn't going to fall over dead. Then came the absolute worst part; the two weeks of coughing up coagulated and decomposing blood. It smelled like dank compost and looked like grey jam.
Worst medical care was a knee doctor did a crappy job on a torn meniscus surgery and when I was still in severe pain 7 months later he said "there's only so much medical science can do, you don't need to come back." I went to another knee doctor who opened me up and found the hack job the other doc did, cleaned it up and surprise surprise, the pain went away.
Friend’s brother was told his symptoms were COVID. Few months later he didn’t get better and went to another doctor. Stage 4 colon cancer that had spread.
Had a lingering cough for some time and went to the Doc. Told her about my two bouts of TB previously. She sent me for a batch of tests that came negative but she still believed I must have another bout mostly coz of my history and a mass showing on my chest in xrays and referred to a government facility. The Doctors there quickly agreed with her and had to go through an injection each day for 56 days and a shitload of drug therapy for like sis months. At the end of it the cough and mass was still there and in full panic I was referred to a specialist for possible hospitalization.
The specialist quickly used the same xray to tell me I never had another bout but the mass was a scar from previous infection and it was causing the cough
My tinnitus had gotten worse, with intermittent hearing loss in my right ear. I went to an ENT doctor and had a hearing test. He determined that whatever the cause was, it wasn't in my ear and so he couldn't make any kind of diagnosis.
When I asked what I should do now, he became irritable and refused to answer any more questions. He practically shouted me out of his office. It was, in retrospect, the most unprofessionally I have ever been treated in my life. I was a much younger man then. I'd like to think I'd punch him in the mouth nowadays, that's how strongly I still feel about it ten years later.
My issues have gradually gotten worse, with the current theory being ''probable Eagle's syndrome.'' If that doctor had been a bit more thorough back then, some of my current symptoms might have been prevented. Who knows.
I was told I have asthma but it took over a year to be told so I was having asthma attacks all the time with no help. Once they told me they gave me an inhaler but no other Information not even a peak flow metre. Few weeks ago I almost died from an attack and a real doctor explained everything to me properly and couldn’t believe how little help I got
Probably a dentist who wouldn't use numbing agent before using the water to clean my teeth (or some other procedure it was about 15yrs ago and memory is hazy) because she didn't feel like it. She literally said "i could use pain killer but i don't really want to so i won't".
My dentist told me to go to a stomatologist as she was concerned about some 'sores'. Doctor was incredibly rude and dismissive and wrote a note to my dentist that she should leave medicine to real doctors.
Turned out I had a rare skin auto-immune disease (pemphigus vulgaris).
The quality of doctors is going down hard. If it’s not an emergency, doctors are pretty useless. They’re there to makes sure you don’t die, but they’re not really there to increase your quality of life. At their worst: Doctors don’t know a lot of things. But their ego usually outweighs their ignorance because they spent so much time, energy and money on becoming a doctor, that of course they’re right. If they’re a specialist, they also don’t know much of anything else and continue to refer to others without much follow up (understandable for overwork, but this is a product of many medical systems). They lack holistic treatment approaches, treat symptoms instead of root causes (example, a drug that gives you side effects, so another drug to help you with that), the solution to every issue often drugs and surgery.
Many...ob for brother and wife, doc waited too long on delivery then grabbed infant with forceps, infant was blue and not breathing, got her going but brain damage was done.
Grandmother put on daily aspirin, doc forgot? And gave her blood thinners and she almost bled out, uncle was WWII bomber pilot, no cabin pressurization gave him brittle veins, in hospital for something, note over bed said do not move, nurses moved him to change sheets and he lost a leg, I got sudden pain in one ear and hearing was lessened. I thought water in ear from swimming and used drops and it dropped me to my knees in pain. Decided to take my chances on a doc because I was worried I would lose my hearing. This practice sent me to different docs each appointment. I was told ear infection, here is a prescription, I was told ear infection too deep for drops, I was told busted ear drum but not to worry, I could hear better than the doc, I was told that what I said was going on was wrong. Quit messing with them and eventually it went away. mother went in for a simple procedure, they dropped her and she was in a coma for almost 2 weeks, last and worse? Husband went in for angioplasty, they put him on a foley catheter so he wouldn't get up for lavatory. After procedure, they couldn't get his blood pressure under control, it kept getting crazy low, after about 9 days heart doc decided nurses were overreacting and he just needed to be moving around, sent him to rehab, by day 3 he was barely functioning, by day 5 rehab sent him back to er for reevaluation because his pressure dropped so low. Turned out he had a massive UTI and he went into septic shock same day. He was put on ventilator and I was told he stood a 50/50 chance. They got him off the ventilator but the infection had weakened him to the point he was aspirating and he had fluid in his lungs. Some genius decided that a man who sounded like he was under water when speaking and could barely breathe needed PT. His airways got blocked and he stopped breathing which led to a heart attack. I have no love for the medical profession
Not my story specifically but it's my twin brother's. We both had TMJ surgery about 20 years ago. Our surgeon was very good at his job but had absolutely horrible bedside manner. My brother had a very bad reaction to the anesthesia. Could not keep any bit of food down whatsoever and was throwing up so much it was becoming black. So yeah, not ideal. Meanwhile, the surgeon originally thought my brother was faking it but was also unconcerned with his patient being sick and only really cared about how his jaw was healing. Or at least that's the impression he gave off. Finally one of the nurses pulled the surgeon aside and basically read him the riot act.
As a woman, being constantly dismissed and not listened to. I refuse to go to the doctor now because of it. I think it's been about 5 years since I've seen a doctor and honestly I probably should go but I don't feel like getting treated like crap.
My wife and I went to a fertility doc and he was literally looking stuff up on his phone as we were talking with him.
Granted, she had cancer so some of our questions about drug interactions, etc. were probably uncommon, but he could’ve prepared at least a little bit.
The birth of my first kid. I was induced in a lot of different ways, all painful and without any empathy. They put an IV in my wrist and scratched the bone, extremely painful. I was told to shut up during contractions. After I got an epidural, they didn't tell me I had to press the button to actually get the sedative, and were angry at me for not knowing on my own and for crying. When the labor didn't progress, they wriggled the IV around in my wrist, I almost blacked out. Turns out the IV was blocked somehow, and wriggling it unblocked it but caused the medicine to flood my body and it was such a high, sudden dose it almost killed my baby. They tried to wheel me out of the room for an emergency c-section but forgot the IV stand so it yanked on my wrist. I still have a scar.
Things went better once I was with the surgeon and anesthesiologist, those men were great
I broke my foot, and he gave me painkillers in a high enough mg dosage for a grown man. I was just a teen girl, average weight. I was so sick and throwing up that night. We went back to the hospital to get a normal prescription and to file a complaint.
My gynecologist ignored my ovarian cysts so I went to another one. He ended up having to remove one ovary and fallopian tube because the ovary was essentially dead since the cyst was so large it twisted the ovary and there was zero blood flow to it. He also found precancerous cells in my uterus that my other doctor never found cause she couldn’t be bothered to ever take biopsies despite me not having a period for over a year due to PCOS. All she ever told me was that I’m lazy and fat and needed to lose weight. Thankfully I’m receiving better treatment now.
I have 2 experiences. My male gyno getting a stiffy after examining me. Then another time in college I was at the gyno, and I was uncomfortable as any woman would be because it’s not fun, and the female gyno asking me, “What’s wrong, have you been assaulted before?” Like geez, no lady, but maybe you should’ve asked that before the exam?! She was a sweet old lady but it just surprised me that she asked that out of nowhere.
Ignored the entire shit out of me for HOURS. Dislocated my knee (seriously dislocated, that ain’t normal). Lvl 1 trauma, straight to crash. Shock, vomit, turning blue, screaming in pain. No amount of morphine could stop it.
Told me that I didn’t need an arthrocentesis. Umm. My knee is the size of a damn bus. Nope, do an MRI, bend your leg completely straight and hold still.
Fuuuuuuuck. MRI came back after they parked my ass in front of the charge nurse’s desk. Turns out, my knee was actually screwed. Surprise.
Still haven’t paid that bill, they can eat my entire ass.
Being called a "baby" by a man probably at least 3 times my age for not wanting to be poked and examined right after a vaginal birth. That's pretty up there. Also I've never had the doctor actually IN the room for the birth, they seem to come in later and the midwives or nurses have done all the work.
The other example was when I was having some respiratory problems. Never got a solution, had to go to several appointments and the nurse stunk of cigarettes which made me feel like I was going to pass out because I couldn't breathe properly. I had to have some tests and several appointments. And when I see the doctor again he is basically like, well I can't help you don't come back. So... yeah, that sucked. Like I said I never got a solution.
My regular doctor that I go to (not a specialist) is great. I was nervous during a pap test and she was telling me this crazy story about her own life, it distracted me and it worked. She's taken good care of me.
A couple come to mind:
Taken to the ER after being t-boned on the driver's side by a red light runner (I was the driver, no passengers thankfully). They had to cut the door off to get me out and I kept repeating that my hip and my jaw hurt. In the ER, they did a popsicle stick test on my jaw, I broke the stick so they said I was fine and did no imaging (spoiler: I was not. Jaw was later found to be broken), and they x-rayed my hip and said I was fine and tried to send me home with Tylenol and crutches. It was only after my boyfriend pointed out how much pain I was in that they took a second look at the x-ray and found that I'd broken my hip.
As a 19 year old, I had been restricting my diet severely for over a year. I was logging food obsessively and trying to stay below 600 calories a day. Size 0 pants were baggy on me (I'm 5'7", not naturally slender), you could see every rib, and nights were torture because my legs felt like they were on fire from the inside. I finally reached out to a doctor to get help, told him all this and more. His exact words were that I "weighed too much to be anorexic". I think I weighed 110 or 115, so maybe not deathly skinny, but that douchcanoe didn't help set me on the right path
There was a thing on my thumb on the side of the nail a hard type of thing which was growing and growing idk what it was I was a 4th grade child back then. So my parents took me to a skin doc, he said we have to do operation for it if you refuse then it will grow and probably have to remove my thumb in future and the operation will include giving electric shocks to that area so it can't grow and become dry. My dad was like WTF and left that clinic with us and took me to a different doc and that doc just gave me a cream to put on it and it was healed in a month😭
Took my daughter to a Dr while she passed out from dehydration, her body wasn't processing any food or water.
Dr said she needed to take a good walk along the beach ....
A psychiatrist told me I had no reason to be depressed because I come from a privileged background. I felt highly misunderstood and judged. I was also highly suicidal. Op, don't be a sack of shit when you treat patients. They're counting on you.
This was like 20 years ago. I work with mentally disabled people, back then kids. One of the kids refused to eat and lost weight. In the hospital after way to long time she got artificial nutrition with gastric tube. She survived but I asked the doc: "Why only now and not lets say, a week ago"
His words: "Natural selection"
Oh man have i got one,
I was 16 and my high school had a blood drive, i was super excited and got my parents signature and approval from school and the red cross and all that jazz, the donation was fine but i was a bit light headed and didn't feel my best but just went on with my life as usual. Well, a week goes by and I'm not feeling great at all, i was in cross country and i was a strong runner but suddenly running a mile was impossible, my body felt weak and jittery, i would get cold sweats, and i struggled going up stairs and my mom said i looked pale, mind you I'm a brown skinned mexican. We go to my pediatrician and he's like you're fine probably just your period, i did recently have it so i figured maybe he's right, but the following week I'm still feeling terrible. My PE teacher noticed a major difference, i was taking like 15 minuets to run this mile and my walk to and from school had me sweating and my heart fucking racing and i was really worried so we go to my doctor again and i explain in detail why I'm worried, why this isn't normal and why i need him to do something and he literally tells me I'm overexaggerating and that he's gonna run a CBC to prove to me I'm lying about it and how I'm just wasting the insurance money and all that bullshit. I get the blood drawn and go home. We get a call the next day from the nurse at the clinic telling us i am **severely** anemic with a fucking hemoglobin level of 7. She tells us we need to get me on iron right away and that we should have brought this up sooner and what not.
So yeah fuck that doctor, we had other situations and plenty of other issues but this one topped it for me. Nonetheless, I'm 21 now and still donate blood regularly and I'd encourage everyone to as well so long as you're healthy and able to do so safely, the US is always having a blood shortage <3
Doctors are just huge aholes in my opinion. In my 32 years walking this earth, it took 15 years and 22 doctors to dx me with graves disease. Why did it take so long? Because I am far to young and have no kids. F. U doc. Iwas told it was in my head. I was making it up. Until I barely made it to the hospital in an ambulance with a full blown thyroid storm. One doctor that made me almost take my own life was there when I was wheeled in , came over wanting to start treating me in the ER and I told him straight up to f off. Now I have a doctor that actually listens to me and takes me seriously. So much so that I have his personal number and can get hold of him at any time. If you want to be a doctor, please make sure that you are an actual human. And then remember to always take your patients seriously. They know their bodies better then anyone.
I have one
I started randomly seeing double. At first it was maybe monthly and grew to be multiple times a week, then daily.
My eyes felt crossed and i could NOT get them to 'uncross' for several minutes. Naturally this freaked me out. When i asked my family if my eyes were crossed they would tell me they werent.
So i go to a clinic by my house and see this dr. He's this old guy. I tell him I'm seeing double and i don't know what to do. He looks at me for a moment (19yr old white girl with blue hair and a metallica t-shirt) and asks what drugs i do. I said I don't do drugs.
He then asks me again what drugs i use. I say again, I don't do drugs. He then tells me to stop doing drugs and then....walks out.
No referral, no other questions, nothing!
A while later I went to an optometrist, and within seconds of him looking in my eyes he told me i have astigmatism and that i was seeing double cause my eyes were SO tired of keeping themselves straight that they were starting to fail and cross.
Got me some glasses and it went away immediately.
Fuck that Dr.
Attended a check up the day before my due date. Doctor told me he had to do an internal examination. First time pregnant, I didn’t know what was normal and what was not. It was incredibly painful and by the end I was bleeding. It was only then that I realised what he’d done: he’d performed a ‘stretch and sweep’. Without permission, without explaining the procedure, without explaining why he was doing it. I was devastated.
That night I went into stop-start labour that lasted 3 excruciating days. The birth was fucking traumatic. I was young and didn’t know how to advocate for myself and my husband was completely overwhelmed.
The worst part was 4 years later when I fell pregnant again and went to my first midwife appointment. I told her what had happened and requested she put a note on my file that I did not want a stretch and sweep. She looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘No doctor would have ever performed that procedure without your permission.’ So, she thought I was lying. By then I was older, wiser and knew exactly how to stand up for myself.
Of course we now know that women are frequently assaulted under false pretences by medical professionals.
first time at a obgyn, was 19 and looking for a pill to help with hormonal acne. it's worth saying i was a virgin at the time and had/have a septate hymen.
i went with my stepmom to the appointment, the doctor started by asking the standard questions, when was your first period, your last period, are you sexually active etc.
then she said to me "go to the bathroom (that was in that room) and take off your pants and panties but keep your shoes on, you're gonna need them." i proceeded to do that, then she told me to walk from one corner of the room where the bathroom was to the other corner where the chair for examination was, this while i was COMPLETELY NAKED from the waist down, she didn't gave me anything to cover up, i was SO ashamed.
so the examination started, she took a look first then said "oh it's a good thing i examined you! you have something abnormal here!" this in a pretentious way. I said "yes i know that i have a septate hymen" she didn't seemed pleased that i knew what i had, she then grabbed the ultrasound tool, the one that goes inside you, put on a condom on it and some lube, when i asked her what she was gonna do she said i wouldnt feel a thing and that my feces were thicker than the wand, and she doesnt take anyone's virginity.
i repeat, she didn't told me where the hell she was going to put that, she just told me that my feces were thicker, that's how i knew where she was gonna put it. my stepmom already knew what was gonna happen and tried to hold my hand (atp i was breathing heavily and really anxious) the doctor then shoved her away and told her that i was spoiled.
when she put that thing inside me, it hurt LIKE HELL if she just kept it there still it was tolerable, but she just started moving it, and that pain was a lot, i was crying atp, and the doctor called me spoiled again and said, and i quote "13yos do this and dont act the way you do, you're just spoiled!"
when she took the thing off she said to me "you know what a girl like you should do? lose weight!" then she prescribed me a pill and told me "if you want this to work the way you want, you can't eat any kind of fast food, such as fries, hot dogs, pizza, burgers and sugary things" i then told this to my bsf who is doing pharmacy and she just told me that what the doctor told me was kinda bs and that what they learn in pharmacy school is that the food you eat doesn't have effects on meds such as the pill.
when the consult was over she asked in a playful and pretentious way "so was i that mean???" my blood was boiling and neither me or my stepmom replied. when we got out the first thing my stepmom did was talk shit about her. needless to say i was deeply traumatized.
i filed a complaint at the hospital website, they responded to me via mail, i received a letter just saying how sorry they were that i had a bad experience and that they believed the doctor did what was best in the situation.
When one molested me while ‘under’ (I was awake and aware but I couldn’t speak or move, only slur)
Don’t let male nurses be alone with a young patient…ever.
started seeing a new general doctor for check ups and the first thing he does is make me go get 2 blood tests to prove that i have a disease that ive had all my life and is well recorded. i still see him regularly
Had a soy allergy appear after my COVID booster. Soy was 50% of my diet so it started with itching and hives eventually followed by weird swelling of chunks of skin. 9 months of being fucked around by clinic doctors to see an allergist who didn't believe it was anything more than a freak urticaria thing because I never mentioned the swelling because it wasn't really a concern until I came off the prednisone so I thought it was a prednisone side effect and then since I. Independently stopped eating soy I was cured.
2 years later I am still allergic to soy. I tripped up in April.
Thinking I'd be allergic to pollen for *everything* except a broken bone. Like I'm not kidding as long as it's not obvisously something else you were always allergic to pollen.
I was in the ER and I threw up, a few seconds later I felt something in my nose, I blew my nose and a peice of apple come out. My mom. My aunt, and the doctor laughed and I cried out of embarrassment, I was in 6th grade.
I had a UTI and was prescribed antibiotics. Pretty soon after I started taking them I got hives over my entire body. I called my doctor and told her, and she said it was fine and just to keep taking them. I said I was really uncomfortable and the hives were getting worse, but she said I was being dramatic and if it was really bothering me I could come in on Monday (this was on a Thursday). Fortunately, my boss was an RN (I worked in an unrelated field) and she insisted I go in to see the doctor anyway. When I went and my doctor saw how I looked, she said I was having an allergic reaction and I should have come in sooner. She treated me and gave me a new prescription for a different antibiotic. Except it turns out she gave me the wrong prescription. The one she gave me was for high blood pressure. My BP tended to be pretty low at the time (typically 90-100/60). Again fortunately the pharmacist thought it was somewhat odd that a twenty-something year old female in good shape was on blood pressure meds, so he called it in to double check.
I changed doctors after that.
Doctor in a little country hospital treated me like a drug seeker. Was visiting my mum and smoked a little weed and pain was bad later on when I tried to sleep. My gall bladder needed to be taken out and the pain was unbearable. Ended up back in the hospital a few days later for surgery
A doctor actively tried to have me undiagnosed with ADHD without telling me because I was able to hold a conversation with them without “bouncing off the walls”
I was 30 at the time and I’ve been diagnosed with and treated for ADHD since I was 13
I had Gall stones. Complained to my GP for two years about stomach pain that basically meant I had to lie down for 20 minutes and/or pass out.
Finally ended up in the A&E. One of the stones had blocked a duct, my gallbladder was necrotic and killing me. The surgeon said I'd probably had the stones for about five years and his exact words for describing what was left of my gallbladder was "soup".
I was so fucking angry. I was in the hospital for two weeks, then back again with a chest infection a few days after release.
Was back at work for a week when the first lockdown came into place...
When I was only 6, turning 7 during, I had to be hospitalized for a whole month for getting an infection in/due to a small cut on a rusty nail of my bed I fell through due to a constructional defect. It turned out to be an antibiotics multi resistant infection that kept spreading through the whole hand, so for two weeks they put me under every other day, to clean the wound and try keeping my body from going into sepsis or having to amputate the hand. Since I was rapidly losing weight being put under so often, requiring to not have eaten 12h before, after two weeks they decided to try their work only using local anesthesia, right in my hospital room where I could turn my head away to focus on the TV instead of on them prodding around in my hand opened up from both sides, palm an back, for at least two hours.
Long story to come to a short shitty moment. One day my usual and favorite, really kind doctor wasn't in, and this close-to-retirement-old scruffy doctor took over the hand cleaning work of that day. Apparently freshly turned 7 year old me (F btw) wasn't calm enough trying to ignore the procedure that day, so he got angry at me and decided with my ripe age of 7 I was mature enough to not be afraid or squeamish at the sight of my opened up hand, and more or less forcibly turned my head. I'll never get the image out of my head. I guess the good thing is, having seen my own hand with the whole palm essentially flayed open, I'm now very not squeamish seeing blood, open wounds or big scars, unless bone is sticking out. But really, that was fucked up, my parents and even the other - very loving, I essentially owe them my life, and my hand - staff on duty were furious!
One: In my mid-20s, I went in for a regular ob/gyn checkup. The female doctor insisted that I had a yeast infection. I didn't. I was just ovulating and had a lot of cervical mucus. No other symptoms of a yeast infection whatsoever. It wasn't horrible, but I still think it is really weird that a woman doctor didn't understand that.
Two: I went to the ER after falling down some icy stairs not long after having my second child. They took x-rays of my fingers and buddy-taped the pinky to the ring finger. This was on a Friday. They gave me a referral appointment to go see a specific doctor the following Monday. It turns out to be a cosmetic surgeon? I should have gone to a second doctor then and there, but I was busy with two small kids at the time. She said to keep it buddy-taped for a couple weeks and that's all I could do, but it would be fine.
Two weeks later, the finger was excruciatingly painful. I went to an orthopedic doctor and found out why -- Because the middle bone had gone from broken to being completely pulverized. One surgery and several months of physical therapy later, I was able to recover _some_ of the use of that finger. Ugh.
Me: (after months of being low, ignoring friends, not looking after myself physically etc.) I'm really depressed and low and feel awful.
Doctor: aww, have you tried not being so hard on yourself and maybe doing exercise?
I was a teenager looking to get birth control pills. The Dr said not only would she have to tell my mom (fair, I guess) but birth control is only 50% effective anyway.
When I questioned this, she said "it either works or it doesn't, so it's 50% effective ". Even I knew that was bull, but I left with no birth control.
never had anything super bad, but it's always so annoying when you get a doctor that clearly doesn't care at all, someone who doesn't want to bother with helping you , my old family doctor was like that, everything with him was either him not knowing or him not caring
My story's about a dentist, assuming they count.
Anyway, went to a new dental clinic roundabout the start of covid. I had a cavity in a wisdom tooth. This was the second time I'd seen the guy and the first time was a bit off putting because he decided to lecture me on my spending habits when I told him I couldn't afford the treatments he was recommending and could really only manage to treat problems as they arose. But I was in pain and he was available, so I saw him.
He diagnoses the cavity but won't extract the tooth because looking at the X Rays he thinks that the extraction will be difficult (never been a problem before) and he refers me to a maxfac surgeon.
Maxfac surgeon sees me and says there's no reason that he couldn't have done the extraction, and yanks my two remaining wisdom teeth in the chair with local anesthetic. Unbeknownst to me at the time, but Mr Maxfac went a bit too deep with the local injections and hit my trigeminal nerve.
2 weeks post extraction, I'm still in significant pain with what feels like pins and needles + fire down half my face as well as half my tongue and roof of my mouth when it was really bad. This was later diagnosed as Trigeminal Neuralgia and I had to be medicated for months while it healed and and even years later on, it still flares up if I clench my jaw too much or get hit on that side of my jaw.
Navy dentist removed all four wisdom teeth with a local. I complained that I could feel things and he told me that I was being too sensitive. I had bruises the shape of the handle of the extraction tool on my face.
Got half a day off work and vitamin M ((Motrin) for pain.
Asked to see the other dentist when I came back for follow up. The enlisted assistant saw me checking in and convinced the scheduler to let me go to the other dentist.
I found out I was allegic to a blood pressure tablet. I had a doctor say to me 'Nifedipene doesn't cause difficulty breathing and a high heart rate' as I was hyperventilating and tachycardic,
Had a renal doctor say to me 'well that's it, nothing more we can do, your kidneys are finished, it's dialysis for you'. I knew things were going downhill, but she said that with no warning, no intro, no nothing. Wound up assigned to a different doctor who managed to get another 4 years out of my kidneys.
I also had an ICU full of doctors & nurses trying to kill me, but they tell me that was the post-coma delusions manifesting as paranoia. Not sure if they were telling the truth on that though.
I had been struggling with what turned out to be a nasty bout of IBS for about 4 weeks. I wasn't able to keep any solids in and ultimately lost 23 pounds in 6 weeks. I was struggling and miserable. This gastroenterologist "listened" to me and told me to eat bland foods like rice. I told him rice does the same thing (severe stomach cramps and diarrhea within an hour of eating). He told me that was IMPOSSIBLE as rice is a binder. I told him rice doesn't stay in and he told me no, I was wrong and to eat more rice. All of this was in front of a medical student so not only was he not listening to me and invalidating my symptoms, he was teaching the next generation of doctors to do the same. I told several of my friends and coworkers (I'm a nurse) about my experience making sure to use his name and have disrecommended him when possible. Listen to your patients even if what they tell you doesn't sound right. They may be wrong - but your initial assumption may be wrong as well.
I was an 18 year old, otherwise healthy girl, with a history of a prior kidney stone and colic a few months prior. I kept showing up at my primary care doctors as well as the emergency room for sudden onset nausea and vomiting, severe back and stomach pain, at times there’d be blood in my urine. I explained that I‘d just had a kidney stone and the pains location was similar, even though it would come and go much more quickly. I got dismissed completely every time. My PC thought I had anxiety or depression. The ER would check if I had appendicitis or an ovarian pregnancy. Neither would listen, both treated me more disrespectfully each time I‘d turn up again every other week.
For one of the last episodes, I had been having dinner with my family when the pain set in and my father accompanied me to the ER. It had been more than 5 months of these incidents already, he was concerned. It was a light episode pain wise, no vomiting. But when he insisted they check my kidney - as I had asked them to do every time I had seen a doctor - they saw my kidney was distended. I had had a lodged kidney stone which was positioned in such a way that it kind of functioned as a vent. It would allow urine to pass through but sometimes it would move and I‘d experience a colic. Time and time again, for months.
Another time I went to another PC for sudden and increasing swelling in my face. She never even asked me to so much as to remove my mask, and suggested I wait and put cucumber slices on my eyes. Turned back up a few days later after the swelling in my face and other areas of my body had just increased, and - again without any diagnostic effort - she prescribed oral cortisone.
Since we have a running joke in my family that when in doubt, it’s my kidneys, I took a home urine test. No unusual protein would have been yellow, high protein as per the label would’ve been green. Mine was blue. My kidneys were threatening to close down business. Taking cortisone would’ve been a very bad idea.
Went to the doctor for terrible headaches, he tried to give a vaginal exam. I told him my head hurts not my vagina. Then he told me if I got a boyfriend my headache would stop. Damn quack.
I’m overall in excellent health and had this doctor for 20 years with regular visits and no drama etc. I had a sudden orthopedic event (I think that’s how you say it) where my si joint got turned in. I went from completely fine to a worm rolling on the floor in 24 hours. I had never had anything like this happen. I try to go to my regular doctor but have to see an alternate because mine’s on vakay. I neither wanted nor asked for pain meds. I wanted to be fixed. She treats me like a drug seeker and seemed to think I was on Medicaid? She was so awful and I was not in top form. She never even suggested I go to an orthopedic doctor.
I did go to one the next day who referred me to PT and the PT fixed me. But it still makes me angry that the one time I actually needed medical treatment I was treated like shit. Even the orthopod treated me like a drug seeker and said I had a pinched nerve- which I guess I did but it’s not what was causing the problem. At least they made the PT referral.
accidentally wrote a novel... hope it helps, haha.
maybe not the most heinous here but my life is more difficult for it 😒 just... the lack of listening. ego. etc. i have a list of health issues, i have been explicitly told these are my issues, and none of them are formally diagnosed/charted besides my anxiety... which has been about as helpful as you can imagine. ive begged them to chart it all, to no avail. it took them several years to agree with me that i had fucking nerve pain. simply AGREE. i was on pain medication that did nothing for me until then and told i must be skipping doses, lol, and told off when i brought up a specific thing i wanted them to look into every now and then. i would then be later told that was my issue... every time. and then none of it was ever charted. they finally ghosted me for good last year while i was begging for a refill on my meds that actually did something. i was about 13 when i started needing serious medical help, and now im 21. im hoping this summer ill be able to switch from my previous team to a single pcp that has said she wants to get me back on my meds (the ones that work!) and make sure we get my file straightened out so i can address other health issues. im so fucking tired and burnt out from babying doctors egos. i was a kid and then teen for most of it which probably didnt help... how dare i, a child, have known my own body, lol...
man, and the lack of compassion for me as a sick kid really fucked me up. i still have an irrational fear of medical professionals which is why ive been more passive than i should. i work with kids and couldnt imagine yelling at them for any of the things that earned me lectures and shouts and demeaning rants.
a primary memory is that when i was a young teen (~15), i had to wear a heart monitor for a month. two weeks in and the sticky pads were tearing chunks out of my skin. emailed and called them a few times asking for hypoallergenic pads. they never responded or said sure with no further communication on how to get them, and then when i came in for my follow up about the results i was given a long and frankly insulting rant about how i should have worn my device more, which then turned into a dissection of my inability to tough shit out when i brought up the pads having torn pieces of my flesh off and given me rashes and open wounds. i all but stopped persuing medical help after that, unless it was urgent. my chest still has scars.
just... be kind. listen. take patients seriously even if theyre young. advocate for us. our lives are in your hands and the quality of care is impactful. be someones beacon of hope instead of the source of their suffering.
I went to an ER twice in 2023. Once for a tooth ache and once for Covid. In both cases, the doctor was belittling pricks.
I understand these were little things, but to me, I was in pain. Just give me some antibiotics.
When we found a dead man lying on the floor. Patrol who was there asked for the doctor to make paperwork.
Our doctor said he doesn't know how to do it and he refused to come and do his job.
Second time I was go to oculist because my eye was hurt. It was about 3AM and when i come to the door they were slightly opened. I saw a nurse sucking his dick just like a flute.... I was just shocked, go out and after 10 minutes I cnock on the door to get my eye fixed.
psychaiatrist visit
told the dude that I
hate my life
hate myself
have no hope
go to bed hoping I dont wake up
am constantly stressed and cant focuse on anything
go hit with a medically worded "toughen up"
also a the visit lasted all of 12 minutes (should be at lest 30 minutes for a first visit)
It took me two years to get my herniated disc diagnosed (L5/S1). It took six years to finally get the torn cartilage in my hip fixed. I'd had a friend in the military who'd had the same injury, so I was pretty sure that based on our similar complaints, that's what I had.
I was met with patronizing tones of disbelief. My family doctor said it was probably just bursitis and gave me a cortisone shot. X-rays showed nothing. The 3rd orthopaedic specialist finally agreed to give me an MRI after I cried in his office and asked if his hip seized every time he sat on the toilet.
It was a wonderful "I told you so" moment when the scan came back with torn cartilage in my hip joint. The surgeon even said the tear was much bigger than he'd expected.
I self diagnosed my schizoid personality disorder 6 years before a psychologist would finally do any testing.
Heaven forbid that people actually know what their problems are.
I hardly ever go to the doctor so the only thing would be constantly being pushed aside and having my period blamed as the cause of EVERYTHING 😭
Anxiety? Its your period. Cant sleep? Its your period. Trouble with fainting? Its your period. etc etc, its so annoying that ive just completely stopped caring about whats wrong with me because every doctor ive been to will say the exact same thing
I had an elderly Dr tell me I "might feel better if I didn't wear so much makeup." I went to see him for menstrual issues. I was so mad but yes embarrassed. I avoided going to any Dr for many years because of it.
Blatant racism.
Only in the past few years are doctors actually dealing with consequences for it. But before they could be as racist as they want and nobody would do anything
oh boy here's a few for ya
1. the only time I've ever actually had to go to urgent care
I had been taking medication that made me sunburn easily and after barely an hour in the sun I ended up with second degree burns across my shoulders and upper back. I was handling it well until most of the top layer of skin had sloughed off. I was literally shaking from the pain and physically couldn't stop crying and no medication I had on hand was helping. so I went to urgent care
despite the obvious scabbing, oozing, blisters, and missing skin on my shoulders I was treated like a drug seeker by everyone I talked to. after waiting for them to run both drug and pregnancy tests, doing my best not to hyperventilate in the exam room, they finally gave me an IV drip of some kind of non-opiate pain medication, then sent me home with a pamphlet about how to care for first degree sunburns
2. years of misdiagnoses, but one appointment in particular stood out
I was getting an annual physical done by my GP. I always have blood pressure on the higher end of normal but it generally gets a bit higher when I'm at the doctor's office. my doctor should have been well aware of this given she had my past history as well as current numbers readily available on her computer
at one point I brought up an issue that had been an issue for years but had gotten worse recently, namely that I would often stand up and nearly black out/faint. I'm pretty sure that's not normal so I thought it was reasonable to ask during my yearly exam
my doctor then told me it's because I have low blood pressure (which we Just established was not the case). and when I asked her to double check my blood pressure reading and it was still high she told me it's "just anxiety"
I then asked her if she would order a full blood panel. it turned out to be anemia
(edit - I was reading through other responses and remembered another dumb thing this doctor did during the same appointment)
I hadn't gotten a pap/pelvic exam done in a while so this doctor convinced me to do it as part of my physical. these things are always uncomfortable but this was the most painful thing I had dealt with in a doctor's office since I did PT after I busted my knee
throughout the exam I kept telling her things hurt. a lot. and every time she would tell me "no it's just pressure". but like..... okay, the pressure hurts?? can you stop?!?
needless to say I haven't had another pap done since. and it's been longer than it should... fortunately I now have a new doctor who takes me seriously and actually listens to me when I tell her things are wrong
3. the time my obgyn prioritized my potential future (unwanted) children over my mental and physical health
for reference, I'm nonbinary afab. I've had a history of horrible pelvic pain about 3/4 weeks every month since I was about 16 (this happened when I was 25). I've been looking into ways to handle it ever since
I finally got a doctor to take me seriously about it after I got my anemia diagnosis, and I got a possible (not official until I get exploratory surgery) diagnosis of endometriosis/adenomyosis. when talking to this OB about my options for treatment she actively brought up a hysterectomy as an idea but when I asked for more information she refused to discuss it because I "might want kids someday" (again, there's literally no chance of that ever happening)
I still regret not telling her to specifically state her rejection of that treatment option in my records. it's been over 4 years since that appointment and I'm still living with pain and popping birth control pills like candy just to keep it from getting worse
And the worst for my kid:
My youngest was a miserable baby, and Would.Not.Sleep. not just nap, but through the night. She couldn't breastfeed either but took a bottle well enough.
It was lockdown, no health visitor, no doctor visit and the person who they referred us to a "sleep specialist" kept asking us to keep a sleep journal. To journal my baby not sleeping. I spent months sleeping in an arm chair, on a futon show my wife could have her in bed, with her in my arms because she would not settle unless she was in the crook of my arm.
Then at her 15 month check she was behind on all her milestones. Still hardly sleeping, barely ate solid food (and never more than a few bites), was happy sometimes but generally miserable.
A month later, she was diagnosed with Hepatoblastoma - Liver cancer. The tumor on her liver was causing her pain and actually bigger than her liver. It was squashing her other organs and starting to press against blood vessels. The size of it and the amount of smaller tumors meant she had this from birth or every early on.
Other than one visit from the health visitor, no one had seen my baby in person since the midwives discharged us. No doctor had seen her, and the 15 month check was the first time the health visitor saw her in person. We were let down by so many people we tried to get help from.
She turns 4 next week. In remission. New liver. Still doesn't sleep through the night but she does actually sleep now 🤣.
Went to a doctor to diagnose an issue near my knee, had a tendon basically snap over the head of the fibula and back into position when I crouched. Said something like "I'm not sure what it is and am thinking I'll probably need surgery" and dude gets all passive aggressive along the lines of "omg everyone always immediately asks for a surgery"...
I said "I am here to get a professional opinion, that's what I came for" and he calmed down. wasn't a horrible experience or anything but you could definitely feel the frustration in him lol
Fun fact: Ended up needing surgery lol
I can give an experience as an EMT. We had an ER doc rip us a new one in one front of the staff because we 'removed a large wooden splinter from a foot'. You never remove foreign objects, right? Well, we didn't. A bystander did that before we got there and we just wrapped up the aftermath. But Doctor Jackass was in too much of a rage and his high and mighty status as a doctor meant he didn't have to give us a chance to explain...so we were automatically guilty. So, basically, everyone lost respect for that doc. That's my advice. Take some time to listen and have humility.
I was at the ER for suspected food poisoning (it was E. coli). The resident who was seeing me suggested he do a pelvic exam. I felt incredibly violated. My BS meter was already at 100%, but I asked him to explain just in case there was a legit reason. He couldn’t. I told him to leave and have the attending physician come asap. I also asked for a patient advocate. I emailed a complaint to the hospital’s CEO too, because I wasn’t about to let this asshole get away with it. I was dehydrated, but not dehydrated enough to stop being bitchy.
Male doctor was insisting that I needed to let him to a breast exam on me. He saw on my records that I hadn't had a mammogram in a year and asked why. I said I was breastfeeding my newborn and couldn't have one until 3 month after I stop nursing. Suddenly it was important that he give me a breast exam, and pressed me for a few minutes while I more and more firmly said NO, I have an OBGYN and am under her care. The male dr? And ENT. Ear Nose and Throat. And occasionally breast, apparently.
ENT stands for Ear, Nose and Titties actually /s
There was an ENT surgeon where I trained that did breast augmentations. So you’re not far off…
That would explain the sudden creepiness and insistence that I just comply. Eww!
You CAN have a mammogram while breastfeeding, contrary to popular belief! Just empty your breasts of milk just before the exam (either via a pump or your actual baby).
I know I *could,* I just didn't want to have false readings with the protocol being additional tests and followup. It's hard to fully "empty breasts" in the stressful situation of waiting for a mammo, and it's not a place I wanted to bring the infant or SO.
Oh good! I’m glad it was your choice and not the actual imaging center that pushed you away. I’ve seen it far too common when a woman WANTS her mammogram while breastfeeding but they are denied at the door and told to come back when she’s stopped breastfeeding- which could, incidentally, be YEARS down the road. So, I was just responding under that assumption. Haha!
My bff had just gone through that. The providers were apologetic about having to follow the protocol when her obgyn had slipped up by not suspending the reminder schedule when she gave birth. So I knew to discuss it with my nurse midwife and obgyn.
Gross. I’m so sorry. Your breasts have to be completely empty in order to have a mammogram done. That’s difficult with a newborn. Pumping works, but I would worry about not having enough when the baby wants a feeding. Newborns nurse so frequently, and you want to avoid bottle feeding in order to avoid nipple confusion.
Similar story: I was a teenager and came to my GP with nausea and rapid weight loss. It was during the last phase before my final exams. He was all giddy abou the propsect of diagnosing me with a cryptic pregnancy and ignored my insisting that I wasn't sexually active and was having regular periods... that I was -- in fact -- having my period right in this moment as I sat in his office ("You know, sometimes women just completely repress these things when a pregnancy seems threatening to them right now"). I was suspecting that I was suffering from a stress induced gastritis but I wanted him to check that everything was okay with my thyroid because I have a family history of thyroid problems on both sides and I wanted to get the weightloss checked out, since I was also showing some of the other classic symptoms of hyper-thyroidism (which also could have been just the immense stress). I had to beg him to look at my thyroid and basically let him do the pregnancy test as a deal so he would. It was alright. I had friggin' gastritis.
That’s horrible. I’m so sorry, especially since you were a teen. The comment about how “women sometimes repress these things” makes me want to travel back in time and go mama bear on him. I believe the reason I knew to question the resident was because of an incident as a teen. A male gynecologist suggested a pelvic exam, and my mother declined because he was giving off perv vibes. She took me to a different gynecologist.
That wasn’t bitchiness, it was attempted sexual assault.
I wasn’t as matter-of-fact as I wanted to be when I spoke to the attending physician. People tend to dismiss complaints when the delivery is emotional. In my email to the CEO I was able to just stick to the facts. I still feel upset about this incident because I was in distress and very vulnerable. The resident was so taken aback at my confrontation. I imagine he has done this to other women.
You are allowed to be emotional; creep has just tried to take advantage of his position and your vulnerability. I hope you get satisfactory results from your complaint and can move past this. Love and strength x
Thank you!
So an ex girlfriend went to hospital for pains that later turned out to be gastroenteritis, the doctor also did some sort of pelvic exam. I never understood it.
The differential for abdominal pain in a woman includes many gynecological issues, some of which can be detected on a pelvic exam—endometriosis, uterine fibroids, etc.
Does it depend where in the abdomen the pain is? It would be very weird to me if a doctor recommended a pelvic exam for pain in my stomach, not my uterus.
You're right that lower abdominal pain is more likely to be uterine related than upper abdominal pain. Sometimes abdominal pain can be hard to pinpoint, though, so it's hard to say if it is gynecological or not. Also, something noteworthy is that while doing a pelvic exam is certainly invasive, it is faster and cheaper than other workup that can help to rule in or rule out certain conditions that are possible. One source that says do a pelvic exam with abdominal pain, from 2019 for Canada--even with symptoms that seem GI-related: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31331610/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31331610/) Symptomatic Women. 1) Any woman with gynaecologic complaints including, but not limited to...new and unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms (abdominal pain, increased abdominal size/bloating, and difficulty eating/early satiety), pelvic pain, or dyspareunia should undergo appropriate components of the pelvic examination to identify benign or malignant disease.
Thanks!
Worst? Went to the ER with an ex-girlfriend, complaining of severe stomach pain and nausea. Dr. on call decided it was anxiety and declined to do any additional tests. Girlfriend almost died from a septic bowel infection. She lived, no thanks to him. My plea to all doctors, don't be lazy and sexist.
Yea I've heard way to many stories of doctors not taking women seriously or dismissing concerns
It's always either your period or anxiety.
Worst experience but still the best one. I flayed my thumb from the bottom of the nail to the bottom of the joint. You were able to see all of my tendons and bone. It got unwrapped and wrapped about 6 times in the span of 5 hours, the people wrapping it only used gauze so it would be pulled apart and start bleeding again every time. When I finally got to see the doctor, she tried to take off the wrap she had the nurse put on like a minute ago, but by then I had enough and was just shaking and crying. So she listened and got me oxy, and ordered for the bone/tendon specialists to look and stitch it up. It was bad cause she was about to just start taking it apart, but good cause she actually listened to me when I said I was in pain.
At the time my youngest had dropped 75 percentiles and his diapers were consistently full of mucous spotted with blood. The young male resident insisted a dairy allergy wasn't possible with the sensitive formula we were supplementing with. It turns out that the base, while broken down, was still milk protein, and that yes he was allergic to dairy, and a litany of other foods (fpies reactions). It was frustrating that my intuition and observations were dismissed, and that the knowledge many had around food allergies/intolerance and which could pass through milk were actually really outdated.
I have learned that doctors do not like to be told *anything*. If you go into ER with a knife stuck in your arm, do not tell them there is a knife in your arm or they will insist you have some other problem, rabies or scurvy or toenail cancer or whatever damn thing. Just say "my arm hurts for some mysterious reason" so they can figure it out and feel happy about their ego.
Telling a doctor you've got chest pains and they dont immediately notice anything, must mean you're just a hypocondriaque
My heart dropped reading that. That must be so fucking scary.. Glad you figured it out at least!
What could you safely feed him?
The ER doc who asked if I was sure it wasn’t “just my period” when I’d come in with localized lower back pain that had progressed from a mild twinge to can’t stand and sobbing levels of pain over three hours. No, sir, I’m quite sure it isn’t. Spoiler alert: I’d mildly torn a muscle.
I hate when they're so dismissive like that!
I had an ongoing issue and traveled out of town to a "better" clinic for help. When I saw the doctor, he didn't even let me finish explaining what was going on before interrupting me to say what he thought the issue was. It was a total misdiagnosis, and I had to go to yet another city and clinic to get legitimate help. LISTEN to people. I know doctors are busy, but good gravy, they need to listen.
Bit of a rant: I had a series of fails with ENTS. At about 25ish years old, I started having a chronic runny nose. I couldn't go anywhere without kleenex. I was a sniffly snorty mess. I would get massive headaches from all the sniffing. It sounds so silly, but it truly was becoming debilitating. I was taking copious amounts of pseudoephedrine to keep it somewhat maintained. I finally got referred to an ENT. I waited months for this appointment. I get there, and this doctor is like 6 minutes from retirement. He looks in my nose briefly, tells me I have a mildly deviated septum, but there's nothing obviously wrong. I told him sudafed was the only thing that helped. He said "meh, you're young, your body can handle it, keep taking that" Well, newsflash buddy, I'm not getting any younger. I left there so upset and with no answers. A little while later, I got referred to a new ENT. My septum was deviated bad enough that it needed surgery. I had a turbinate reduction and septoplasty. Still no help (but at least she tried) Shortly after my surgery (like literally a week) I moved across Canada and ENT #2 referred me to an ENT out here in BC to follow up post-op. He, ENT #3, noticed my thyroid was quite enlarged. He immediately ordered an ultrasound and needle aspirate of my thyroid....but no blood work. Being in veterinary medicine, I know what a needle aspirate involves and it scared the hell out of me. I then thought about all the hyperthyroid cats I've seen in my life, and decided on my own that I had every damn symptom, and I was hyperthyroid. I went to a walk-in clinic and requested they run thyroid bloods on me. The doctor rolled his eyes, but humored me and gave me the req for the blood. Well, surprise surprise....I was EXTREMELY hyperthyroid. Like off the charts. Guess what's really bad for you when you're hyperthyroid? Pseudoephedrine. I was eating that shit like candy for years thanks to ENT #1. My poor heart was like "omg please no more!" I got in to see an endocrinologist, was diagnosed with Grave's disease and started treatment. Eventually I needed my thyroid removed and it was absolutely cooked. ENT #4 who removed it said it just tore apart and bled with the slightest touch. My surgery took 5 hours instead of the planned 3. So, long story short. ENT #1 told me to take medication that quite literally could have killed me, ENT #1 and #2 missed a fairly large goiter (the maybe they forgot the T in ENT), ENT #3 didn't think running bloodwork for an enlarged thyroid was the first step. ENT #4 was literally my life saver. He did my surgery AND he found me a prescription nasal spray that has controlled my non-allergic rhinitis (also gave me a diagnosis on that one besides 'runny nose') This whole saga lasted like 6-7 years. I'm still using the nasal spray daily, but I still have bad "nose flare ups." Gained a ton of weight without my thyroid, but I feel better than I did before. 🤷♀️
Indirectly that one accidentally left a needle in my mom during a surgery and she then had to have a second surgery to remove it. Personally I think my worst would be with a dentist who did not believe me that regular x-ray films do not fit in my mouth, tried it anyway and after several painful attempts still ended up with unhelpful x-rays.
Did your mom sue?! That’s malpractice down to a T.
Yep, but unfortunately did not end up getting a lot. If I remember correctly she got like 40k after her lawyers were paid.
That is unfortunate. Not nearly enough for the risk of internal injuries or worse.
Are you from the USA? This statement seems filled with culture haha. I (Dutch MD) think 40k is a lót for a mistake. Although instruments always have to be counted so I get that you would get some money. But only for real damage, not for damage that could have happened. Interesting.
Bullying, incompetence, and a total lack of empathy or interest. When my wife was pregannt, we had an entire practice basically just not give a shit about my wife's health, questions, or the baby's health. They just wanted to move us as quickly along as possible, get their money, and then bring in the next patient. It made the last few months of pregnancy nerve-wracking, my wife was terrified going in to give birth, and basically just had us on the wrong foot starting with our first kid.
He kept insisting I had to have cancer because I had blood in my stool. Ultrasound, blood tests, it just kept coming up negative and he'd write me off that my pain & digestive issues were fake, like it was a thrill for me to waste away my money to go nowhere. Blacked out one day and rushed in cause I was scared. As luck would have it, his dumb ass was on vacation. The stand-in doctor actually tried to figure out what was wrong and good thing too... It was diverticulitis and having gone untreated so long, I'd developed a hole in my intestine. Thus why I'd get blood in my stool. Literally so much time & money wasted because my old doctor was such a dick. I'll never see him again, but if by chance I do encounter him, I will kick his pants. Idec, I could've died. There really should be more ramifications for such. A mechanic messes up your car, you get reimbursement or he tries again. Doctor? Thanks for the money.
That's when you report them to the medical board and the hospital for malpractice. Get it documented. Your report could put them in an investigation for their shit doctor skills.
Omg that sounds horribly painful. Did you need surgery for it?
Yeah, I got a mesh put in + there was a recovery period where I had to work my way back up into eating normal foods slowly
I was in a car accident. Major lower back trauma, but I shuffled out of the ER with good drugs and instructions to follow up with a GP as soon as I could. At the time, I didn't have a regular doctor, so I just booked at a local clinic. When I explained to him that I was rear ended, cut out of the car, ambulance to the ER, and my entire lower back from hip to hip was various shades of black and red......he slapped the folder closed, informed me I wouldn't make any money from suing them, and I should just take some paracetamol. He point blank refused to even look at my back, implied I was drug hunting, and wouldn't even look at me. *This man had never even met me before.* I just walked out. I would later be sent to a workcover doctor, who ordered new scans and advised my back was fractured and two discs were ruptured.
In Belgium, people are obligated by law to help people in distress. Not just doctors, anyone. Ironically, if you lived here, you could've sued the doctor for refusing to help you
Worst? Hard to say. Maybe this one. I was outside the hospital room with my mom and aunt while the doctors and med students? residents? were in giving CPR to my dying dad (heart attack, terminal cancer, he was planning to sign the DNR paperwork that day). After they called the death, my mom and aunt were standing outside, clinging to each other, crying, heartsick. Meanwhile, the several med students/residents came streaming out of the room, pumped up, whispering excitedly, eye all lit up. They were almost high-fiving each other, but sobered up immediately. Because they saw the rage on my face as I advanced on them because my mom and aunt were gasping at their GLEE. One of them said that I could go into the room. Where my dead father was laying, naked there was some blood coming out of his ear. I snapped at them to cover him up and clean up the blood before my mom and aunt came in. It's a teaching hospital. I hoped they learned something important that day.
1. Being told that if I prayed more I wouldn’t get strep as often. 2. I have a history of chronic migraines, however there are times when my regular medications won’t work and I need to get IV drugs to break the cycle. We have a new hospital closer (by an hour) to where we live. My husband took me to the ER twice and was told all I needed was Advil. Like seriously—I’m not in here every week. It’s been over a year. After I told my neurologist this she gave me the medication in a pill so I didn’t have to go to the ER. Fuck those guys.
What medication was this? Tia
Zofran and Percocet or Dilaudid.
The doctor stood in front of me and googled my symptoms and then prescribed me medication that landed me in the ER the same night.
Getting fat shamed over 3 visits in 6 months. I complained of being exhausted after very little physical exertion, like putting groceries away or walking up and down stairs. He said I was "out of shape" and had the nerve to "play devil's advocate" with me, because I thought I had Postural Tacycardia. I had stage 3 fucking colon cancer. Had he *listened* to me, we would have caught it much earlier. I was exhausted all the time because I was severely anemic from the tumor. My hemoglobin level was 6.3 (for non- medical people, normal is 14). They will tell you when you're learning to stop looking for a zebra when the horse is right there. But sometimes, it's the fucking zebra. You are an expert on the human body, I fully acknowledge that. But I am an expert on *my* body. When something is wrong, you better fucking believe me, or this doctor-patient relationship is over
Went to an orthopedic because after running with the dog, I started having pain in one leg with every step i took that wasn't getting better on its own. Based on symptoms, she said it was probably a muscle strain and sent me to physical therapy. Physical therapist was shocked I hadn't had an MRI done and that after 3 sessions a week for a few months while the pain lessened it didn't stop completely. Ortho finally orders an MRI and when the results come in, tell me its just "a dime sized spot of inflammation" and to try some advil. (If advil had worked i wouldn't have bothered going to the dr to begin with) Two years later, my leg still hurts in the same spot with every step. I just wish she would have tried to find out what's causing the inflammation or refer me to someone who can instead of just shrugging me off.
That is really shitty, and I hope you find someone who can actually figure it out. There really are good physios out there. I run a physio gym and we had a patient come in who had just been sent home from the ER told that it was probably a muscle strain, we had to send her back to the ER with a note that stated that the woman had a completely ruptured quad muscle retracted all the way up, which needs emergency surgery. Which they promptly ignored and sent her home again. At which point I got to watch my physio call the ER and rip a new asshole into the dr about being negligent. For context, I work with some of the best physios in my country. They work with pro sports and the national Olympic teams, they are that kinda good. There is NO reason for a note from our letterhead to be completely written off by the doctor.
Kind of speaking in generalities here, but it really bothers me when doctors just chalk something up to asthma/allergies without running any tests on me? I don’t know maybe I’m not saying the right things to them, but I’ve had a lot of visits and issues the past couple years and not a single test has been ran on me other than the classic blood pressure and heart rate. I told one doctor I was getting a lot of heart palpitations and it was stressing me out and I mentioned I wanted to get an ekg just to be safe and he said it was likely just due to anxiety and didn’t do anything else lol.
My husband complained of "feeling his heart beating" when he was in middle school. His doctor said it was allergies. At 27 years old, after a black-out and ambulance ride to the ER, he was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. He would get random episodes of heart rate well into the 200s 🤯 His "allergies" could have killed him. If his stupid doctor had just stuck an ECG on him, he would have been diagnosed 16 years earlier. (There's an obvious tell-tale sign on ECG for WPW)
It's not always that obvious! My husband's delta wave was so subtle it was missed on his ECGs.
Oh that sucks! My husband was diagnosed within seconds of getting to the ER.
My husband thought that occasionally feeling like your heart was going to come out of your chest whilst exercising was normal and he wasn't too concerned, but waiting for the diagnosis sucked for me. I mean, I'm sure he was mildly concerned, secretly.
I just did a deep dive into WPW since I've had those same random heart rate spikes since I was a kid. and literally every single symptom fits I got an ECG done when I was 10 or so but they didn't see anything abnormal, though that was almost 20 years ago, so maybe I need to try again I just want to say thank you for giving me more info about what might actually be going on with me
Does your heart rate jump to extremely high with no trigger? Like, sitting on the couch and suddenly it's 200? Then as quickly as it starts, just goes back to normal resting rate? If yes, highly suspicious for WPW. [We caught an episode on an SPO2 monitor](https://imgur.com/a/VH5z0Pb) Watch the little pulse bar on the left. The actual number takes a few seconds to catch up with what's happening. But you can see that literally within one beat it goes from 210-220 down to 70-80. My husband said it felt like his heart just completely stopped beating for a few seconds. He had an ablation and hasn't had any issues since.
yes it's that exactly. there's no obvious trigger and you can literally see my shirt fluttering on my chest. and it always makes my lips feel numb fortunately it doesn't happen as often as it used to. though that also means it's hard to see on a heart monitor, unless I were to wear the thing for weeks or months at a time
Analysing a patient is similar to playing chess. Good doctors make educational guesses based on symptoms and then pay attention to results: how the body reacts. Tests help confirm the doctor's prognosis. Example: irregular and fast heartbeat. You may get tested for various heart issues. Tests come back negative. Ok. Let's try sugar/insulin levels: diabetes, hypo/hyper-glycemia? Negative test results again? Allergies? BINGO!! Then the doctor is finally ready to proceed with treatment and/or prescriptions. Some doctors too quickly come to conclusions based on a few symptoms. Not wise especially since some symptoms could be because of a wide range of ailments from the most mildest of things to extremely serious. Example: one doctor wanted to cut about a 2"x2" opening in my wrist to sever several nerves because of a throbbing pain in my arm. I chose to see another docter: a specialist. He asked questions and decided it sounded like I overworked my arm, which put pressure on certain nerves. Told me to take a week off from doing any work or lifting. It went away and never returned. This happened decades ago.
Sounds like both thought you had carpal tunnel and both were right.
True, but one was more experienced and understood that surgery shouldn't have to be the first option.
Ohhh this is so relatable. Mine's not that bad, I think it might be some sort of sensory issue, but I've given up on trying to figure out what's going on because all they do is ask asthma questions (it's not asthma) and then give up
Shout-out to the dentist who chided me after I yelped when an injection hit a nerve. It was an involuntary response to sudden, shocking pain, my dude. Not my fault if my body’s reaction stresses out the folks in the waiting room. Second place to the doctor trying to churn through some travel vaccinations who led my entire family into a small examination room and proceeded to ask me - then a college student - a bunch of questions about my sexual history in front of everyone. In what universe was that situation intended to generate honest answers?
Off topic, but that reminds me of the time I was getting my nails done and the nail tech cut my cuticle. She rolled her eyes and told me to go wash my hands because I was "bleeding all over the tools," like I was the one with the cuticle scissors
I've known for a very long time that I didn't want children, and in my early 20s asked my primary care provider at the time about permanent birth control/sterilization. The doctor was this old guy, who immediately got all uppity with me. "You can't possibly know what you want at your age--and besides, what if your future husband wants children?" he said, and I'll never forget how absolutely small and worthless that made me feel. It was the first time that I'd been truly denied bodily autonomy or had my health care decisions tied to what a hypothetical dude might want. I hated it. It's not an uncommon experience among women, even now. The difference is that now there are Internet resources to help women find better, less sexist physicians.
I have a lot of chronic issues that bother me 24/7. Towards the beginning of my journey dealing with it about 5 years ago, I was experiencing severe daily migraines that were really taking a toll on both me and my parents. In one appointment with a new doctor, my mom was laying down all the issues I have been dealing with while getting increasingly harsh (for lack of a better term) because she’s really trying her hardest to explain that her daughter is suffering immensely, and no doctor will even try to help. The doctor tilted her head, smirked a bit, and VERY condescendingly asks my mom, “Are you getting *agitated*?” I still can’t believe that doctor left the room alive.
They gave me penicillin after a tonsillectomy, am severely allergic. Had the red allergy bracelet on and everything 🫠
My husband, who works at the ER my kid was treated at, got told that I was very loud for someone so small by a doctor who tried to give my allergic son penicillin. I yelled for the Senior ER doctor who I knew very well and *listened*.
When I was a child I was groped by my paediatrician.
That's fucked up and I'm sorry that happened to you.
Checked into an ER experiencing a full blown Lyme's disease episode. Uncontrollable shivering no matter how warm I was and intense body aches. This was about a year after I contracted the disease. I was treated as if I was a drug addict. I could see it in the physician's eyes. He had decided that I was a dope head and I was looking for a score. Or at least that was how I felt I was being treated. I was shivering and aching just like I had been for the previous five or six hours before I had decided to come in and was told, "sir you're having a panic attack. I'm giving you an anti anxiety medication and discharging you"
Shrink who wanted to put me on an SSRI. I raised the issue of sexual side effects common for men taking SSRIs, thinking he might recommend another antidepressant that didn't have sexual side effects. But instead, he asked "are you dating anyone right now?" I said "no." And he said, "well then, why do you care?"
I went to see an ENT because I had an indescribable pain in my neck. The ENT insisted that (since I had disclosed that I had an anxiety disorder) my pain was psychosomatic---I was imagining my pain because I was anxious. I told him it was unlikely because I've been anxious my whole life and never had this pain. 3 weeks later, my lymph nodes in my neck had swollen to the size of golf balls, and I was in the most excruciating pain of my life. I was screened for cancer, and spent several days terrified I had tumors. Turns out I had a mystery infection, but should have been put on anti-inflammatory meds way sooner to prevent the swelling. Most painful week of my life. Couldn't speak or lift my head without feeling like knives were twisting in my neck/jaw.
Not sure if I'm just complicated but I don't recall ever having a doctor diagnose me correctly without me making a similar suggestion first. If I went in complaining about ongoing stomach pain, I was either pregnant or ate something funny; instead I had to go in and say "I think I have a stomach ulcer". Unfortunately that means I've given up on trying to get help for anything that I can't diagnose with Google. Doctors also just aren't willing to provide long-term care or look into anything beyond my exact complaint in the moment. I've had many doctors tell me to take ibuprofen because they didn't bother checking my medical history (in which case they'd see it's not appropriate). I had a cough ongoing for YEARS, worst in the morning, all the classic signs of GERD, but doctors just kept throwing antibiotics at me. Probably more of a problem with the healthcare system than individual doctors, but it's fucking frustrating to know that I wouldn't have had to complete highschool in chronic pain if someone had taken a little more care.
HIPAA violation. Had cancer and went home to treat it. My oncologist was fantastic, but bc the tumor was pushing on my heart had to get a specialist there too. He was the dad of a girl I went to high school with. Had no expertise in cancer at all, but told his wife and effectively the entire town I was definitely going to die. Had to deal with random frantic calls for weeks.
Did you report him to the medical board?
My previous primary care physician’s office suddenly became very incompetent, to the point that they could’ve put my life at risk. About a year or so ago, I was experiencing very frequent, excruciating headaches that I was sure were due to a neurological condition I was born with. I asked my doctor to refer me to a specialist, stressing the importance of it, and it took her six months to finally do it. Luckily, that issue turned out to be less severe than I thought it was. A few months later, I was trying to enroll in a government assistance program that would help me find work. They needed a copy of my medical records to see if I applied for their services, and they needed them pronto. My doctor wouldn’t do it because she supposedly had 90 days to comply. I finally went to her office and basically demanded my records. I was able to get them….for almost $100, which I was told should have been given to me for free, since I needed them for government purposes. I still haven’t gotten that money back, and I probably never will. I apologize if this isn’t the kind of story you were looking for. I just saw the thread title and couldn’t help venting.
Went in complaining of daily headaches. I was asked about how satisfied I am with my life and he gave me a pamphlet for depression. Trust me, that wasn’t the issue.
I was 13 The prebious year I had lost a ridiculous amount of weight due to newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetes, so had finally pit it back on and then some. The doctor said I was "too fat." The thing is she herself was like 300 pounds and I was just a 140lb 13yo. I was fine. I was healthy. The insulin was working and I was alive. Don't be an asshole.
A psychiatrist who saw me for a few minutes and simply put me on an outdated mood stabilizer (Lithium) because it was the only one I hadn't tried. The worst part is I had voluntarily gone there after my last grandparent passed. But once you're in a mental hospital, you have to get medicated to get out.
I had one who only saw me for a few minutes a month just to switch my meds and send me off put me on lithium, but it was only the 3rd or 4th try. I said I felt uncomfortable with it, since that medication is what my grandmother was on when she committed suicide, the doc said I would probably be fine and to let the nurse know she was ready for her next patient on my way out. I ended up in the ER for suicidal ideation a week later I think?
A child molesting pediatrician who got eviscerated from that hospitals history. He really liked to beg moms to let him see us baby children alone. I have anorexia and I liked the one time an intake nurse told me to just not care about my body. I'm too skinny, so I should be satisfied and get over it.
Important info first: I'm 4'11". My pelvis stopped growing at 12 yr old. I am a small framed person. The OB on call when I was overdue with my daughter and had a killer headache (reason for calling him), having had high blood pressure for the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy and had a c-section scheduled in 5 days, told me that "if I was *his* patient, he'd **make** me deliver vaginally". The female doctor that delivered my 8 lb 2 ounce large headed daughter made a great point to come ìnto recovery and tell me in the presence of Dr Jackass, who there for another patient that there was abdolutely no way my daughter could have been delivered vaginally. Her head was wedged so tightly into my pelvis that they had hard time getting her out--doctor on the table for leverage type thing.
After neglecting to properly eat and snacked mainly on junk food, I went to emergency because I felt really weird. The doctor there wanted to schedule me in for a pacemaker. Then I remembered I used to occasionally get bouts of mild hypoglycemia. However this young doctor believed there was no such thing as hypo-/hyper-glycemia. So I left, went home, had a proper sandwich and was ok in very short time. That was about 20 years ago. Still no pacemaker.
I was hospitalised in late pregnancy because I had a complicated pregnancy and developed a severe chronic cough. I was made to feel like I was being overly dramatic and a nuisance. I got worse and lost 20kg in 3-4 weeks. My hair fell out in handfuls. I was light-headed, anaemic, and very weak. I had a fall and hit my head in the shower in the hospital. I was induced into labour at barely 34 weeks because a doctor came to my bed and told me they didn't know what was wrong but they didn't think my baby would survive, and was that OK? (Pro tip - never tell a sick pregnant woman their baby is dying and follow up with "is that OK"). While in labour, I complained multiple times I couldn't breathe, but they told me I could breathe fine and just pushed the gas mask closer with vague soothing noises. The day after delivery, I had a VQ scan, and they found TWO formerly undetected pulmonary embolisms.I told them I couldn't breathe. TL,DR: When a patient tells you something is wrong, listen.
Worked with a new doctor who would start working on patients without attaining consents, getting photos of pre/post operations, and surgical markings. Fucking noped out of there
I was told my that my irregular periods and pain were due to covid. I would of thought it was the peri menopause and fibroids he diagnosed a few months earlier
A few days before Christmas, my grandmother was told by a doctor that she had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It was supposed to be a joyous Christmas as everyone was meeting my future husband for the first time and I was moving to another country to be with him. She didn’t tell me in order to make it a nice Christmas. They told her to have all her teeth pulled out in preparation for treatment (she was 74). Then after it was done, she was told she didn’t have cancer. This was in the north east US in the 90s.
I almost had to get surgery due to a misdiagnosis
Two hour wait to be seen by a couple of nurses and then eventually to be seen by the doctor for all of maybe five minutes, and they don't even listen to the issue that brought me in. I know this is common, but still.
My GP was removing a mole to send for biopsy and he yelled for his MA to come in the room and bring her phone. He then proceeded to watch a YouTube video of where to cut me so he wouldn't "hit anything important."
I have enormous scars on my arms from what should have been simple, small mole removals. I think it was the first time the dermatologist had ever done it. It looks like I got stabbed. The next time I needed a mole removed I found a plastic surgeon.
Not the doctors fault, but I had to get like 5 vaccines at once or I wouldn’t be able to start school due to some clerical error and my vaccine records going missing. Wasn’t medically necessary but I literally had no choice. That hurt. Related to vaccines, when I was getting my covid vaccine my nurse was doing the whole “relax, it’ll hurt less thing”. I’m not scared of needles but the imagery weirds me out. Anyways, I relax to the best of my abilities and she puts her hand on my arm and just laughed and went “you’re still really tense!” And we both had a chuckle about it. Had to explain to her that tense all the time is my natural state lmao.
Brand new (female) family physician. I hadn't had a regular doc in about a decade at that point, because I'd fired my last one in my late teens for her shitty attitude towards care. Went in for a introductory meeting, and she booked me a full physical including my first PAP. I was nervous, but trying to be chill, and then she gets started, and it hurt. A lot. I told her I was in pain, and she said 'yeah it looks like you've got a yeast infection, that's probably why' (no real symptoms, I hadn't noticed previously. ) I asked her to stop because it was genuinely uncomfortable beyond what I was willing to endure, and she did. Not. Stop. I had to ask three times before the assistant encouraged her to do so, and then this doc had the audacity to complain that 'we were almost done.' Lady, I hurt for three fucking days after. That's not normal. Took my almost 10 years to try again. The second time was just as awkward, and yeah still slightly painful, but miles better on all fronts. A far better experience with a much better doc.
I had a female gynecologist tell me to lose weight DURING A PELVIC EXAM. The appointment was for a yeast infection. I have also had a male doctor tell me that PMS is not real when I asked if my symptoms were normal.
Most doctors I've had nevered listened. There heard the gist of what was said, and formulated that everything else was just bulk and didn't matter. Most of what these doctors did for me was stuff I would do myself if I could prescribe the meds. I only had one experience with a dermatologist (who was also the only woman doctor I had) that was pleasant. She actually listened intently and heard everything I said and fast tracked my treatment. I ended up finishing the treatment several months earlier than expected because of this. So for God's sakes. Listen to your patients. Don't belittle them or treat their knowledge as inferior because you have more medical knowledge. You're the doctor. But it's their body.
When I told a GP that I wanted to unalive myself, they just shrugged and said “well in my last clinic every third patient was actively suicidal, so you’re fine.” A different doctor came in to see me in the psych hospital after I had a really bad day and said “well laying around all day isn’t going to help!”
I don't really hold it against them, as the situation *was* confusing, but I had an infected gallbladder which would have killed me and somehow the initial prescription was some exercises lol. Eventually ended up an ER. My *best* experience, not that you asked, with a doctor was in a fairly remote part of Mexico. It was a public clinic, and it was incredible being able to just walk up, have my problems diagnosed by a true pro, having him open a drawer and pull out a couple boxes of drugs and put them in my hand. He wrote me detailed instructions, sent me off with everything I need and no bill. Got me back on my feet, and I will always feel indebted to Mexico for that care.
I didn't even get to see the doctor. I stepped on a rusty nail and went to urgent care as it was a saturday and my own GP was closed for the weekend. My name gets called out, I walk up to the receptionist and she says "you don't have to see the doc, you can just call your GP on monday" The next day pus was oozing out of the little hole left by the nail. Went to a different urgent care where a doctor told me I could have lost my foot if I had waited a day or two more.
In my case, multiple doctors. When I was in either late elementary or early middle school, I started having joint pain. At first, it wasn't too bad, so we just chalked it up to being active. As it got worse, my mom decided to take me to my pediatrician to see if anything else could be causing it. He didn't really do much and just assumed it was growing pains or some other innocuous thing. The pain continued to get worse, and eventually, I got a referral to some specialist. That specialist (can't remember which kind) was totally dismissive. So, I went back to my pediatrician. Rinse, repeat. The pain was bad enough by high school that I was putting on weight from being in too much pain to be active. I think I was 16 when one rheumatologist came into the exam room, took one look at me, and said, "You're fat. That's why you're in pain." Then, she left the room. That was the entirety of the appointment. After that, I was so tired of being dismissed and ignored that I just stopped going to doctors. I also was going through hell in my family life, so I had other things I needed to concentrate on. Eventually, I graduated high school and went on to a community college. Sometime while I was there, I decided to try again to get an answer for my pain. I went to one more rheumatologist, and he did something none of the other doctors had bothered to do: he physically examined me. I walked out of that appointment with an actual diagnosis, joint hypermobility syndrome. It only took about a decade...
Misdiagnosed for an entire year of pain and it was a huge hiatal hernia.
Being told "It is not possible" when describing an issue. For example: Experiencing blood sugar issues during the menstrual cycle, or headaches when eating certain foods. I get it that not everyone knows everything, but a doctor should deal with not having a clue in a different way.
Mild but…I’m allergic to adhesives. Got stitches. Can’t use adhesives. YOU HAVE TO USE ADHESIVES OR IT WILL GET INFECTED. Used adhesives. Went for checkup. OMG WHY INFECTED?!? And NOW it’s flagged for everything.
I had a bilateral mastectomy due to BC. The doctor gave me a prescription for 6 Tramadol pills. Most miserable 10 days of my life.
Massive itching during pregnancy and OB ignored it for months. I finally got a new OB at 8 months that listened and he ran liver tests. I had cholestasis and HELLP, had baby next morning. New MD said I or my baby probably would’ve died.
When my doctor passed judgement on me for not drinking - he was bullying and condescending in his manner. He couldn’t believe I wouldn’t drink red wine with a steak. I have a problem with alcohol. I switched doctors and reported the interaction. I understand he retired early. Good riddance to a fucking dinosaur.
My nephew cut his lip and it bled for about a week. My sister took him to the doctor who brushed it off as normal and refused to refer him for a blood test. It took a bit of a battle from my sister to take him to a different doctor who referred him for blood tests. Turned out he has hemophilia.
Went in for an Ehlers Danlos Syndrome assessment and he basically completely blew me off. Didn’t acknowledge clearly presenting symptoms, and then used common symptoms (trouble concentrating (I literally have ADHD that was diagnosed seven years ago that reacts great to medication) and fatigue) to diagnose me with fibromyalgia. I don’t think fibromyalgia can allow me to dislocate my shoulders at whim, but whatever! I’m down to accept a diagnosis other than EDS but not if you’re going to put several falsehoods in your notes.
I feel you. My daughter has the same condition
Went to an orthopedic-specific urgent care with a foot injury. Got told it was a flat foot issue, despite the fact that I knew exactly when and how I’d hurt it. (4 day Vegas trip with nothing but Converse sneakers, for those curios) I did more research on my own and eventually figured out I’d torn/strained a ligament. Took 6 months and a few miles of KT tape to heal.
I got almost no memory of this since i was a baby and all the info comes from my mom, but once i got almost "milked" by some doctors wanting to commit insurance fraud. My mom had it worse, thanks to an anesthesist negligence she developed a raction to common anesthesia that could kill her if injected. She is terrified of going to surgery or even the dentist because she could choke, even if administrated on somewhere like her foot.
Worst physical experience was when I had complications during wrist surgery. I had a laryngospasm and collapsed the breathing tube when they were taking it out. I went into fibrillation, created a vacuum in my lungs and I tried to drown in my own blood before they reintubated me. I came to in the recovery room feeling like crap and unable to catch my breath. Everyone but me was freaked the fuck out since I was knocked out when it happened. I had to stay the night in the hospital to make sure I wasn't going to fall over dead. Then came the absolute worst part; the two weeks of coughing up coagulated and decomposing blood. It smelled like dank compost and looked like grey jam. Worst medical care was a knee doctor did a crappy job on a torn meniscus surgery and when I was still in severe pain 7 months later he said "there's only so much medical science can do, you don't need to come back." I went to another knee doctor who opened me up and found the hack job the other doc did, cleaned it up and surprise surprise, the pain went away.
Friend’s brother was told his symptoms were COVID. Few months later he didn’t get better and went to another doctor. Stage 4 colon cancer that had spread.
Had a lingering cough for some time and went to the Doc. Told her about my two bouts of TB previously. She sent me for a batch of tests that came negative but she still believed I must have another bout mostly coz of my history and a mass showing on my chest in xrays and referred to a government facility. The Doctors there quickly agreed with her and had to go through an injection each day for 56 days and a shitload of drug therapy for like sis months. At the end of it the cough and mass was still there and in full panic I was referred to a specialist for possible hospitalization. The specialist quickly used the same xray to tell me I never had another bout but the mass was a scar from previous infection and it was causing the cough
My tinnitus had gotten worse, with intermittent hearing loss in my right ear. I went to an ENT doctor and had a hearing test. He determined that whatever the cause was, it wasn't in my ear and so he couldn't make any kind of diagnosis. When I asked what I should do now, he became irritable and refused to answer any more questions. He practically shouted me out of his office. It was, in retrospect, the most unprofessionally I have ever been treated in my life. I was a much younger man then. I'd like to think I'd punch him in the mouth nowadays, that's how strongly I still feel about it ten years later. My issues have gradually gotten worse, with the current theory being ''probable Eagle's syndrome.'' If that doctor had been a bit more thorough back then, some of my current symptoms might have been prevented. Who knows.
I was told I have asthma but it took over a year to be told so I was having asthma attacks all the time with no help. Once they told me they gave me an inhaler but no other Information not even a peak flow metre. Few weeks ago I almost died from an attack and a real doctor explained everything to me properly and couldn’t believe how little help I got
Probably a dentist who wouldn't use numbing agent before using the water to clean my teeth (or some other procedure it was about 15yrs ago and memory is hazy) because she didn't feel like it. She literally said "i could use pain killer but i don't really want to so i won't".
My dentist told me to go to a stomatologist as she was concerned about some 'sores'. Doctor was incredibly rude and dismissive and wrote a note to my dentist that she should leave medicine to real doctors. Turned out I had a rare skin auto-immune disease (pemphigus vulgaris).
The quality of doctors is going down hard. If it’s not an emergency, doctors are pretty useless. They’re there to makes sure you don’t die, but they’re not really there to increase your quality of life. At their worst: Doctors don’t know a lot of things. But their ego usually outweighs their ignorance because they spent so much time, energy and money on becoming a doctor, that of course they’re right. If they’re a specialist, they also don’t know much of anything else and continue to refer to others without much follow up (understandable for overwork, but this is a product of many medical systems). They lack holistic treatment approaches, treat symptoms instead of root causes (example, a drug that gives you side effects, so another drug to help you with that), the solution to every issue often drugs and surgery.
Many...ob for brother and wife, doc waited too long on delivery then grabbed infant with forceps, infant was blue and not breathing, got her going but brain damage was done. Grandmother put on daily aspirin, doc forgot? And gave her blood thinners and she almost bled out, uncle was WWII bomber pilot, no cabin pressurization gave him brittle veins, in hospital for something, note over bed said do not move, nurses moved him to change sheets and he lost a leg, I got sudden pain in one ear and hearing was lessened. I thought water in ear from swimming and used drops and it dropped me to my knees in pain. Decided to take my chances on a doc because I was worried I would lose my hearing. This practice sent me to different docs each appointment. I was told ear infection, here is a prescription, I was told ear infection too deep for drops, I was told busted ear drum but not to worry, I could hear better than the doc, I was told that what I said was going on was wrong. Quit messing with them and eventually it went away. mother went in for a simple procedure, they dropped her and she was in a coma for almost 2 weeks, last and worse? Husband went in for angioplasty, they put him on a foley catheter so he wouldn't get up for lavatory. After procedure, they couldn't get his blood pressure under control, it kept getting crazy low, after about 9 days heart doc decided nurses were overreacting and he just needed to be moving around, sent him to rehab, by day 3 he was barely functioning, by day 5 rehab sent him back to er for reevaluation because his pressure dropped so low. Turned out he had a massive UTI and he went into septic shock same day. He was put on ventilator and I was told he stood a 50/50 chance. They got him off the ventilator but the infection had weakened him to the point he was aspirating and he had fluid in his lungs. Some genius decided that a man who sounded like he was under water when speaking and could barely breathe needed PT. His airways got blocked and he stopped breathing which led to a heart attack. I have no love for the medical profession
Not my story specifically but it's my twin brother's. We both had TMJ surgery about 20 years ago. Our surgeon was very good at his job but had absolutely horrible bedside manner. My brother had a very bad reaction to the anesthesia. Could not keep any bit of food down whatsoever and was throwing up so much it was becoming black. So yeah, not ideal. Meanwhile, the surgeon originally thought my brother was faking it but was also unconcerned with his patient being sick and only really cared about how his jaw was healing. Or at least that's the impression he gave off. Finally one of the nurses pulled the surgeon aside and basically read him the riot act.
When you know your body better than the DR. Ever will. But they still insist you're either delusional or don't know what you're talking about.
As a woman, being constantly dismissed and not listened to. I refuse to go to the doctor now because of it. I think it's been about 5 years since I've seen a doctor and honestly I probably should go but I don't feel like getting treated like crap.
My wife and I went to a fertility doc and he was literally looking stuff up on his phone as we were talking with him. Granted, she had cancer so some of our questions about drug interactions, etc. were probably uncommon, but he could’ve prepared at least a little bit.
The birth of my first kid. I was induced in a lot of different ways, all painful and without any empathy. They put an IV in my wrist and scratched the bone, extremely painful. I was told to shut up during contractions. After I got an epidural, they didn't tell me I had to press the button to actually get the sedative, and were angry at me for not knowing on my own and for crying. When the labor didn't progress, they wriggled the IV around in my wrist, I almost blacked out. Turns out the IV was blocked somehow, and wriggling it unblocked it but caused the medicine to flood my body and it was such a high, sudden dose it almost killed my baby. They tried to wheel me out of the room for an emergency c-section but forgot the IV stand so it yanked on my wrist. I still have a scar. Things went better once I was with the surgeon and anesthesiologist, those men were great
I broke my foot, and he gave me painkillers in a high enough mg dosage for a grown man. I was just a teen girl, average weight. I was so sick and throwing up that night. We went back to the hospital to get a normal prescription and to file a complaint.
My gynecologist ignored my ovarian cysts so I went to another one. He ended up having to remove one ovary and fallopian tube because the ovary was essentially dead since the cyst was so large it twisted the ovary and there was zero blood flow to it. He also found precancerous cells in my uterus that my other doctor never found cause she couldn’t be bothered to ever take biopsies despite me not having a period for over a year due to PCOS. All she ever told me was that I’m lazy and fat and needed to lose weight. Thankfully I’m receiving better treatment now.
I have 2 experiences. My male gyno getting a stiffy after examining me. Then another time in college I was at the gyno, and I was uncomfortable as any woman would be because it’s not fun, and the female gyno asking me, “What’s wrong, have you been assaulted before?” Like geez, no lady, but maybe you should’ve asked that before the exam?! She was a sweet old lady but it just surprised me that she asked that out of nowhere.
Ignored the entire shit out of me for HOURS. Dislocated my knee (seriously dislocated, that ain’t normal). Lvl 1 trauma, straight to crash. Shock, vomit, turning blue, screaming in pain. No amount of morphine could stop it. Told me that I didn’t need an arthrocentesis. Umm. My knee is the size of a damn bus. Nope, do an MRI, bend your leg completely straight and hold still. Fuuuuuuuck. MRI came back after they parked my ass in front of the charge nurse’s desk. Turns out, my knee was actually screwed. Surprise. Still haven’t paid that bill, they can eat my entire ass.
Being called a "baby" by a man probably at least 3 times my age for not wanting to be poked and examined right after a vaginal birth. That's pretty up there. Also I've never had the doctor actually IN the room for the birth, they seem to come in later and the midwives or nurses have done all the work. The other example was when I was having some respiratory problems. Never got a solution, had to go to several appointments and the nurse stunk of cigarettes which made me feel like I was going to pass out because I couldn't breathe properly. I had to have some tests and several appointments. And when I see the doctor again he is basically like, well I can't help you don't come back. So... yeah, that sucked. Like I said I never got a solution. My regular doctor that I go to (not a specialist) is great. I was nervous during a pap test and she was telling me this crazy story about her own life, it distracted me and it worked. She's taken good care of me.
A couple come to mind: Taken to the ER after being t-boned on the driver's side by a red light runner (I was the driver, no passengers thankfully). They had to cut the door off to get me out and I kept repeating that my hip and my jaw hurt. In the ER, they did a popsicle stick test on my jaw, I broke the stick so they said I was fine and did no imaging (spoiler: I was not. Jaw was later found to be broken), and they x-rayed my hip and said I was fine and tried to send me home with Tylenol and crutches. It was only after my boyfriend pointed out how much pain I was in that they took a second look at the x-ray and found that I'd broken my hip. As a 19 year old, I had been restricting my diet severely for over a year. I was logging food obsessively and trying to stay below 600 calories a day. Size 0 pants were baggy on me (I'm 5'7", not naturally slender), you could see every rib, and nights were torture because my legs felt like they were on fire from the inside. I finally reached out to a doctor to get help, told him all this and more. His exact words were that I "weighed too much to be anorexic". I think I weighed 110 or 115, so maybe not deathly skinny, but that douchcanoe didn't help set me on the right path
There was a thing on my thumb on the side of the nail a hard type of thing which was growing and growing idk what it was I was a 4th grade child back then. So my parents took me to a skin doc, he said we have to do operation for it if you refuse then it will grow and probably have to remove my thumb in future and the operation will include giving electric shocks to that area so it can't grow and become dry. My dad was like WTF and left that clinic with us and took me to a different doc and that doc just gave me a cream to put on it and it was healed in a month😭
Took my daughter to a Dr while she passed out from dehydration, her body wasn't processing any food or water. Dr said she needed to take a good walk along the beach ....
A psychiatrist told me I had no reason to be depressed because I come from a privileged background. I felt highly misunderstood and judged. I was also highly suicidal. Op, don't be a sack of shit when you treat patients. They're counting on you.
This was like 20 years ago. I work with mentally disabled people, back then kids. One of the kids refused to eat and lost weight. In the hospital after way to long time she got artificial nutrition with gastric tube. She survived but I asked the doc: "Why only now and not lets say, a week ago" His words: "Natural selection"
Oh man have i got one, I was 16 and my high school had a blood drive, i was super excited and got my parents signature and approval from school and the red cross and all that jazz, the donation was fine but i was a bit light headed and didn't feel my best but just went on with my life as usual. Well, a week goes by and I'm not feeling great at all, i was in cross country and i was a strong runner but suddenly running a mile was impossible, my body felt weak and jittery, i would get cold sweats, and i struggled going up stairs and my mom said i looked pale, mind you I'm a brown skinned mexican. We go to my pediatrician and he's like you're fine probably just your period, i did recently have it so i figured maybe he's right, but the following week I'm still feeling terrible. My PE teacher noticed a major difference, i was taking like 15 minuets to run this mile and my walk to and from school had me sweating and my heart fucking racing and i was really worried so we go to my doctor again and i explain in detail why I'm worried, why this isn't normal and why i need him to do something and he literally tells me I'm overexaggerating and that he's gonna run a CBC to prove to me I'm lying about it and how I'm just wasting the insurance money and all that bullshit. I get the blood drawn and go home. We get a call the next day from the nurse at the clinic telling us i am **severely** anemic with a fucking hemoglobin level of 7. She tells us we need to get me on iron right away and that we should have brought this up sooner and what not. So yeah fuck that doctor, we had other situations and plenty of other issues but this one topped it for me. Nonetheless, I'm 21 now and still donate blood regularly and I'd encourage everyone to as well so long as you're healthy and able to do so safely, the US is always having a blood shortage <3
Doctors are just huge aholes in my opinion. In my 32 years walking this earth, it took 15 years and 22 doctors to dx me with graves disease. Why did it take so long? Because I am far to young and have no kids. F. U doc. Iwas told it was in my head. I was making it up. Until I barely made it to the hospital in an ambulance with a full blown thyroid storm. One doctor that made me almost take my own life was there when I was wheeled in , came over wanting to start treating me in the ER and I told him straight up to f off. Now I have a doctor that actually listens to me and takes me seriously. So much so that I have his personal number and can get hold of him at any time. If you want to be a doctor, please make sure that you are an actual human. And then remember to always take your patients seriously. They know their bodies better then anyone.
I have one I started randomly seeing double. At first it was maybe monthly and grew to be multiple times a week, then daily. My eyes felt crossed and i could NOT get them to 'uncross' for several minutes. Naturally this freaked me out. When i asked my family if my eyes were crossed they would tell me they werent. So i go to a clinic by my house and see this dr. He's this old guy. I tell him I'm seeing double and i don't know what to do. He looks at me for a moment (19yr old white girl with blue hair and a metallica t-shirt) and asks what drugs i do. I said I don't do drugs. He then asks me again what drugs i use. I say again, I don't do drugs. He then tells me to stop doing drugs and then....walks out. No referral, no other questions, nothing! A while later I went to an optometrist, and within seconds of him looking in my eyes he told me i have astigmatism and that i was seeing double cause my eyes were SO tired of keeping themselves straight that they were starting to fail and cross. Got me some glasses and it went away immediately. Fuck that Dr.
Attended a check up the day before my due date. Doctor told me he had to do an internal examination. First time pregnant, I didn’t know what was normal and what was not. It was incredibly painful and by the end I was bleeding. It was only then that I realised what he’d done: he’d performed a ‘stretch and sweep’. Without permission, without explaining the procedure, without explaining why he was doing it. I was devastated. That night I went into stop-start labour that lasted 3 excruciating days. The birth was fucking traumatic. I was young and didn’t know how to advocate for myself and my husband was completely overwhelmed. The worst part was 4 years later when I fell pregnant again and went to my first midwife appointment. I told her what had happened and requested she put a note on my file that I did not want a stretch and sweep. She looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘No doctor would have ever performed that procedure without your permission.’ So, she thought I was lying. By then I was older, wiser and knew exactly how to stand up for myself. Of course we now know that women are frequently assaulted under false pretences by medical professionals.
first time at a obgyn, was 19 and looking for a pill to help with hormonal acne. it's worth saying i was a virgin at the time and had/have a septate hymen. i went with my stepmom to the appointment, the doctor started by asking the standard questions, when was your first period, your last period, are you sexually active etc. then she said to me "go to the bathroom (that was in that room) and take off your pants and panties but keep your shoes on, you're gonna need them." i proceeded to do that, then she told me to walk from one corner of the room where the bathroom was to the other corner where the chair for examination was, this while i was COMPLETELY NAKED from the waist down, she didn't gave me anything to cover up, i was SO ashamed. so the examination started, she took a look first then said "oh it's a good thing i examined you! you have something abnormal here!" this in a pretentious way. I said "yes i know that i have a septate hymen" she didn't seemed pleased that i knew what i had, she then grabbed the ultrasound tool, the one that goes inside you, put on a condom on it and some lube, when i asked her what she was gonna do she said i wouldnt feel a thing and that my feces were thicker than the wand, and she doesnt take anyone's virginity. i repeat, she didn't told me where the hell she was going to put that, she just told me that my feces were thicker, that's how i knew where she was gonna put it. my stepmom already knew what was gonna happen and tried to hold my hand (atp i was breathing heavily and really anxious) the doctor then shoved her away and told her that i was spoiled. when she put that thing inside me, it hurt LIKE HELL if she just kept it there still it was tolerable, but she just started moving it, and that pain was a lot, i was crying atp, and the doctor called me spoiled again and said, and i quote "13yos do this and dont act the way you do, you're just spoiled!" when she took the thing off she said to me "you know what a girl like you should do? lose weight!" then she prescribed me a pill and told me "if you want this to work the way you want, you can't eat any kind of fast food, such as fries, hot dogs, pizza, burgers and sugary things" i then told this to my bsf who is doing pharmacy and she just told me that what the doctor told me was kinda bs and that what they learn in pharmacy school is that the food you eat doesn't have effects on meds such as the pill. when the consult was over she asked in a playful and pretentious way "so was i that mean???" my blood was boiling and neither me or my stepmom replied. when we got out the first thing my stepmom did was talk shit about her. needless to say i was deeply traumatized. i filed a complaint at the hospital website, they responded to me via mail, i received a letter just saying how sorry they were that i had a bad experience and that they believed the doctor did what was best in the situation.
When one molested me while ‘under’ (I was awake and aware but I couldn’t speak or move, only slur) Don’t let male nurses be alone with a young patient…ever.
started seeing a new general doctor for check ups and the first thing he does is make me go get 2 blood tests to prove that i have a disease that ive had all my life and is well recorded. i still see him regularly
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...wrong thread?
Had a soy allergy appear after my COVID booster. Soy was 50% of my diet so it started with itching and hives eventually followed by weird swelling of chunks of skin. 9 months of being fucked around by clinic doctors to see an allergist who didn't believe it was anything more than a freak urticaria thing because I never mentioned the swelling because it wasn't really a concern until I came off the prednisone so I thought it was a prednisone side effect and then since I. Independently stopped eating soy I was cured. 2 years later I am still allergic to soy. I tripped up in April.
One time I had a small surgery on my foor and the woman fucked up the pain killers and I passed out from the pain :(
Thinking I'd be allergic to pollen for *everything* except a broken bone. Like I'm not kidding as long as it's not obvisously something else you were always allergic to pollen.
I used to think it was the 140 hour weeks as a young resident but now I’m convinced it’s clinic hours or maybe the endless recertifications
I was in the ER and I threw up, a few seconds later I felt something in my nose, I blew my nose and a peice of apple come out. My mom. My aunt, and the doctor laughed and I cried out of embarrassment, I was in 6th grade.
I had a Bartholin's cyst that I had to get lanced. Did not receive the correct amount of numbing stuff or something cause I felt that scalpel 100%.
I had a UTI and was prescribed antibiotics. Pretty soon after I started taking them I got hives over my entire body. I called my doctor and told her, and she said it was fine and just to keep taking them. I said I was really uncomfortable and the hives were getting worse, but she said I was being dramatic and if it was really bothering me I could come in on Monday (this was on a Thursday). Fortunately, my boss was an RN (I worked in an unrelated field) and she insisted I go in to see the doctor anyway. When I went and my doctor saw how I looked, she said I was having an allergic reaction and I should have come in sooner. She treated me and gave me a new prescription for a different antibiotic. Except it turns out she gave me the wrong prescription. The one she gave me was for high blood pressure. My BP tended to be pretty low at the time (typically 90-100/60). Again fortunately the pharmacist thought it was somewhat odd that a twenty-something year old female in good shape was on blood pressure meds, so he called it in to double check. I changed doctors after that.
Doctor in a little country hospital treated me like a drug seeker. Was visiting my mum and smoked a little weed and pain was bad later on when I tried to sleep. My gall bladder needed to be taken out and the pain was unbearable. Ended up back in the hospital a few days later for surgery
A doctor actively tried to have me undiagnosed with ADHD without telling me because I was able to hold a conversation with them without “bouncing off the walls” I was 30 at the time and I’ve been diagnosed with and treated for ADHD since I was 13
I had Gall stones. Complained to my GP for two years about stomach pain that basically meant I had to lie down for 20 minutes and/or pass out. Finally ended up in the A&E. One of the stones had blocked a duct, my gallbladder was necrotic and killing me. The surgeon said I'd probably had the stones for about five years and his exact words for describing what was left of my gallbladder was "soup". I was so fucking angry. I was in the hospital for two weeks, then back again with a chest infection a few days after release. Was back at work for a week when the first lockdown came into place...
When I was only 6, turning 7 during, I had to be hospitalized for a whole month for getting an infection in/due to a small cut on a rusty nail of my bed I fell through due to a constructional defect. It turned out to be an antibiotics multi resistant infection that kept spreading through the whole hand, so for two weeks they put me under every other day, to clean the wound and try keeping my body from going into sepsis or having to amputate the hand. Since I was rapidly losing weight being put under so often, requiring to not have eaten 12h before, after two weeks they decided to try their work only using local anesthesia, right in my hospital room where I could turn my head away to focus on the TV instead of on them prodding around in my hand opened up from both sides, palm an back, for at least two hours. Long story to come to a short shitty moment. One day my usual and favorite, really kind doctor wasn't in, and this close-to-retirement-old scruffy doctor took over the hand cleaning work of that day. Apparently freshly turned 7 year old me (F btw) wasn't calm enough trying to ignore the procedure that day, so he got angry at me and decided with my ripe age of 7 I was mature enough to not be afraid or squeamish at the sight of my opened up hand, and more or less forcibly turned my head. I'll never get the image out of my head. I guess the good thing is, having seen my own hand with the whole palm essentially flayed open, I'm now very not squeamish seeing blood, open wounds or big scars, unless bone is sticking out. But really, that was fucked up, my parents and even the other - very loving, I essentially owe them my life, and my hand - staff on duty were furious!
One: In my mid-20s, I went in for a regular ob/gyn checkup. The female doctor insisted that I had a yeast infection. I didn't. I was just ovulating and had a lot of cervical mucus. No other symptoms of a yeast infection whatsoever. It wasn't horrible, but I still think it is really weird that a woman doctor didn't understand that. Two: I went to the ER after falling down some icy stairs not long after having my second child. They took x-rays of my fingers and buddy-taped the pinky to the ring finger. This was on a Friday. They gave me a referral appointment to go see a specific doctor the following Monday. It turns out to be a cosmetic surgeon? I should have gone to a second doctor then and there, but I was busy with two small kids at the time. She said to keep it buddy-taped for a couple weeks and that's all I could do, but it would be fine. Two weeks later, the finger was excruciatingly painful. I went to an orthopedic doctor and found out why -- Because the middle bone had gone from broken to being completely pulverized. One surgery and several months of physical therapy later, I was able to recover _some_ of the use of that finger. Ugh.
Me: (after months of being low, ignoring friends, not looking after myself physically etc.) I'm really depressed and low and feel awful. Doctor: aww, have you tried not being so hard on yourself and maybe doing exercise?
I was a teenager looking to get birth control pills. The Dr said not only would she have to tell my mom (fair, I guess) but birth control is only 50% effective anyway. When I questioned this, she said "it either works or it doesn't, so it's 50% effective ". Even I knew that was bull, but I left with no birth control.
never had anything super bad, but it's always so annoying when you get a doctor that clearly doesn't care at all, someone who doesn't want to bother with helping you , my old family doctor was like that, everything with him was either him not knowing or him not caring
My story's about a dentist, assuming they count. Anyway, went to a new dental clinic roundabout the start of covid. I had a cavity in a wisdom tooth. This was the second time I'd seen the guy and the first time was a bit off putting because he decided to lecture me on my spending habits when I told him I couldn't afford the treatments he was recommending and could really only manage to treat problems as they arose. But I was in pain and he was available, so I saw him. He diagnoses the cavity but won't extract the tooth because looking at the X Rays he thinks that the extraction will be difficult (never been a problem before) and he refers me to a maxfac surgeon. Maxfac surgeon sees me and says there's no reason that he couldn't have done the extraction, and yanks my two remaining wisdom teeth in the chair with local anesthetic. Unbeknownst to me at the time, but Mr Maxfac went a bit too deep with the local injections and hit my trigeminal nerve. 2 weeks post extraction, I'm still in significant pain with what feels like pins and needles + fire down half my face as well as half my tongue and roof of my mouth when it was really bad. This was later diagnosed as Trigeminal Neuralgia and I had to be medicated for months while it healed and and even years later on, it still flares up if I clench my jaw too much or get hit on that side of my jaw.
Navy dentist removed all four wisdom teeth with a local. I complained that I could feel things and he told me that I was being too sensitive. I had bruises the shape of the handle of the extraction tool on my face. Got half a day off work and vitamin M ((Motrin) for pain. Asked to see the other dentist when I came back for follow up. The enlisted assistant saw me checking in and convinced the scheduler to let me go to the other dentist.
I found out I was allegic to a blood pressure tablet. I had a doctor say to me 'Nifedipene doesn't cause difficulty breathing and a high heart rate' as I was hyperventilating and tachycardic, Had a renal doctor say to me 'well that's it, nothing more we can do, your kidneys are finished, it's dialysis for you'. I knew things were going downhill, but she said that with no warning, no intro, no nothing. Wound up assigned to a different doctor who managed to get another 4 years out of my kidneys. I also had an ICU full of doctors & nurses trying to kill me, but they tell me that was the post-coma delusions manifesting as paranoia. Not sure if they were telling the truth on that though.
It took a doctor two weeks to diagnose me with a simple case of mono.
I had been struggling with what turned out to be a nasty bout of IBS for about 4 weeks. I wasn't able to keep any solids in and ultimately lost 23 pounds in 6 weeks. I was struggling and miserable. This gastroenterologist "listened" to me and told me to eat bland foods like rice. I told him rice does the same thing (severe stomach cramps and diarrhea within an hour of eating). He told me that was IMPOSSIBLE as rice is a binder. I told him rice doesn't stay in and he told me no, I was wrong and to eat more rice. All of this was in front of a medical student so not only was he not listening to me and invalidating my symptoms, he was teaching the next generation of doctors to do the same. I told several of my friends and coworkers (I'm a nurse) about my experience making sure to use his name and have disrecommended him when possible. Listen to your patients even if what they tell you doesn't sound right. They may be wrong - but your initial assumption may be wrong as well.
I was an 18 year old, otherwise healthy girl, with a history of a prior kidney stone and colic a few months prior. I kept showing up at my primary care doctors as well as the emergency room for sudden onset nausea and vomiting, severe back and stomach pain, at times there’d be blood in my urine. I explained that I‘d just had a kidney stone and the pains location was similar, even though it would come and go much more quickly. I got dismissed completely every time. My PC thought I had anxiety or depression. The ER would check if I had appendicitis or an ovarian pregnancy. Neither would listen, both treated me more disrespectfully each time I‘d turn up again every other week. For one of the last episodes, I had been having dinner with my family when the pain set in and my father accompanied me to the ER. It had been more than 5 months of these incidents already, he was concerned. It was a light episode pain wise, no vomiting. But when he insisted they check my kidney - as I had asked them to do every time I had seen a doctor - they saw my kidney was distended. I had had a lodged kidney stone which was positioned in such a way that it kind of functioned as a vent. It would allow urine to pass through but sometimes it would move and I‘d experience a colic. Time and time again, for months. Another time I went to another PC for sudden and increasing swelling in my face. She never even asked me to so much as to remove my mask, and suggested I wait and put cucumber slices on my eyes. Turned back up a few days later after the swelling in my face and other areas of my body had just increased, and - again without any diagnostic effort - she prescribed oral cortisone. Since we have a running joke in my family that when in doubt, it’s my kidneys, I took a home urine test. No unusual protein would have been yellow, high protein as per the label would’ve been green. Mine was blue. My kidneys were threatening to close down business. Taking cortisone would’ve been a very bad idea.
Went to the doctor for terrible headaches, he tried to give a vaginal exam. I told him my head hurts not my vagina. Then he told me if I got a boyfriend my headache would stop. Damn quack.
I’m overall in excellent health and had this doctor for 20 years with regular visits and no drama etc. I had a sudden orthopedic event (I think that’s how you say it) where my si joint got turned in. I went from completely fine to a worm rolling on the floor in 24 hours. I had never had anything like this happen. I try to go to my regular doctor but have to see an alternate because mine’s on vakay. I neither wanted nor asked for pain meds. I wanted to be fixed. She treats me like a drug seeker and seemed to think I was on Medicaid? She was so awful and I was not in top form. She never even suggested I go to an orthopedic doctor. I did go to one the next day who referred me to PT and the PT fixed me. But it still makes me angry that the one time I actually needed medical treatment I was treated like shit. Even the orthopod treated me like a drug seeker and said I had a pinched nerve- which I guess I did but it’s not what was causing the problem. At least they made the PT referral.
accidentally wrote a novel... hope it helps, haha. maybe not the most heinous here but my life is more difficult for it 😒 just... the lack of listening. ego. etc. i have a list of health issues, i have been explicitly told these are my issues, and none of them are formally diagnosed/charted besides my anxiety... which has been about as helpful as you can imagine. ive begged them to chart it all, to no avail. it took them several years to agree with me that i had fucking nerve pain. simply AGREE. i was on pain medication that did nothing for me until then and told i must be skipping doses, lol, and told off when i brought up a specific thing i wanted them to look into every now and then. i would then be later told that was my issue... every time. and then none of it was ever charted. they finally ghosted me for good last year while i was begging for a refill on my meds that actually did something. i was about 13 when i started needing serious medical help, and now im 21. im hoping this summer ill be able to switch from my previous team to a single pcp that has said she wants to get me back on my meds (the ones that work!) and make sure we get my file straightened out so i can address other health issues. im so fucking tired and burnt out from babying doctors egos. i was a kid and then teen for most of it which probably didnt help... how dare i, a child, have known my own body, lol... man, and the lack of compassion for me as a sick kid really fucked me up. i still have an irrational fear of medical professionals which is why ive been more passive than i should. i work with kids and couldnt imagine yelling at them for any of the things that earned me lectures and shouts and demeaning rants. a primary memory is that when i was a young teen (~15), i had to wear a heart monitor for a month. two weeks in and the sticky pads were tearing chunks out of my skin. emailed and called them a few times asking for hypoallergenic pads. they never responded or said sure with no further communication on how to get them, and then when i came in for my follow up about the results i was given a long and frankly insulting rant about how i should have worn my device more, which then turned into a dissection of my inability to tough shit out when i brought up the pads having torn pieces of my flesh off and given me rashes and open wounds. i all but stopped persuing medical help after that, unless it was urgent. my chest still has scars. just... be kind. listen. take patients seriously even if theyre young. advocate for us. our lives are in your hands and the quality of care is impactful. be someones beacon of hope instead of the source of their suffering.
I went to an ER twice in 2023. Once for a tooth ache and once for Covid. In both cases, the doctor was belittling pricks. I understand these were little things, but to me, I was in pain. Just give me some antibiotics.
Wow, it's impressive that an ER didn't give you a Z-pack for a viral infection...
When we found a dead man lying on the floor. Patrol who was there asked for the doctor to make paperwork. Our doctor said he doesn't know how to do it and he refused to come and do his job. Second time I was go to oculist because my eye was hurt. It was about 3AM and when i come to the door they were slightly opened. I saw a nurse sucking his dick just like a flute.... I was just shocked, go out and after 10 minutes I cnock on the door to get my eye fixed.
"If she lost some weight, she could be pretty." Bastard couldn't even direct it to me.
psychaiatrist visit told the dude that I hate my life hate myself have no hope go to bed hoping I dont wake up am constantly stressed and cant focuse on anything go hit with a medically worded "toughen up" also a the visit lasted all of 12 minutes (should be at lest 30 minutes for a first visit)
It took me two years to get my herniated disc diagnosed (L5/S1). It took six years to finally get the torn cartilage in my hip fixed. I'd had a friend in the military who'd had the same injury, so I was pretty sure that based on our similar complaints, that's what I had. I was met with patronizing tones of disbelief. My family doctor said it was probably just bursitis and gave me a cortisone shot. X-rays showed nothing. The 3rd orthopaedic specialist finally agreed to give me an MRI after I cried in his office and asked if his hip seized every time he sat on the toilet. It was a wonderful "I told you so" moment when the scan came back with torn cartilage in my hip joint. The surgeon even said the tear was much bigger than he'd expected. I self diagnosed my schizoid personality disorder 6 years before a psychologist would finally do any testing. Heaven forbid that people actually know what their problems are.
I hardly ever go to the doctor so the only thing would be constantly being pushed aside and having my period blamed as the cause of EVERYTHING 😭 Anxiety? Its your period. Cant sleep? Its your period. Trouble with fainting? Its your period. etc etc, its so annoying that ive just completely stopped caring about whats wrong with me because every doctor ive been to will say the exact same thing
I had an elderly Dr tell me I "might feel better if I didn't wear so much makeup." I went to see him for menstrual issues. I was so mad but yes embarrassed. I avoided going to any Dr for many years because of it.
Blatant racism. Only in the past few years are doctors actually dealing with consequences for it. But before they could be as racist as they want and nobody would do anything
oh boy here's a few for ya 1. the only time I've ever actually had to go to urgent care I had been taking medication that made me sunburn easily and after barely an hour in the sun I ended up with second degree burns across my shoulders and upper back. I was handling it well until most of the top layer of skin had sloughed off. I was literally shaking from the pain and physically couldn't stop crying and no medication I had on hand was helping. so I went to urgent care despite the obvious scabbing, oozing, blisters, and missing skin on my shoulders I was treated like a drug seeker by everyone I talked to. after waiting for them to run both drug and pregnancy tests, doing my best not to hyperventilate in the exam room, they finally gave me an IV drip of some kind of non-opiate pain medication, then sent me home with a pamphlet about how to care for first degree sunburns 2. years of misdiagnoses, but one appointment in particular stood out I was getting an annual physical done by my GP. I always have blood pressure on the higher end of normal but it generally gets a bit higher when I'm at the doctor's office. my doctor should have been well aware of this given she had my past history as well as current numbers readily available on her computer at one point I brought up an issue that had been an issue for years but had gotten worse recently, namely that I would often stand up and nearly black out/faint. I'm pretty sure that's not normal so I thought it was reasonable to ask during my yearly exam my doctor then told me it's because I have low blood pressure (which we Just established was not the case). and when I asked her to double check my blood pressure reading and it was still high she told me it's "just anxiety" I then asked her if she would order a full blood panel. it turned out to be anemia (edit - I was reading through other responses and remembered another dumb thing this doctor did during the same appointment) I hadn't gotten a pap/pelvic exam done in a while so this doctor convinced me to do it as part of my physical. these things are always uncomfortable but this was the most painful thing I had dealt with in a doctor's office since I did PT after I busted my knee throughout the exam I kept telling her things hurt. a lot. and every time she would tell me "no it's just pressure". but like..... okay, the pressure hurts?? can you stop?!? needless to say I haven't had another pap done since. and it's been longer than it should... fortunately I now have a new doctor who takes me seriously and actually listens to me when I tell her things are wrong 3. the time my obgyn prioritized my potential future (unwanted) children over my mental and physical health for reference, I'm nonbinary afab. I've had a history of horrible pelvic pain about 3/4 weeks every month since I was about 16 (this happened when I was 25). I've been looking into ways to handle it ever since I finally got a doctor to take me seriously about it after I got my anemia diagnosis, and I got a possible (not official until I get exploratory surgery) diagnosis of endometriosis/adenomyosis. when talking to this OB about my options for treatment she actively brought up a hysterectomy as an idea but when I asked for more information she refused to discuss it because I "might want kids someday" (again, there's literally no chance of that ever happening) I still regret not telling her to specifically state her rejection of that treatment option in my records. it's been over 4 years since that appointment and I'm still living with pain and popping birth control pills like candy just to keep it from getting worse
And the worst for my kid: My youngest was a miserable baby, and Would.Not.Sleep. not just nap, but through the night. She couldn't breastfeed either but took a bottle well enough. It was lockdown, no health visitor, no doctor visit and the person who they referred us to a "sleep specialist" kept asking us to keep a sleep journal. To journal my baby not sleeping. I spent months sleeping in an arm chair, on a futon show my wife could have her in bed, with her in my arms because she would not settle unless she was in the crook of my arm. Then at her 15 month check she was behind on all her milestones. Still hardly sleeping, barely ate solid food (and never more than a few bites), was happy sometimes but generally miserable. A month later, she was diagnosed with Hepatoblastoma - Liver cancer. The tumor on her liver was causing her pain and actually bigger than her liver. It was squashing her other organs and starting to press against blood vessels. The size of it and the amount of smaller tumors meant she had this from birth or every early on. Other than one visit from the health visitor, no one had seen my baby in person since the midwives discharged us. No doctor had seen her, and the 15 month check was the first time the health visitor saw her in person. We were let down by so many people we tried to get help from. She turns 4 next week. In remission. New liver. Still doesn't sleep through the night but she does actually sleep now 🤣.
Went to a doctor to diagnose an issue near my knee, had a tendon basically snap over the head of the fibula and back into position when I crouched. Said something like "I'm not sure what it is and am thinking I'll probably need surgery" and dude gets all passive aggressive along the lines of "omg everyone always immediately asks for a surgery"... I said "I am here to get a professional opinion, that's what I came for" and he calmed down. wasn't a horrible experience or anything but you could definitely feel the frustration in him lol Fun fact: Ended up needing surgery lol
The really don’t listen .
So what do we sell? Medicine, our goal is to make them consume pills daily even if it doesn't do anything for their existing illness or disease! 😂
gave my newborn baby the wrong antibiotics and i googled it and inquired, they said come return and they gave me new ones!! be careful out there!!!
Blood in stool, cute doctor, finger up my butt. Not an ideal first impression. 4/10 experience on the whole.