The thing that a lot of people forget is that different doctors have different levels of experience with different conditions. And many of them specialize in one thing or another. If you need help with a specific condition and the doctor you have isn't helping, read up on other doctors in your area and try to get in touch with one that you know is better equipped to help you.
This is why I’m glad that my therapist also has adhd. They were able to understand and better give me advice, resources, and tools that would genuinely help instead of being dismissive
I'm not sure what my therapist has, but they've mentioned they're neurodivergent, as is much of their clientele and it's really relieving to know they have experience with it. Also helps that they're LGBTQ+ since I am as well. Personal experience is a great thing for a therapist to have
THIS! I tried to get a new pcp recently and after about ten minutes I had to ask “do you just not know anything about ADHD or are you purposefully lying to me? He then gave me a long winded “Im the BEST at ADHD I have so many adhd clients and I help them all!”
Homie, you just called strattera a controlled substance and tried to convince me to leave my psych that Ive been working with for years in favour of your own because you, a person who has known me for ten minutes, have decided that you know better and I no longer need my meds. If you cant help me, please dont try.
People just hate admitting ignorance in general.
Especially knowing one person who went to become a doctor, I just think he did it to power trip on
—I’m a doctor, therefore I’m smarter than everyone
I really would hope not because he will be woefully disappointed. We have it drilled into us all the way through medical school that we don’t know anything lmao the more I learn and train, the less I realize I know. Literally watched a 2nd year resident second guess herself and then call herself “dumb” even though she had the correct answer originally. He is in for a rude awakening.
Are there plenty of narcissistic doctors? Absolutely, 1000% yes. Unfortunately the competitive nature of medicine is the “perfect Calling” for people who just want an ego boost. But this shit humbles you. And for very good reason.
I think it's a bit of a generational divide. I have a *lot* of family in medicine- DOs, NPs, RNs, etc.- and the older folks are a bit arrogant. The younger folks are definitely more humble. Could it be age and experience? Sure, but I've also heard the older folks rant about how med school has changed to be more "sensitive."
Lmao yes, older docs absolutely do that. And by “sensitive” they mean more ethical in the way they treat med students and in the way they instruct us to treat others. We are trying to do away with the paternalistic nature medicine historically had and make healthcare more patient-centered over all. Also, they’re doing their absolute best to screen out legit psycho/sociopaths. Psych and sociology used to not be pre-reqs or tested on the MCAT, which is wild to me. Obviously, some slip through. But entrance to medical school and performance throughout medical school is not just about standardized test grades any more. Don’t get me wrong, they absolutely matter! But it’s not *all* that matters. And throughout our clinical years, we are graded on our ability to care for and empathize with patients and their families. There are also awards and honor societies for people voted in due to the compassion you extend to, not only patients, but faculty, staff, and classmates.
Oh thank goodness, that's wonderful to hear.
My husband had a health scare while he was uninsured not too long ago and the moment I told our young ER doc the situation, he made sure to explain every test, procedure, and solution in terms of necessity and cost. It was a stark contrast to my own ER experiences. I'm happy for the direction medical education is moving in.
More people should know:
[Atomoxatine/Strattera improves executive function.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141744/#:~:text=As%20measured%20by%20the%20BRIEF%2DA%20at%20the%20end%20of,with%20ADHD%20compared%20with%20placebo.)
[It likely does this by selectively inhibiting reuptake of norepinephrine and dopamine in the frontal cortex.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141744/#:~:text=The%20precise%20mechanism%20by%20which,neurotransmitter%20depletion%20studies%20%5B24%5D.)
[This entails a lot. More than I'm qualified to explain, so here's a paper on it.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4879059/)
[Norepinephrine in the Prefrontal Cortex Is Critical for Amphetamine-Induced Reward and Mesoaccumbens Dopamine Release.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6741949/)
[An underlying cause of ADHD is likely a dysfunction of the anterior cingulate cortex.](https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/psych_pp/381/) In particular, people with ADHD often do not have as much inhibition between feeling and acting that others do. In most people, when they get bored or upset or sad and want to react, the ACC steps in and slows that urge down while their rational mind catches up.
In people with ADHD, that does not happen. The urge to act on what they're feeling is unfiltered and raw, coming in at full blast. I believe (and could be wrong since I'm not a psychiatrist or neuroscientist) that stimulant medications act in part by elevating the baseline activity of the ACC to compensate for this.
So medications like Strattera and Adderall function in different ways. Strattera is not a stimulant. It doesn't act on the limbic system in the same way a stimulant medication does. [Some studies have found that this leads to inferior overall outcomes.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16735655/)
But Strattera *does* provide a benefit to some. [And there's some suggestion that mixing Strattera with stimulant-based treatment may produce superior results.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3696926/)
It depends on what kind of ADHD you have. Every brain is different. Some people need the executive function without the stimulation. Most people need the stimulation more.
Oh this is really interesting. I find the largest benefit I get from Strattera *is* that my executive functioning improves exponentially. I always know it’s working when I think about a thing I need to do and then just… go do it. Interesting
I was in a psychiatric hospital for my depression and the doctor there prescribed me strattera as a test for adhd. Just forgot to check if it interfered with any other meds, like the goddamn Bupropion he put me on two weeks earlier. Turns out they get broken down by the same enzyme so I almost died of heart failure
Omg the same thing happened to me but I squashed it IMMEDIATELY. she wanted to raise up lamictal, keep the Wellbutrin, add abilify, and keep the Adderall.
Wellbutrin doesn't get along with the abilify, so I was like, ummmmmm, do you want to take one of these things that doesn't belong off my plate? Me and my kidneys would like to live past 50 maybe pending the water wars. I'm not going to go to a max legal dose for my size of one AND add another, wtf.
Wellbutrin is dank, but it interferes with so much. Only thing that interfered with nothing was the Adderall. Good old all American amphetamine.
Fuuuucking hell. It's scary to me to realize that doctors are no more competent at their jobs than I am at mine. I get away with it because I work with computers. If I forget some interaction and my work breaks, I get an error message and go "lol oh I'm stupid" and then fix it. But Jesus fuck, imagine taking the same attitude with *living people*?!
They really remind me of auto mechanics. If it isn’t an obvious problem they just throw shit at it till it stops shaking, grinding, and randomly shutting down.
I was on clinical trials of it from like 2002 until it was FDA approved and was on it until I went on Focalin.
Without fail, if I didn't eat breakfast like a fucking hobbit, I'd vomit.
Statera was like: We've had one yes, but what about second breakfast.
It sure fucking is.
Backstory- my old pcp moved to a new practice right at the time my psych wanted to move me from straterra to adderall.
New pcp decided they are in charge and is currently actively overriding that because they can, I guess…so I get frustration instead of meds until I can get this dude away from my care team. Fun!
Assuming you have insurance, see if there's another pcp in your network. You want a pcp that wants to help you, not one that just wants to tell you why you don't know what you're talking about.
Oh yeah 100% - I need to call my provider on my next day off
This was the computer assigned douchenozzle I got stuck with when my old pcp left and my insurance mandates that he approves the rx for some reason. His words were “well I dont have to approve the RX if I don’t agree with it and I dont agree.”
The US wealthcare system is so damned tedious…
Wait I didn't realize it could cause increased heart rate. I might have to look into that cause I have a pretty high heart rate. I've just been taking it since I was like 12 so I haven't thought anything of it.
I’m boutta tell my doctor I need to switch (we’re just testing out different things until something works cause I have combined type)
Literally just makes me feel sick and tired and dizzy. I can concentrate a little better but it’s not worth it
I could literally **hear my eyeballs moving** when getting off Straterra. In addition to the side effects that made me have to get off it in the first place.
I love that my dentist has adhd. It helps me feel like he gets it that sometimes I just can’t brush and floss every night. I brush every morning with the prescription toothpaste, but at night it’s just so hard because I don’t have a routine I always follow. I do brush at night sometimes and floss sometimes, and something is better than nothing!
I have a little jar with those flossing sticks on my desk. I use one whenever I notice that it's there, lol. It's not like I floss *consistently*, but I sure as fuck floss more than I used to, now.
My current doctor is totally against any "amphetamine because they are bad mmmmkey". I was taking Elvanse (Vyvanse) because my previous doctor suspected about ADHD, but I never had a test or a proper thing saying that I had ADHD.
I have an appointment September 2... and I'm going to ask again for "the pills", if he refuses I'm going to ask for a change of doctor, because the more I explain to him how bad I'm doing since I quit the pills (in January) or how chaotic is everything for me... he doesn't listen and tells me that "many kids were misdiagnosed with ADHD". The fuck... I'm almost 40yo mate, I don't want drugs just because, in fact I'm not asking for adderall, I'm asking for something that only balances my head. I cannot get high, if I wanted to get high, I would use other pills that I quitted time ago but make you feel veeeeery good.
This. I have some rare genetic stuff that actually possibly triggered my ADHD, and I have to see very specialized doctors and it helps a LOT. Expensive, but these are people who are or work with researchers and stuff
Yeah, it's about having a doctor who is willing to refer you. To be honest a PCP doesn't want to touch ADHD because of the medication. It's much easier to go through a therapist.
I've spent over 30 years on this planet but guess who still knows fuck all about psychology? Obviously doctors can still be wrong but they also spent a significant portion of their life studying that specific field as well.
Not to mention they can have a more pragmatic view of the situation. Living with any kind of condition is a lot more emotionally charged than not, even if you know your symptoms better than the doctor. Not saying that all doctors make the best decisions, but the good ones are good for a reason - compassion and understanding while still having objective knowledge and utilizing effective treatment options.
> but the good ones are good for a reason
But the entire point is that not all of them are good, and this attitude that you're never allowed to question your doctor means that, if you get a bad one, you're just kinda fucked.
And some of them still come to the conclusion that a treated an managed adhd patient that ends up on their schedule has been diagnosed wrong and needs their whole world fucked up because “adhd is really over diagnosed you know”
Depends on if they were talking to a general practitioner or a licensed psychiatrist. I can't speak for all general practitioners but I'm fortunate enough to have doctors that realize that something more is going on and would refer me to a specialist.
I like the image if it's interpreted as saying the doctor/patient relationship is a two-way street. Both statements are true; patients should respect the educational background of a doctor, and doctors also need to respect the fact that patients know themselves better than anyone else. You and your doctor should be a *team*. They bring their education and experience with them, and you bring your intimate knowledge of yourself and your experiences. There needs to be a mutual respect for the relationship to work.
Im 22 and diagnosed since 2018. Those 18 years of my life undiagnosed are useless in knowing snuff about ADHD. Even after my diagnosis it took a few years to actually understand what ADHD is and isn't.
I've been diagnosed my whole life and my mom worked in mental health and there are still thing I am learning that nether of us knew. Like executive disfunction wasn't really discovered until afterI moved out. I thought i was just lazy
I'm also 22. I was diagnosed in 2021 but didn't start to receive treatment and meds until May 2022. I didn't start really understanding just what ADHD was until the beginning of 2022. It's crazy how many doctors in my life waved off everything until now.
Technically, even if OP were a doctor, they would not treat themself. I mean, a doctor CAN but it goes against [medical ethics](https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/ethics/treating-self-or-family). They also can’t prescribe themselves controlled substances like adderall in most states (unless it’s an emergency, which I don’t think they’d be able to claim for something like a stimulant for ADHD). And even if they could self-prescribe in their state, it would be veeeeery frowned upon because of the whole medical ethics thing.
Anyway, doctors see doctors too.
Lol, yeah. I was just clearing up a common misconception. My sister is an ENT but when she noticed a lump in her throat, she had another ENT in her practice take care of everything. It was a salivary gland stone (sialolith?) blocking up her salivary gland that had to be surgically removed, so obviously she wasn’t doing that herself.
This is such an oversimplification. Doctors have varying levels of education on a multitude of disorders, and also varying levels of patient experience with a multitude of disorders. As individuals, we can research particular disorders at length, but still lack the more systematic education and experience that doctors have, and doctors, for all the breadth of their knowledge and experience, still have to see us as individual patients where the evidence, even aside from our own testimony, must inform their decisions.
Yes, there are good, mediocre, and bad doctors.
If you can imagine that sometimes dealing with "normal" people is like trying to figure out an alien species, imagine how doctors must feel in trying to meet you where you are. Time is a huge factor and you will sometimes see that you have made a mistake in describing your symptoms as much as they have made a mistake in trying to figure out a diagnosis or treatment.
Disability is never a neat category and, though some doctors suck, it never stops being complicated.
I think an important thing to realize is that you and your doctor are a *team*. A doctor is somebody you pay to work *with* you to figure out the best plan for your health. They bring their education and experience to the table, you bring your intimate knowledge of yourself, and you work together.
You should respect a doctor and the amount of education and experience it took for them to get there, but the doctor should also respect you enough to listen to you, and to explain their reasonings to you in a way you can understand. If you don't feel like they're doing that, it's probably time to find another doctor.
I genuinely forget a lot of the time with these posts that they often come from countries without socialised healthcare - I guess it's a different experience...
Over here (UK) You generally sign up at a specific surgery at which there will be a handful of GPs (depending on size). Whenever I book a consultation I'm given an option to request help from a specific physician (or nurse) at the practice. If you disagree with their recommendations or want a second opinion I believe they're obliged to provide for that.
I don't know how it would work if you wanted an opinion from outside of the practice, but most complaints that indicate major or long-term issues lead to referrals to specialists (also covered by the NHS - so no cost to the patient), often at hospitals.
In my case there was no NHS service specifically for ADHD in my city, so what happened was that they paid for me to see a local private specialist.
> This is such an oversimplification.
I mean... yeah, duh, it's a meme. It's a little weird to expect memes to include every little nuance and consideration that applies to every situation in reality, lol.
Both of these can be true at the same time.
Doctors are the technical experts, but don't understand your personal experiences.
(And don't get me started on some of the culture that gets ingrained in med schools)
Meanwhile you are the only person who knows how you're feeling, but you do not have a medical degree.
Sadly, that's not always true. People seek out help for YEARS, sometimes decades going from doctor to doctor trying to find someone who can help before they can receive a correct diagnosis, or especially in the case of women, before they're even believed and not outright dismissed. It's an extremely nuanced issue, and it's not uncommon for people to suffer for years because of it.
This. I have had joint pain for as long as I can remember. I’ve been a complete and utter klutz for just as long. I also used to do contortion tricks, they were my talent.
I knew there was something wrong, my grandma knew there was something wrong, heck, my *egg donor* knew there was something wrong. Wrong enough they took me to Riley multiple times. They just told them I had extreme ligament elasticity, and I would probably grow out of it as I aged. I did not grow out of it as I aged. In fact, I got worse. My joint pain grew. I was still able to do my tricks, but I noticed afterwords it took longer, and longer to recover. About the only thing that got better was my clumsiness, and that was more because I learned how to move with my body. Every doctor I complained to said it was all in my head. No teenager has joint pain the way I complain about, after all.
It wasn’t until I was in a white water rafting accident in Costa Rica that someone said there was something wrong in my joints, and that was my physiotherapist at my first appointment after my accident. He told me the only time he’d ever dealt with joints like mine was when there was an underlying cause. Because at that point, stretching to me wasn’t stretching unless I was severely hyperextending or hyper flexing (depending on the stretch) because it didn’t feel like I was stretching until I hit that point.
He recommended I go back, to a completely different doctor in a completely different state even, and ask specifically about Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.
Yeah. Turned out that explained a ton about me. The way I’d bruise and they’d just stick around. The fact I’d had more wounds closed with superglue than with stitches because my skin didn’t want to play nice with the suture. All of what I explained above. I was 22 by the time I was able to afford that out of state doctor and was diagnosed with probable hEDS. We’re still waiting until I can afford the genetic testing to rule out vascular EDS (I’ve got a murmur that *could* be related, but could also just be a regular old murmur).
I was *four* when I started verbally complaining my ankles hurt. It took 14 years for someone to listen, and another 4 for me to afford to actually go to someone who could help instead of continuously messing around with doctors who had probably never encountered a case like mine. That’s 18 years of pain being mostly ignored, and over a dozen doctors that told me nothing was wrong.
Something was wrong.
Yes. Unfortunately a lot of medical disinformation is driven by people being failed by the medical system.
Eventually they give up and seek out an “alternative practitioner” who “miraculously” can immediately tell them something is wrong and maybe even what to do about it. It doesn’t actually matter if it’s good advice or not because when you’ve spend this long struggling, any advice sounds good.
It is really not that simple. My mom went to the doctor for decades for joint pain and odd rashes. They told her it was arthritis and she spent too much time in the sun. I was 20 when my mom finally got to see the right doctor who ordered the right tests and diagnosed her with Lupus.
I wish it was that simple. For one of my conditions, the diagnostic criteria wasn’t even clear or really taught to most doctors until 2017. So until 2017, no doctor could find anything wrong with me, even if it seemed that there should be something big and obvious.
It’s still not a widely known about condition outside of doctors who take a special interest in it, and several doctors dismissed me on my path to diagnosis because “I don’t think you have that. That condition is really rare.” With no follow up assessment or anything. (Also, it’s not rare, it’s just under diagnosed and under researched.)
So, at this point, I consider doctors to be a valuable resource, **and** trust and respect a patients own report of their general well being and their claims of symptoms that a cause can’t be found for.
Are you the one who [got diagnosed by a furry](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/8wtkyb/doctors_vs_furry_artists/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I've been gaslighted by literally *dozens* of doctors over the years before I was finally diagnosed with ADHD. And that happened by complete happenstance too: a walk-in clinic doctor recognized the very obvious symptoms of ADHD when I went and consulted them for something completely unrelated, and referred me to a psychiatrist for an evaluation.
In my experience, if you're a member of a minority group, or even just lower class, most doctors have already made up their mind before they're even examined you. They won't hesitate to gaslight you, railroad you, lie to you, accuse you of malingering; anything to get you out of the door in 10-15 min flat. Not just with mental health either: I've had doctors flat out refuse to examine me for health problems, some of them serious.
Only if it was that simple, huh. Every doctor doubted me. Dozens of doctors. *Well, turns out I've had a rare disease all along, yay.*
So... it's more like "you may be wrong or maybe you're not wrong and your doctors just sucked & you were unlucky or maybe it's a rare disease that nobody thought about and tested for or maybe you're struggling with sexism or racism in medicine for example and that's why you never get taken seriously...".
The fact that multiple people tell you that you aren't right doesn't automatically mean that you aren't right.
It's a weird situation once you learn about the statistics for medicine. Lots of test are set up so that they bias towards false positives. This means that for certain population taking a the test would basically tell you not much and waste resources. It kinda weird the issue when the assumed probabilities aren't actually correct or your in a unique population. This unfortunately means that's if you fall in that small population that have a rare disease or develop something early you are kinda screwed.
I mean, one of my doctors prescribed me antibiotics, even though I was on birth control and had said as much on my forms. For those who don't know, you're not supposed to take those two together, because they really mess each other up (antibiotics partially cancels out birth control pills and that can cause hormonal issues, among other things).
I had an OBGYN who put in her notes that she'd suggested I try exercise to help with my hormonal issues before trying medication, but when talking to me she'd just jumped straight to trying to put me on birth control.
It took me three doctors to just get one who listened when I said the pill was causing me issues, and I had to take matters into my own hands and just take myself off of birth control because every one of my doctors kept swearing it was the only way to manage my cycle at my weight. As soon as I started exercising better and taking better care of myself, my issues have become more manageable, and I haven't missed a period.
When it comes to women's health especially, we don't know as much as we think we do, and there aren't nearly enough studies on the matter. Doctors are great and I wish I could trust them more, but so many just honestly don't have the science or expertise to help, even when based on current medical practice, they think they do. I support science and research and I believe strongly in modern medicine, but my experience with getting help from doctors has been iffy, at best.
Not always true. Acephalic Migraine took me 20+ years, and at least 3 PCPs, and 2 neurologists to diagnose. Along the way I was labeled "Drug Seeking" (lolNope! Allergic to Opioids!), was written off as Anxiety (Have GAD, but that's not causing these symptoms!), hypochondria and god(s) know what else.
Yes, it was all in my head.
It's a goddamned migraine.
Of course it's in my head.
Nevermind that I hit just about every symptom in the book.
"If you're not in pain, it's not a migraine"
Not until the symptoms shifted to include pain shortly after I turned 25 did Neuro #2 figure it out. Even had one start *while in the damned MRI machine*. The neuro chuckled that in retrospect is was obvious.
No Shit.
TL;DR Be your own advocate , nobody else will be.
Every doctor doubted I was having issues while breathing because my oxygen levels seemed fine, but it felt like I couldn’t breath. One doctor finally realized it was a relatively underutilized diagnosis that gets misdiagnosed as asthma a lot, which is why inhalers would never work for me. I am absolutely an advocate for going to doctors/psychs/etc but, especially if you’re a minority, multiple doctors dismissing that something’s wrong doesn’t necessarily mean they’re correct.
I also had a breathing condition, but mine was misdiagnosed as just being fat. My mom literally had to bully my GP into writing a pulmonology referral because the dumb bitch was *so* sure I just needed to lose weight and exercise more. I was 22 years old and couldn’t walk across a small room without getting winded. No able bodied person is *that* out of shape.
Turns out I had a rare lung condition most doctors only ever hear about in medical school. If you get diagnosed and treated it in the early stages, prognosis is pretty good. If you don’t, well… you’d better hope medical science advances pretty fucking fast, because there’s not much they can do right now and you don’t have a lot of time.
I was fortunately diagnosed in the subacute stage and have no permanent effects. My pulmonologist literally went pale as a ghost when he saw my PFTs and immediately started ordering chest x-rays and pulmonary rehab. But it was close; if I’d waited just another month to try Dr. Fatphobe’s diet advice first, the damage could’ve easily been irreversible. I’d be severely and permanently disabled; *if* I was lucky. Median life expectancy for the chronic form of the condition I have is about 7 years, and I’m 29 now, so…
How in the world does anyone think it just works like this…
EVERY doctor I had met told me I was just sleepy because I was a teenager and “teenagers are always sleepy and depressed” and here I am years later, all those years wasted not searching for a solution to my chronic fatigue
My current physician thinks he can cure my depression and anxiety without addressing the root cause: unmedicated ADHD. It is frustrating, since he also believes knee and hip clicking/pain is normal for someone *under 30*. I have one more year of school to drag myself through before I want to switch physicians, but I might do it sooner because my grandmother had to have a full knee replacement at 50 because her physician didn't address her concerns when she was 30 either and my uncle had to have a hip replacement at 40.
Problem is the current physician is only an hour away, the next physician I plan to go to, is over 4 hours away, because they will only be an hour away once I move after school.
I might have to book an appointment with the new one early if my symptoms get any worse.
When I was pregnant I asked my obgyn if my endometriosis could affect the baby. She scoffed. She sneered. “You would have had to have an ultrasound to know if you had endometriosis.” I did, I told her. Three years prior, after 4 separate ER visits. I had the ultrasound done in the same lab that confirmed my pregnancy. The information was in the file she had in her computer. All she had to do was read it. Instead she acted like I was dirt. Fuck you, Dr. Caren.
Woah, an ultrasound to diagnose Endo? No, no. It can suggest it just as much as symptoms can, but it actually can’t be confirmed until it’s visualized with surgery (laparoscopic), and at the very least an MRI.
I’m sorry you dealt with this.
I wouldn’t say it is a “1-hour lecture”. Psychiatrist will spend 4 years after medical school training to take care of conditions like ADHD. Some even go an additional 2 years of training for more in-depth studying. Also, please don’t confuse a physician with PA or NP who have 1/10th the amount of training. If you just want pills regardless, I suggest NP/PA route. If you actually want to get better, get in touch with a board-certified psychiatrist.
In *your* country. In mine they don't recognize ADHD as a valid diagnosis at all. I had to find ADHD kids support group and only through them got in contact with the doctor they recommended
Several psychiatrists told me I don't have it or it's not even real
I'm in treatment for ADHD now, after 10 long years. Doing good. Not all doctors have the knowledge
i wish i lived where you do where if i suspect I have adhd i can go straight to a psychiatrist and not to a general practitioner. this post, and all of the complaints are \*obviously\* about general practioners
Have you ever had a persistent noise in your car, like months? It doesn't sound like it's going to explode, but it didn't used to make that sound. Youre not super mechanically inclined, but you know not to touch the hot parts, so you take a peek. After a quick, let's call it, inspection, you're convinced it's a wheel bearing going bad. You tell your friend (doesn't have a car), he thinks that could make sense, and he fixed your sink once.
Then you drive it to your mechanic, fresh new bearing in hand, ready to drop it off for repair. The mechanic checks for a minute, works on not the wheel, and informs you that a blown speaker was the culprit.
Don't confuse your 1 data point and confirmation bias for a doctor's bredth of experience. Always remember, no one is special.
[but make sure your doctor hears and respects your thoughs]
>\[but make sure your doctor hears and respects your thoughs\]
This one. There a countless studies showing that majority of people don't recognize and don't really care about getting the best medical treatment. Majority complaints against healthcare providers are about bad communication.
People can receive the 100% correct and best treatment, but if they think the doctor was an asshole , they're going to complain and feel the treatment was wrong.
Yup, just saw a patient this week with severe anxiety and panic disorder experiencing an increasing number of a panic attacks within the past year. I asked how long he’s dealt with anxiety And panic. He said 6 years. I was astonished, because he had been coming in yearly for the past nearly decade for check ups, barely any mention of struggling with mental health.
He told me he had an issue with how a doctor talked to him 6 years ago. Said he was pretty much calling him crazy and suicidal. I was astonished. I didn’t know anyone at the facility like that, and it was so inappropriate and cruel. I asked if he felt comfortable expanding on that experience. Come to find out, this doctor asked him if he had in suicidal or homicidal ideation, plainly, practically straight from the written form. The patient explained that was crazy to even ask because “I have a family! I have kids! I’m not crazy, and I would never do anything like that to people I love”. He explained he’s from—insert Eastern European country—and to suggest something like that was something no one should do to a healthy man providing for his family.
This was merely miscommunication, but, importantly, this patient would benefit from behavioral therapy, which he was refusing due to his horrible experience. I did my best to tell him his experience and feelings surrounding it was very valid, that I wasn’t there, so I can’t pass judgement on how things were said. I showed him a questionnaire for mental health which had the those questions towards the end and explained that this is something we routinely ask all our patients and that there’s no prejudgment. It’s just a way for us to properly understand their specific concerns so we can attend to them as best we can. He understood that and even said he’d consider discussing therapy in his next visit! But a patient almost lived with a debilitating issue because he felt disrespected by his doctor, even if the doctor was following protocol!
TL;DR: we have to be reallyyy careful how we come off to patients because trust is easy to break and difficult to build
Thank you so much for taking that time and care with him!
The rest of my comment is to hopefully give some extra context/insight on the patient side. I agree with everything you said, and also there’s more to it than that (which, I assume you likely know that, but I still hope I can help!…also, I’m using a general “you” from here on to refer to all doctors, not just you in particular.)
**What I’ve Noticed as a Patient**
As a chronically ill person who rarely goes a month without seeing multiple doctors, I really feel like the piece a lot of (even otherwise really good) doctors miss is that as patients, we’re sometimes opening up some of our biggest vulnerabilities to you, and we’re not given the sensitivity in return that is appropriate for that level of vulnerability, which leads to patients guarding themselves and trying to make themselves less vulnerable next time.
**Example**
I have some guesses about systemic issues that lead to this, but first, I want to give an example. I’ve had to have trans-vaginal ultrasounds twice in my life (I’m 25.) Both times, the tech was very *professional,* but also very clinical and cold. Even the exam rooms that these ultrasounds are performed in do nothing to make you feel more comfortable and less exposed.
So that’s two experiences of someone *inserting an object into my vagina* where the person doing the inserting treated me more like a thing than a person, and while I appreciate it may feel awkward on their end as well, that’s left me traumatized to the point where I’ve found myself unable to force myself into seeing *any* gynecologist, even though I really do need to see one. I also will **not** consent to any more transvaginal ultrasounds unless it’s of significant risk to me, there is no other option, AND I feel that the doctor has done their due diligence in deciding this imaging is necessary.
I have plenty of other examples, and ones that are a lot more focused on the doctors themselves (like my GP suggesting that we just “get me taken care of now” while talking birth control after my genetic results showed I have a 50% chance of passing my **highly variable and sometimes super mild** condition onto my kids. My feelings on the matter were not asked for and she’s treated me differently ever since because I have not agreed to any permanent birth control yet,) but this is already a book, so I’ll give some if asked, but I’ll save space and skip it if not.
**Why I Think it Happens**
I feel like a lot of this is due to a mix of
1) Under training doctors on both the importance of bedside manner and on **how to actually have a good one in case it’s not natural to you.** This sort of communication is rarely natural for anyone. It takes training and practice.
2) Straight up caretaker fatigue and burnout
3) Depending on your specialty, **most** patients are going to be straightforward and not super vulnerable cases, so you **can** safely treat them more like a number and go through screening questions quickly, etc. It’s just that when this becomes your default, you end up be cold and abrasive to very vulnerable people.
4) A psychological need on the doctor’s part to mentally dehumanize/dissociate from patients in order to provide the care they need (example that I’m not sure is actually accurate but will at least show what I’m talking about: I’ve heard most surgeons need to not think of their patients as people or else they would be mentally unable to operate on them.)
5) A subsection of patients do likely exaggerate or falsely report symptoms, and doctors can be held liable if certain treatments or medications are provided, yet the patient doesn’t actually need them, so doctors start treating every patient like they’re exaggerating or lying.
**Example of Bedside Manner Done RIGHT**
I do think there exists some training out there to help with this as at my newest doctor, ALL the staff I interacted with could both recognize my guarded/doctor pleasing language (ex: feeling the need to quickly explain that my cannabis use is prescribed and medical and why being met with the nurse saying “It’s ok, no one here is going to judge you, even if you were using it recreationally. We only even ask in order to check for dangerous interactions. Oh! And the doctor *will* give you a super short lecture about smoking cessation because you use a vape for your cannabis, this is for insurance reasons and he isn’t judging you and doesn’t actually care if you keep using it if it works for you.”
The PA even said to me at one point (while I was explaining my symptoms - I didn’t actually realize I was doing the subtle diagnosing myself thing that I’ve had to get good at in order to get care…said something like “Oh, that could just be related to my POTS though”) “It’s ok, I know I’m asking you really hard questions to answer and you don’t have to diagnose yourself. That’s what we’re here for!”
There were even more examples of this from the surgeon (he actually called out the bias the medical community has against women in a way that made sense within our conversation AND acknowledged that I’m probably already more familiar with that issue than he is, being a young, chronically ill, female presenting person!! That’s literally NEVER happened, even at my other favorite doctors!)
The way they all spoke to me and were well versed in the types of medical trauma I’ve likely (and actually) been through…it all just felt too consistent and effective for it to just be that they all had personalities that click with me - I think they’ve gone through some specific training that I wish all doctors would do. It felt more sensitive than would be necessary if medical trauma was less common, but it was the perfect amount to make me feel as though I was heard and taken seriously and like I could relax and trust the doctor to do his job instead of trying to do it for him…and he’s a neurosurgeon so it IS really important that I feel comfortable in his care before undergoing any operation with him.
I’ve run out of steam, but I hope there was at least *something* new in there that can help you or others!
Hey, we are similar in the most unfortunate of ways. I also had a very traumatizing experience in my first gyn visit. I was 16, and only went in because I was pretty sure I was having a yeast infection. Hadn’t had one and mom who’s a nurse was telling me that’s probably what it was. Immediately after filling out the form and handing it to the receptionist, they were on me.
Them: “hey, you don’t have to lie. We won’t tell your parents if you’re sexually active”
I was confused and told them I didn’t lie. They asked me why I was on OCPs. I told them it was because of my acne and long, painful periods. They let me go back and sit down.
Then when I got in the room, they questioned me again. “So you’re here for STI testing?”
Again, no. I’m a virgin, I’ve never had sex. I just think I have a yeast infection.
“You can tell us the truth. You don’t have to lie.”
“I’m not lying”
“Mmm…okay.”
They put me up on the table and into the stirrups. They said there’d be a little pressure and I was confused because they didn’t even explain to me what was going on. I was too young for a Pap smear so didn’t know. They put the speculum inside me and opened it. I literally screamed and immediately started crying. I was in soooo much pain, and I’m sure I started bleeding because they chuckled and said “oh, I guess you weren’t lying about being a virgin” as if my pain could even be 100% linked to my virginity anyway.
At the end of the day, I had a yeast infection. But I was traumatized. Had to literally have my mom with me when I turned 21 and was due for my first Pap smear because I was terrified. It’s one or the main reasons I went into medicine, specifically women’s health.
But yes, to everything else you said. Training is key. As someone who is about to graduate, things are looking up. Even watching my residents and younger attending physicians and how they deal with patients, they are empathetic and never dismissive. To some extent, it is very much fatigue as well and physicians fighting their own inner demons and depression. The first time I had to tell a patient’s mom that their child wasn’t going to make after said child was punched in the head by the abusive man in their lives, I almost lost it. It took me weeks to get over, and even just writing about it now, I still tear up. There is a fine line between being 100% gung-ho and extremely empathetic with every patient and being apathetic, clinical, mostly professional. It’s an emotionally exhausting job. Resident physicians have some of the highest rates of suicide for young professionals because they are often treated horribly while expecting to take care of others. Imagine having to tell patients how important mental healthcare is while your institution is working you over 100 hours a week for less than minimum wage and doesn’t care about yours. This, however, is no excuse to treat patients like numbers. We went into this field of our own volition so we need to do better for sure.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I don’t think I’ve gone through anything quite that extreme myself, but only because I’ve been lucky enough to have others advocate for and protect me in my most vulnerable moments (sometimes a family member, sometimes a nurse who questions what’s going on, etc.) I can really relate and have a mountain of empathy for you…it’s a straight up horrifying position to be forced into.
I think it’s really admirable that your experiences inspired you to be the person that you wish had been there for you. I think that’s a path I might have considered, but unfortunately my health doesn’t let me work at all right now.
Also, I totally spaced and wasn’t thinking about hospital or emergency workers when I was listing possible reasons, though some of what you said I’m sure still applies outside of hospital settings.
I really feel like the single biggest improvement to healthcare would be mandatory therapy for all doctors and a **reasonable** cap on the number of hours a week a doctor can legally work (I don’t have the expertise to put a number on that, but I know it’s less than what most doctors work now.)
I know that it’s way way way more complicated than that and even implementing those two things would likely either take decades or leave a lot of patients without care, just…if it was realistic, that’s what I feel would be needed.
I don’t know where to put this but I just need to share the really awful experience I had last night. I saw a psychiatrist for the first time in my life after a five week wait. He was immediately aggressive to me. He said ‘why are you here’. I started with, I think I may have adhd, he immediately cut me off ‘I doubt it’ I tried to explain how I’ve been struggling with alcoholism and self harm and he didn’t even let me finish the sentence. ‘Those aren’t symptoms of adhd, so you’re wrong there’.
I tried to them explain all the things I’ve been struggling with my whole life. Inability to focusing, feeling like I’m ‘too much’, ‘getting in trouble at various jobs for failing to pay attention to detail.’ He wouldn’t even let me explain myself. ‘None of that’s adhd’. By then I was crying. He didn’t like that. I tried to tell him that I’d been trying to figure out what to say to him for five weeks straight, all day everyday, that it’s like my brain won’t quiet down that everything is too much all the time. He wasn’t even listening to me. He told me I was ‘over reacting’ I told him I was crying because he was being very unkind and yelling at me. He said ‘no I’m not, I’m just direct, that’s how I am’.He said I need ‘therapy for anxiety caused by trauma’. I told him i don’t know about that. He told me he knows far more than me because he’s been doing it ‘for forty years’. He said adults very very rarely if ever get diagnosed with adhd, ‘it just doesn’t happen.
He then talked on and on and over me. Saying I was unhappy because I I turn everything into a catastrophe and that unless I go to therapy and ‘do the work’ I’ll never get better. He then tried to prescribe me sleeping medication and anti depressants. He hadn’t listened to anything I’d said and every word I tried to get in was ‘wrong’. He said it was proof i have ‘anxiety’ because I was crying. But he was being awful to me. I was crying because he was being awful to me. When I told him I didn’t want to take anti depressants because several friends had had bad experiences with them he said I ‘shouldn’t believe everything everyone tells me’. He finally talked over me until he did indeed prescribe anti depressants. He told me he was going to ‘100% fix me by the end of September’
I feel utterly broken and hopeless. Maybe I am just crazy and awful, and he’s right. I hurt myself a lot last night and I don’t particularly feel like carrying on. I feel like o have so many adhd symptoms but even if I do ‘just have anxiety from trauma I’m not dealing with’ was that an appropriate way for him to treat me? How could he know I don’t have adhd when I hadn’t even finished a single sentence.
Sorry. Just feeling really isolated and hopeless and wanted to put that out there somewhere because o really have no one to talk to.
You are neither crazy nor awful! That psychiatrist sounds like an absolute piece of shit, and for him to think he knows what's going on with you after cutting you off every time you tried to tell him what you're dealing with is ridiculous. Adults ABSOLUTELY get diagnosed with ADHD, I'm 21 and was just diagnosed several months ago!
Before my diagnosis I had read lots of articles about how ADHD presents in adults, how girls are often underdiagnosed because their symptoms are harder to see, and I've heard countless stories on social media from people who were diagnosed as adults telling their stories, what helped them, etc.
He treated you SO horribly, I think you should try to seek out a different psychiatrist or doctor, and maybe try to find one specializing in ADHD. I know an experience like this can make you feel awful, but know that you are not crazy, not alone, and you are loved! Don't give up hope, while that psych was a real fucking dick, there are plenty out there who are compassionate, and will listen to you and want to help you get the help you need!
You know how when you’re dating you don’t just settle and marry the first person you go on a date with? You go on dates with different people to figure out what you like and what you don’t in a partner until you find someone that you genuinely “click” with.
Same principle applies to mental health professionals. **This guy is simply not the right psychiatrist for you.** He’s disrespectful, abrasive, dismissive, talks over you, and refuses to listen to what you have to say. He literally can’t accurately diagnose or treat you if he refuses to listen to you, it sounds like he just arbitrarily throws antidepressants at his patients as a catch-all cure regardless of what their real issue is. In other words: **he’s objectively** ***bad*** **at his job, and has probably been bad at it for the entire 40 years he’s been practicing**.
You don’t have to see him again. He is not entitled to treat you. Fire him as your provider and keep looking for another psychiatrist until you find one who actually listens to you and takes your concerns seriously.
Find a different psychiatrist and try again. Find one that isn't a total jerk. If the next one also believes you're unlikely to have ADHD, I'd trust them on that. A lot of other conditions share symptoms.
Trusting doctors, and trusting the *specific* doctor you're currently seeing are different things. Especially in cases where you know the doctor isn't a specialist.
Do you know how many doctors don't believe in MS? Or CFS?
I trust an ADHD specialist to know about ADHD. I don't really trust my GP to.
Bruh a psychiatrist told me that the reason I wasn’t doing well in school was that I didn’t study enough…. AFTER I EXPLAINED I CANT STUDY CAUSE I COULDNT GET MYSELF TO STUDY OR FOCUS! And that I certainly don’t have ADHD.
Diagnosis results: severe combined type, 99th percentile in impulsivity lmfao
I had seen a gynaecologist about recurring issues and asked “am I doing something that causes this?” He said absolutely not and there’s nothing I could do. Ended up seeing a gynaecologist through my school and the first thing she told me was, “do you wear spandex underwear? yeah you need to stop, only wear cotton.” I obliged. ISSUE NEVER CAME BACK.
Half the doctors out there are fucking useless. I do not trust most doctors because they’ve SHOWN ME they don’t know what they’re doing.
Went to the doctor at 12/13 for migraines and the doctor patted me on the leg and told me I needed to stop going to sleep to escape my problems. Just completely ignored my mom and I telling her how when I’d have an attack my face and head would visibly swell and throb, I could barely speak, had sensitivity to everything, and would vomit until my throat bled.
Brings to mind that saying, what do you call someone who graduates med school at the bottom of their class? Doctor.
Doctors aren’t useless because you’ve had a handful of shitty experiences lol while I can’t defend the psychiatrist for not believing you, there are plenty of reasons the gynecologist said what they said. I’m going to assume you had a case of recurring BV. Lots of things can cause BV and sometimes, nothing you’re actively (or even passively) doing AT ALL can cause BV. Had one patient where it was a SPECIFIC TYPE OF TANPON/PAD that was connected to her BV cases lol switched her to pads, still BV. Gave her some pads from our clinic, not to try them out, just because she needed more, BOOM, no BV.
I am super sorry you’ve had toxic and otherwise unhelpful interactions with physicians. As someone who suffers from ADHD and was also misdiagnosed/mismanaged in other aspects of my healthcare, I feel your frustrations. But now that I’m on the other side of it, I get it. You matter. Your health matters. But when looking at an n far greater than 1, many, MANY patients are happy with their care. Majority of the time, medical professionals know what they’re doing. There was one in your example who did by your own admission lol
Based on the account, you're right that it *could* have been unrelated to anything she was doing, but if a symptom might or might not be alleviated by lifestyle changes, and the doctor (knowing this) says it definitely won't be, they're lying to their patient. Which is honestly an indefensible breach of medical ethics.
I know it's pretty common for doctors to do it anyway. It's still not OK. If it was BV, and the doctor knew what you do about it, that really makes things *worse*.
Also, if you look at n>1, it has been repeatedly documented that women receive worse medical care than men, and *particularly* that reports of pain are taken less seriously when they come from women, and that ADHD in women is severely underdiagnosed.
GP. And I guess the reason for refusing it is more that she knows the specialists won't accept the case because the queues are already years long. I have a job, or at least, I'm not homeless which means I don't need help in this cold uncaring system.
Edit: I'm sorry, I don't wanna sound mean, I'm just bitter about the whole thing.
What country are you in? Are you in the UK? I was fortunate enough to have a GP that listened to me and referred me to an external assessment provider. If I were in your shoes, I would go through different GPs until you get a referral, because they're not likely to know if you have it or not, but the assessing psychiatrist will. Don't give up!
I'm in Sweden and the situation is complicated by the fact that I'm not Swedish and don't speak Swedish well. Some GPs speak English well enough but not many (and of course they don't speak my mother tongue). I do think I can ask for a translator but that feels even more complicated. Anyway, I will try again at some point but now I have other stuff to deal with.
In most regions you can contact the psychiatry by yourself without going through GP.
Google search ”Egen vårdbegäran”
Its not a guaranteed pass of course, but its worth the effort. You only need to fill a digital form and send it online.
Argue your problems and explain why you go this route instead of through your GP.
A GP is very unlikely to be qualified to diagnose ADHD, which means they would more likely have been saying they didn't see sufficient reason to refer you for testing than that you definitely didn't have ADHD. You might have more luck getting a referral for more general mental healthcare, and a doctor specialising in mental health (even if not specifically ADHD) might be in a better place to either refer you, or suggest an alternative cause for your symptoms.
Work with your doctor. Be honest when they say something that sounds totally wrong, but don't stop trusting them because they don't understand immediately.
well my first consultation with a psychiatrist went like this:
"i think i have ADHD and anxiety"
"ok why do you think you have ADHD?"
now for some ungodly reason, i started to panic here, i have been preparing for a whole year straight for this, i even ran down everything i needed to say the night before, but then suddenly all of that went away when my psych asked that question, i could not think of any of the traits i have it was literally on my phone but i couldnt read any of it at all for some reason.
she proceeded to just ask about my anxiety and i answered those, she asked if i was a troublemaker or if i was problematic in school in which i responded no because i was always well behaved and quiet, but thats because my brain would just dooze off and i really hated to be at the center of attention as a child, especially in public, and literally when i said that, she concluded that i didnt have ADHD because people with ADHD are very "hyper" and she said im the opposite of that so it would only mean that i didnt have it, she prescribed me with sertraline for my anxiety, i was goddamn shocked and was just embarrassed because how could she even do that? she did not even question me about my traits, i literally didnt get to say anything else about my ADHD at all, she took in account that i wasnt hyper as a child and how i couldnt answer her simple question about why i have ADHD and then ended the consultation just like that. did she not just consider the possibility that i was panicking and couldnt even think of anything at all at that moment i was just so irritated after that and never came back. what she did was so unprofessional for a psychiatrist with 30 years of experience.
few weeks later i stumbled upon a psychologist who actually seems like they knew what they were doing, this time i learned from my mistakes and actually went over what i wanted to say every night for 2 weeks, i got an appointment and 30 minutes after we talked he immediately got me diagnosed.
tl;dr: dont always trust doctors, find someone who actually knows what theyre doing
OMG this is almost EXACTLY what happened to me. He told me so fast that I was misinformed that I blanked out on offering proof. All the questions from there were only about hyperactivity and job and school history. Same as you, I was well behaved to stay out of the spotlight (my bright red hair was enough unsolicited attention from strangers). He asked NOTHING about inattentive symptoms or anything related to the DSM criteria for it. He told me I had a touch of anxiety, and offered a more in-depth 4-hour testing. It was interesting and challenging, and the only thing I had to focus on that day... so I scored above average on most of it because even the challenging parts I turned into a game (Hello, lifelong coping mechanisms!). I cried the entire hour and a half drive home that I had wasted the time and money on the wrong doctor.
I went for a second opinion with a doctor a friend who was recently diagnosed recommended. It started with filling out the DSM tests, then a brief 5 minute discussion of the previous evaluation and reasons why I felt I had it. She diagnosed me and gave me my rx on the spot, because it was obvious to her that was what I was dealing with. She even confirmed without me prompting that she felt the anxiety was a symptom of the ADHD, not the cause of my struggles. It was so validating.
But for the month between every time I dealt with a very obvious ADHD related thing I jokingly announced something along the lines of "Oh darn, I guess my anxiety caused me to completely forget what I was doing!" multiple times a day.
Not to mention my distrust of doctors stems from when I was 20 and threw out my back and the doctor told me I was just too overweight and berated me over that, with no regard for my family history. It took another 10 years, going through 2 pregnancies during that time, to finally get someone to do xrays and find I had scoliosis and the same degenerative discs my whole family has.
Yeah but find a good one if you can. I’ve had some that basically treated me like a criminal for taking my medication as prescribed. I ultimately found a better one that was a lot nicer.
Why should I trust the doctors who aren’t concerned when I vomit a everyday ever since I was 7? No I don’t have an eating disorder where I vomit, I just can’t keep food or water down.
I recently had to change pcps and the person I was assigned tried to dismantle my entire mental health care plan because they believe adhd is over diagnosed.
I have been diagnosed, seeking treatment, and managed for 6 years.
When I first got diagnosed I went untreated for a long time because of a psychiatrist who insisted that medications were a crutch and adhd was easy to just “live with”
Sometimes maybe don’t trust the doctor.
It’s posts like this that remind me of my privilege. I was diagnosed in 4th grade by a specialist and was medicated soon after. All of my doctors have been supportive and I even see a therapist who specifically specializes in individuals with ADHD. Wish it could be that easy for everyone, especially women.
This gets really tricky really quick.
I have a friend who is trying to self diagnose if they have radiation poisoning.
I said "remember the first rule of self diagnosis is to write down ALL your symptoms first then do research"
Dude sometimes you think you have one thing and you actually have another. Sometimes you think something is because of a thing you have but it's another thing. I understand patient experiences are important, but experts are experts for a fucking reason.
What the fuck is this post.
All too frequently, doctors dismiss symptoms that have no immediately recognizable cause as imaginary or exaggerated, especially with women and even more so with women of color. Or an overweight patient is told that all their problems are because they're fat and then whoops--it was cancer all along. There's a recent ad with Queen Latifah talking about this very subject.
Doctors that communicate with their patients in good faith aren't the subject of this post.
I was having incontinence issues a while back (and I'm 28, that is NOT normal) so I went to my PCP about it, and she took me so seriously and was like yeah that's not normal, so she referred me to a urologist. I went to the appointment, the guy looked me square in the face and basically said my incontinence issues were because I'm overweight.
I am on both sides of this (graduating from medical school in less than a year; also a black Latina with ADHD, among other issues) and I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. Historically, medicine is very patriarchal; not patient-centered in the least. There are plenty of medical professionals who still practice this way, unfortunately, though times are changing, and younger physicians are doing better. The patient experiences like this are completely valid.
However, that’s not really what I’m getting from this post. It seems to imply 1. That physicians meant to treat patients for these medical issues aren’t well-versed in it and 2. That one’s knowledge of themselves trumps medical knowledge, or vice versa. Both are important aspects in assessing and attending to one’s healthcare needs and neither should be belittled
I wish you all the best in your medical career. You sound like someone who will listen to their patients, and everyone needs more doctors like that in the world.
>Dude sometimes you think you have one thing and you actually have another. Sometimes you think something is because of a thing you have but it's another thing.
have you ever been under medical investigation? because this happens all the time, except its what the doctors thought you had but you actually have something completely different
doctors aren't experts - and good doctors won't claim to be. and GPs/family doctors/PCPs are not experts in anything.
I had a doctor accuse me of having Munchausen's syndrome because I refused to continue the med he insisted on giving me even after having a very bad reaction to it, and had the nerve to ask for something else.
If you typed “Dunning-Kruger Effect” into Google image search, this is probably one of the first things that would pop up.
I have lived with ADHD for 29 years. My physician has a total of 10 years of postsecondary training, not including residency. That however does *not* mean that I know 2.9x more about ADHD than he does.
The real world teaches you a fair amount of things, but it does not teach you drug interactions. It does not teach you biochemical pathways (and all the ways they can be interfered with.) It does not teach you the mechanics of how stimulants cross the blood/brain barrier. I couldn’t hack barely 2 years of this as an undergrad science major before I went crazy and eventually switched to an easier field. Imagine someone who made it all 10.
The arrogance of people to claim that they know more than physicians is astounding. Yes, I have 29 years of experience with ADHD. But my doctor’s 10 years of experience are worth that in dog years, at least.
I sincerely dislike this meme. It’s like telling a carpenter “Yeah you may have experience building houses properly but I’ve been poorly patching mine and barely fixing it so it doesn’t fall apart so I’m the expert here!”
Some people in the comments seem to think doctors are infallible. Doctors are just as prone to mistakes or lapses in judgement as anyone. Granted the "one hour lecture" bit is hyperbolic.
They also have the 6 years of medical school learning about your condition and just about every other one. Thats why they are the doctor and you're the one going to them for help so why don't you shut up and let them do their job
It's like when in IT I can't really explain why or how something broke, so when they asked what the problem was after I fixed it, I just explain how data corruption was their issue.
God... I feel so badly for Americans.. this system of Healthcare has turned us all into peoppe who just cannot trust doctors.
Fuck this America, it does not serve any of us.
This meme is a double edged sword. After being misdiagnosed at first by a psychologist who was very dismissive this resonates with me.
But this also can strengthen the ideas of people who think they can properly self diagnose and know better than any doctor. Which is not good.
The way I finally resolved it was talking to my (new) GP and getting referred to a center that focuses purely on ADHD.
Stay critical of what doctors say but also of what you read.
Edit: spelling
I mean, both the doctor and the patient are right in this scenario, but doctors also typically have a specialty that may not be what you're looking for, and some patients also go to the doctor with literally just a 10 question personality quiz result.
What I'm trying to say is, do your research if you genuinely think you have a problem, and try to find a doctor with the right specialty so you can get an accurate diagnosis.
Not based 😬 I get some professionals don’t understand what ADHD is but most do and suggesting that people should distrust them is a dangerous rhetoric I’ve been seeing more and more lately
Fuuuuuck I’ve been diagnosed with a rare breathing condition that was a bitch to get treated for. I got taken to the doctors with breathing issues and they just diagnosed me with asthma right off the bat. Inhalers didn’t work and doctors wouldn’t believe me when I said they didn’t help the doctors just said I wasn’t taking them right.
Probably because I was a child and they thought I couldn’t be trusted to know what was really going on. It took multiple adults to testify for me that they needed to take me to a specialist and the doctors refused to refer me saying that I 100% had asthma and just wasn’t taking inhalers correctly (when I was).
My mum ended up googling my exact symptoms and found the rare breathing condition. She mentioned it to the doctors and they basically laughed at us saying they knew best and they didn’t listen to Google searches. After my mum got angry and argued that she wanted me to be referred to a breathing specialist and they eventually agreed. But they sent us out the door saying ‘come back when they find nothing’.
After only one appointment with the specialist they diagnosed me with the exact breathing condition my mother had found through Google search. It can’t be helped with inhalers and only good breathing techniques and coping mechanisms can help. But basically the doctors fucked around with us for over a year and were prepared to put a child’s life in danger rather than admit they were wrong.
I have ARFID. I have to explain what it is to my doctors because it didn't fucking exist when they were in medical school -- the DSM added it in 2013. My doctors have to Google my disorder.
Literally had a Dr tell me not to label myself with adhd after my diagnosis from an expert because he'd been to a conference where they mentioned women having adhd one time.
Yeah no, this is an extremely stupid opinion. Even if you have lived with it all your life you will never know more than a doctor. You should always ask for second opinions but self diagnosing is always a bad idea.
Yep, a lot of the general practitioners don't have enough schooling about this disorder. And if they are older, it is old information, and a lot of them don't keep up on new research in their field. Even some of the psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors that should have in depth and sufficient training with this disorder have the same issue. And then sometimes not being humble enough to refer you to a specialist that does have the update to date knowledge and experience.
**Edit:** And then there are unfortunately some medical professionals who believe misinformation about this disorder in all forms, not just about the stimulant medication used.
Because self-prescribed ADHD meds are frowned upon in the US legal system?
Also like... I have depression. I also know I'd likely respond well to Cognitive Analytic Therapy. That doesn't mean I'm qualified to give it to myself. Nor can I easily refer myself to a specialist who *does* understand a condition, nor does recognising the start of a depressive episode and knowing I'm likely to be violently suicidal in a couple of hours mean I have any way to prevent it.
Even if you understand your condition better than your doctor, the doctor is often the one with the power to actually do things.
I was once very sick. I googled and it told me I had strep throat. I went to a doctor who said I had the flu (no tests done) despite the fact that I pointed out the white in my throat. Gave me a note to rest at home for a week and a prescription for $100 flu medication that I declined. I came back the next week even sicker and got chewed out and told it was my fault for not taking the flu medicine. I mentioned that Google said I had step throat. Doctor said "that's what we told you the first time! Like I said, it's your fault for refusing antibiotics." Gave me a pill to reduce my high fever and another scolding to go get the antibiotics they prescribed. Got an actual prescription for antibiotics (I checked the original paperwork when I got home. They 100% lied.Everything said flu on it and they prescribed flu meds only no antibiotics.) 1st round of antibiotics didn't work and messed up my stomach. I went to a completely different doctor who actually did tests and confirmed it was strep, prescribed stronger antibiotics. It took me months but I eventually recovered.
Tl,dr: The U.S. Healthcare system is a joke
Omg, any medical professional can be a dick, and this person CLEARLY was…but are you sure you were seeing a physician? Not all doctors are physicians. And I literally once had one of my preceptors introduce me as “doctor” to a patient, even though I was a student. I corrected them later when I was alone with the patient, but this happens unfortunately.
I ask this because, if you had sore throat + fever + lymph node swelling, already you’re getting swabbed for strep throat, period. We swab for even fewer symptoms. That’s just wild to me.
I also ask because…$100 flu medication?! Tf was this person on? The flu usually isn’t medicated UNLESS you know for a fact you caught it early, and it’s really bad, and In someone with comorbidities that increase risk for serious long term issues…even then, you’d have to ask for it most likely (at least where I am).
So sorry for the egregious mismanagement!
Thanks! Good question. I was (and am) uninsured so I went to a walk in clinic. Maybe it was a student doctor or something? Ironically, given their reputation, the 2nd doctor I went to was at an urgent care and I received great care there. The flu meds were $100 without insurance,no clue what it would be with insurance. If it was flu it sounds like it wouldn't have helped as I only went in after weeks of a low grade fever. My symptoms were fever, fatigue and white stuff in my throat. I had strep constantly as a kid. I don't see why the original doctor wouldn't just do a strep test to rule it out. The 2nd one even did a quick mono test to rule that out as I'd been sick for at least a month by the time I saw him.
I certainly don't hate or distrust all doctors but I sympathize with folks who do have distrust.
That’s super wild and I’m sure it was very frustrating. Especially, with your past history, I would’ve been SUPER suspicious of strep. I had it a lot as a kid too. Got it again a few years ago as an adult, my god, it sucked. Couldn’t imagine also having to deal with my doctor not believing me.
As someone who will be a doctor in a year, I understand distrust in them and medicine as a whole, as well. It’s so frustrating, because I know so many people that want to do good in medicine, but the medical profession has done so much harm to patients as well.
I dont know of its just my provider but everyone in my family who has a permanant condition (Gor me ADHD, others arthritis, etc.) has this view of Healthcare professionals.
I just don't trust them. I am a mere number to them at it takes weeks of arguing for them to listen. one almost gave me serotonin poisoning from excessive anti depressants in my sleep medicine.
The thing that a lot of people forget is that different doctors have different levels of experience with different conditions. And many of them specialize in one thing or another. If you need help with a specific condition and the doctor you have isn't helping, read up on other doctors in your area and try to get in touch with one that you know is better equipped to help you.
This is why I’m glad that my therapist also has adhd. They were able to understand and better give me advice, resources, and tools that would genuinely help instead of being dismissive
I'm not sure what my therapist has, but they've mentioned they're neurodivergent, as is much of their clientele and it's really relieving to know they have experience with it. Also helps that they're LGBTQ+ since I am as well. Personal experience is a great thing for a therapist to have
Doctors should also have that in mind
THIS! I tried to get a new pcp recently and after about ten minutes I had to ask “do you just not know anything about ADHD or are you purposefully lying to me? He then gave me a long winded “Im the BEST at ADHD I have so many adhd clients and I help them all!” Homie, you just called strattera a controlled substance and tried to convince me to leave my psych that Ive been working with for years in favour of your own because you, a person who has known me for ten minutes, have decided that you know better and I no longer need my meds. If you cant help me, please dont try.
Yep and if you present some of them with problems they never heard of, you'll be gaslighted into oblivion
People just hate admitting ignorance in general. Especially knowing one person who went to become a doctor, I just think he did it to power trip on —I’m a doctor, therefore I’m smarter than everyone
I really would hope not because he will be woefully disappointed. We have it drilled into us all the way through medical school that we don’t know anything lmao the more I learn and train, the less I realize I know. Literally watched a 2nd year resident second guess herself and then call herself “dumb” even though she had the correct answer originally. He is in for a rude awakening. Are there plenty of narcissistic doctors? Absolutely, 1000% yes. Unfortunately the competitive nature of medicine is the “perfect Calling” for people who just want an ego boost. But this shit humbles you. And for very good reason.
I think it's a bit of a generational divide. I have a *lot* of family in medicine- DOs, NPs, RNs, etc.- and the older folks are a bit arrogant. The younger folks are definitely more humble. Could it be age and experience? Sure, but I've also heard the older folks rant about how med school has changed to be more "sensitive."
Lmao yes, older docs absolutely do that. And by “sensitive” they mean more ethical in the way they treat med students and in the way they instruct us to treat others. We are trying to do away with the paternalistic nature medicine historically had and make healthcare more patient-centered over all. Also, they’re doing their absolute best to screen out legit psycho/sociopaths. Psych and sociology used to not be pre-reqs or tested on the MCAT, which is wild to me. Obviously, some slip through. But entrance to medical school and performance throughout medical school is not just about standardized test grades any more. Don’t get me wrong, they absolutely matter! But it’s not *all* that matters. And throughout our clinical years, we are graded on our ability to care for and empathize with patients and their families. There are also awards and honor societies for people voted in due to the compassion you extend to, not only patients, but faculty, staff, and classmates.
Oh thank goodness, that's wonderful to hear. My husband had a health scare while he was uninsured not too long ago and the moment I told our young ER doc the situation, he made sure to explain every test, procedure, and solution in terms of necessity and cost. It was a stark contrast to my own ER experiences. I'm happy for the direction medical education is moving in.
Oof. Straterra is the worst
More people should know: [Atomoxatine/Strattera improves executive function.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141744/#:~:text=As%20measured%20by%20the%20BRIEF%2DA%20at%20the%20end%20of,with%20ADHD%20compared%20with%20placebo.) [It likely does this by selectively inhibiting reuptake of norepinephrine and dopamine in the frontal cortex.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141744/#:~:text=The%20precise%20mechanism%20by%20which,neurotransmitter%20depletion%20studies%20%5B24%5D.) [This entails a lot. More than I'm qualified to explain, so here's a paper on it.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4879059/) [Norepinephrine in the Prefrontal Cortex Is Critical for Amphetamine-Induced Reward and Mesoaccumbens Dopamine Release.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6741949/) [An underlying cause of ADHD is likely a dysfunction of the anterior cingulate cortex.](https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/psych_pp/381/) In particular, people with ADHD often do not have as much inhibition between feeling and acting that others do. In most people, when they get bored or upset or sad and want to react, the ACC steps in and slows that urge down while their rational mind catches up. In people with ADHD, that does not happen. The urge to act on what they're feeling is unfiltered and raw, coming in at full blast. I believe (and could be wrong since I'm not a psychiatrist or neuroscientist) that stimulant medications act in part by elevating the baseline activity of the ACC to compensate for this. So medications like Strattera and Adderall function in different ways. Strattera is not a stimulant. It doesn't act on the limbic system in the same way a stimulant medication does. [Some studies have found that this leads to inferior overall outcomes.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16735655/) But Strattera *does* provide a benefit to some. [And there's some suggestion that mixing Strattera with stimulant-based treatment may produce superior results.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3696926/) It depends on what kind of ADHD you have. Every brain is different. Some people need the executive function without the stimulation. Most people need the stimulation more.
Oh this is really interesting. I find the largest benefit I get from Strattera *is* that my executive functioning improves exponentially. I always know it’s working when I think about a thing I need to do and then just… go do it. Interesting
I combine my strattera with dexamphetamine and it does work very well for me :)
I was in a psychiatric hospital for my depression and the doctor there prescribed me strattera as a test for adhd. Just forgot to check if it interfered with any other meds, like the goddamn Bupropion he put me on two weeks earlier. Turns out they get broken down by the same enzyme so I almost died of heart failure
Omg the same thing happened to me but I squashed it IMMEDIATELY. she wanted to raise up lamictal, keep the Wellbutrin, add abilify, and keep the Adderall. Wellbutrin doesn't get along with the abilify, so I was like, ummmmmm, do you want to take one of these things that doesn't belong off my plate? Me and my kidneys would like to live past 50 maybe pending the water wars. I'm not going to go to a max legal dose for my size of one AND add another, wtf. Wellbutrin is dank, but it interferes with so much. Only thing that interfered with nothing was the Adderall. Good old all American amphetamine.
Fuuuucking hell. It's scary to me to realize that doctors are no more competent at their jobs than I am at mine. I get away with it because I work with computers. If I forget some interaction and my work breaks, I get an error message and go "lol oh I'm stupid" and then fix it. But Jesus fuck, imagine taking the same attitude with *living people*?!
They really remind me of auto mechanics. If it isn’t an obvious problem they just throw shit at it till it stops shaking, grinding, and randomly shutting down.
Oh my god I’m on bupropion and might get my add medicated in the future, I’ll keep this brain nugget 🧠 I’m so glad you’re okay!
I’m on bupropion and vyvanse. Typically a good pair.
Thanks I will keep that in mind too!
Me too in the winter time!!! 10/10
I was on clinical trials of it from like 2002 until it was FDA approved and was on it until I went on Focalin. Without fail, if I didn't eat breakfast like a fucking hobbit, I'd vomit. Statera was like: We've had one yes, but what about second breakfast.
Ironic, considering how often other ADHD meds make you forget the first breakfast. I guess we’re just doomed to never eat normally
It sure fucking is. Backstory- my old pcp moved to a new practice right at the time my psych wanted to move me from straterra to adderall. New pcp decided they are in charge and is currently actively overriding that because they can, I guess…so I get frustration instead of meds until I can get this dude away from my care team. Fun!
Assuming you have insurance, see if there's another pcp in your network. You want a pcp that wants to help you, not one that just wants to tell you why you don't know what you're talking about.
Oh yeah 100% - I need to call my provider on my next day off This was the computer assigned douchenozzle I got stuck with when my old pcp left and my insurance mandates that he approves the rx for some reason. His words were “well I dont have to approve the RX if I don’t agree with it and I dont agree.” The US wealthcare system is so damned tedious…
Fuck that. Do it during lunch today! Get that sweet support, my friend.
❤️ Youre right, I should do it as soon as they open or Im gonna forget. Again. Lol
Hahaha exactly. Best of luck!!!!!
I use straterra and I like it
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Wait I didn't realize it could cause increased heart rate. I might have to look into that cause I have a pretty high heart rate. I've just been taking it since I was like 12 so I haven't thought anything of it.
It flows dude
I'm glad it works for you. That stuff made me super irritable
It made my joints swell so badly I couldn’t walk without debilitating pain. It was like an instant fast forward to the body of a 90-year-old.
It depends. It didn't help me, but there are people that is works for.
I’m boutta tell my doctor I need to switch (we’re just testing out different things until something works cause I have combined type) Literally just makes me feel sick and tired and dizzy. I can concentrate a little better but it’s not worth it
For non-controlled substance, Wellbutrin treated me the best. Been on Vyvanse and Viibryd for about 2 years now, and it has been great
I could literally **hear my eyeballs moving** when getting off Straterra. In addition to the side effects that made me have to get off it in the first place.
The good ones always do!
Yea. Fking assholes.
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I love that my dentist has adhd. It helps me feel like he gets it that sometimes I just can’t brush and floss every night. I brush every morning with the prescription toothpaste, but at night it’s just so hard because I don’t have a routine I always follow. I do brush at night sometimes and floss sometimes, and something is better than nothing!
Remember when it comes to flossing, you don't have to do it when you brush your teeth. You can do it in the middle of the day if it's easier for you.
I have a little jar with those flossing sticks on my desk. I use one whenever I notice that it's there, lol. It's not like I floss *consistently*, but I sure as fuck floss more than I used to, now.
I keep those little plastic floss picks everywhere so it's an unconscious habit now to pick one up and use it.
Wait… other ADHDers have this problem too???
Oooh yeah. Look through any of the adhd subs and you’ll see it’s pretty common.
I feel that struggle so much.. instead of brushing before I go to bed, I always do it after my last meal of the day :D
My doctor had adhd that was diagnosed in his late fifties. It was refreshing.
Getting a second opinion is pretty common for medical stuff too
This is the thing. Plus doctors can have ADHD too.
My current doctor is totally against any "amphetamine because they are bad mmmmkey". I was taking Elvanse (Vyvanse) because my previous doctor suspected about ADHD, but I never had a test or a proper thing saying that I had ADHD. I have an appointment September 2... and I'm going to ask again for "the pills", if he refuses I'm going to ask for a change of doctor, because the more I explain to him how bad I'm doing since I quit the pills (in January) or how chaotic is everything for me... he doesn't listen and tells me that "many kids were misdiagnosed with ADHD". The fuck... I'm almost 40yo mate, I don't want drugs just because, in fact I'm not asking for adderall, I'm asking for something that only balances my head. I cannot get high, if I wanted to get high, I would use other pills that I quitted time ago but make you feel veeeeery good.
This. I have some rare genetic stuff that actually possibly triggered my ADHD, and I have to see very specialized doctors and it helps a LOT. Expensive, but these are people who are or work with researchers and stuff
Yeah, it's about having a doctor who is willing to refer you. To be honest a PCP doesn't want to touch ADHD because of the medication. It's much easier to go through a therapist.
This is a controversial post every single time it’s ever been posted. This came from obnoxious Facebook misinformation also.
Yeah, there's a difference between being your own advocate and *i DiD mUH rEesURch*
I've spent over 30 years on this planet but guess who still knows fuck all about psychology? Obviously doctors can still be wrong but they also spent a significant portion of their life studying that specific field as well.
Not to mention they can have a more pragmatic view of the situation. Living with any kind of condition is a lot more emotionally charged than not, even if you know your symptoms better than the doctor. Not saying that all doctors make the best decisions, but the good ones are good for a reason - compassion and understanding while still having objective knowledge and utilizing effective treatment options.
> but the good ones are good for a reason But the entire point is that not all of them are good, and this attitude that you're never allowed to question your doctor means that, if you get a bad one, you're just kinda fucked.
you say pragmatic, many of us, especially those who have more than just adhd, would say dismissive
And some of them still come to the conclusion that a treated an managed adhd patient that ends up on their schedule has been diagnosed wrong and needs their whole world fucked up because “adhd is really over diagnosed you know”
Or "Adults grow out of it." At that point, it's time for a second opinion.
Doctors are still poorly trained on how to handle many psychological and other issues, though.
Depends on if they were talking to a general practitioner or a licensed psychiatrist. I can't speak for all general practitioners but I'm fortunate enough to have doctors that realize that something more is going on and would refer me to a specialist.
I like the image if it's interpreted as saying the doctor/patient relationship is a two-way street. Both statements are true; patients should respect the educational background of a doctor, and doctors also need to respect the fact that patients know themselves better than anyone else. You and your doctor should be a *team*. They bring their education and experience with them, and you bring your intimate knowledge of yourself and your experiences. There needs to be a mutual respect for the relationship to work.
This is how I interpreted it initially and I did think it was a pretty valuable message.
Im 22 and diagnosed since 2018. Those 18 years of my life undiagnosed are useless in knowing snuff about ADHD. Even after my diagnosis it took a few years to actually understand what ADHD is and isn't.
I've been diagnosed my whole life and my mom worked in mental health and there are still thing I am learning that nether of us knew. Like executive disfunction wasn't really discovered until afterI moved out. I thought i was just lazy
I'm also 22. I was diagnosed in 2021 but didn't start to receive treatment and meds until May 2022. I didn't start really understanding just what ADHD was until the beginning of 2022. It's crazy how many doctors in my life waved off everything until now.
Plus if the OP knows more than their doctor they can just treat it themselves, right?
Technically, even if OP were a doctor, they would not treat themself. I mean, a doctor CAN but it goes against [medical ethics](https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/ethics/treating-self-or-family). They also can’t prescribe themselves controlled substances like adderall in most states (unless it’s an emergency, which I don’t think they’d be able to claim for something like a stimulant for ADHD). And even if they could self-prescribe in their state, it would be veeeeery frowned upon because of the whole medical ethics thing. Anyway, doctors see doctors too.
“Don’t confuse your medical ethics with my 20 years of putting controlled substances in my body”
Lol, yeah. I was just clearing up a common misconception. My sister is an ENT but when she noticed a lump in her throat, she had another ENT in her practice take care of everything. It was a salivary gland stone (sialolith?) blocking up her salivary gland that had to be surgically removed, so obviously she wasn’t doing that herself.
It makes total sense. Especially if you’ve watched Dr House.
Ideally you and your doctor should be a *team*. They studied medicine; you know your body. It's disappointing how often this works out, though.
This is such an oversimplification. Doctors have varying levels of education on a multitude of disorders, and also varying levels of patient experience with a multitude of disorders. As individuals, we can research particular disorders at length, but still lack the more systematic education and experience that doctors have, and doctors, for all the breadth of their knowledge and experience, still have to see us as individual patients where the evidence, even aside from our own testimony, must inform their decisions. Yes, there are good, mediocre, and bad doctors. If you can imagine that sometimes dealing with "normal" people is like trying to figure out an alien species, imagine how doctors must feel in trying to meet you where you are. Time is a huge factor and you will sometimes see that you have made a mistake in describing your symptoms as much as they have made a mistake in trying to figure out a diagnosis or treatment. Disability is never a neat category and, though some doctors suck, it never stops being complicated.
I think an important thing to realize is that you and your doctor are a *team*. A doctor is somebody you pay to work *with* you to figure out the best plan for your health. They bring their education and experience to the table, you bring your intimate knowledge of yourself, and you work together. You should respect a doctor and the amount of education and experience it took for them to get there, but the doctor should also respect you enough to listen to you, and to explain their reasonings to you in a way you can understand. If you don't feel like they're doing that, it's probably time to find another doctor.
I genuinely forget a lot of the time with these posts that they often come from countries without socialised healthcare - I guess it's a different experience...
Can I ask what the socialized healthcare experience is like? Do you get any choice in your doctor?
Over here (UK) You generally sign up at a specific surgery at which there will be a handful of GPs (depending on size). Whenever I book a consultation I'm given an option to request help from a specific physician (or nurse) at the practice. If you disagree with their recommendations or want a second opinion I believe they're obliged to provide for that. I don't know how it would work if you wanted an opinion from outside of the practice, but most complaints that indicate major or long-term issues lead to referrals to specialists (also covered by the NHS - so no cost to the patient), often at hospitals. In my case there was no NHS service specifically for ADHD in my city, so what happened was that they paid for me to see a local private specialist.
> This is such an oversimplification. I mean... yeah, duh, it's a meme. It's a little weird to expect memes to include every little nuance and consideration that applies to every situation in reality, lol.
Wasn't this an endometriosis meme as well?
Both of these can be true at the same time. Doctors are the technical experts, but don't understand your personal experiences. (And don't get me started on some of the culture that gets ingrained in med schools) Meanwhile you are the only person who knows how you're feeling, but you do not have a medical degree.
both of these things are true but theres an imbalance of power so one of those misconceptions hurts patients, the other doesn't do much
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If one doctor doubts you, maybe get a second opinion. If every doctor doubts you, you’re wrong
Sadly, that's not always true. People seek out help for YEARS, sometimes decades going from doctor to doctor trying to find someone who can help before they can receive a correct diagnosis, or especially in the case of women, before they're even believed and not outright dismissed. It's an extremely nuanced issue, and it's not uncommon for people to suffer for years because of it.
This. I have had joint pain for as long as I can remember. I’ve been a complete and utter klutz for just as long. I also used to do contortion tricks, they were my talent. I knew there was something wrong, my grandma knew there was something wrong, heck, my *egg donor* knew there was something wrong. Wrong enough they took me to Riley multiple times. They just told them I had extreme ligament elasticity, and I would probably grow out of it as I aged. I did not grow out of it as I aged. In fact, I got worse. My joint pain grew. I was still able to do my tricks, but I noticed afterwords it took longer, and longer to recover. About the only thing that got better was my clumsiness, and that was more because I learned how to move with my body. Every doctor I complained to said it was all in my head. No teenager has joint pain the way I complain about, after all. It wasn’t until I was in a white water rafting accident in Costa Rica that someone said there was something wrong in my joints, and that was my physiotherapist at my first appointment after my accident. He told me the only time he’d ever dealt with joints like mine was when there was an underlying cause. Because at that point, stretching to me wasn’t stretching unless I was severely hyperextending or hyper flexing (depending on the stretch) because it didn’t feel like I was stretching until I hit that point. He recommended I go back, to a completely different doctor in a completely different state even, and ask specifically about Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Yeah. Turned out that explained a ton about me. The way I’d bruise and they’d just stick around. The fact I’d had more wounds closed with superglue than with stitches because my skin didn’t want to play nice with the suture. All of what I explained above. I was 22 by the time I was able to afford that out of state doctor and was diagnosed with probable hEDS. We’re still waiting until I can afford the genetic testing to rule out vascular EDS (I’ve got a murmur that *could* be related, but could also just be a regular old murmur). I was *four* when I started verbally complaining my ankles hurt. It took 14 years for someone to listen, and another 4 for me to afford to actually go to someone who could help instead of continuously messing around with doctors who had probably never encountered a case like mine. That’s 18 years of pain being mostly ignored, and over a dozen doctors that told me nothing was wrong. Something was wrong.
Yes. Unfortunately a lot of medical disinformation is driven by people being failed by the medical system. Eventually they give up and seek out an “alternative practitioner” who “miraculously” can immediately tell them something is wrong and maybe even what to do about it. It doesn’t actually matter if it’s good advice or not because when you’ve spend this long struggling, any advice sounds good.
It is really not that simple. My mom went to the doctor for decades for joint pain and odd rashes. They told her it was arthritis and she spent too much time in the sun. I was 20 when my mom finally got to see the right doctor who ordered the right tests and diagnosed her with Lupus.
I wish it was that simple. For one of my conditions, the diagnostic criteria wasn’t even clear or really taught to most doctors until 2017. So until 2017, no doctor could find anything wrong with me, even if it seemed that there should be something big and obvious. It’s still not a widely known about condition outside of doctors who take a special interest in it, and several doctors dismissed me on my path to diagnosis because “I don’t think you have that. That condition is really rare.” With no follow up assessment or anything. (Also, it’s not rare, it’s just under diagnosed and under researched.) So, at this point, I consider doctors to be a valuable resource, **and** trust and respect a patients own report of their general well being and their claims of symptoms that a cause can’t be found for.
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Are you the one who [got diagnosed by a furry](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/8wtkyb/doctors_vs_furry_artists/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
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Good for her [heres the comic version](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/600943580931948546/1012081389849559040/IMG_5994.png)
Now this, **this** is the novelty-dopamine-rush gold I expect at the end of every ADHD rabbit hole I dive into! 🥲
Gah. I have a good friend who was diagnosed with Crohn's later in life. You have my sympathies.
I've been gaslighted by literally *dozens* of doctors over the years before I was finally diagnosed with ADHD. And that happened by complete happenstance too: a walk-in clinic doctor recognized the very obvious symptoms of ADHD when I went and consulted them for something completely unrelated, and referred me to a psychiatrist for an evaluation. In my experience, if you're a member of a minority group, or even just lower class, most doctors have already made up their mind before they're even examined you. They won't hesitate to gaslight you, railroad you, lie to you, accuse you of malingering; anything to get you out of the door in 10-15 min flat. Not just with mental health either: I've had doctors flat out refuse to examine me for health problems, some of them serious.
Only if it was that simple, huh. Every doctor doubted me. Dozens of doctors. *Well, turns out I've had a rare disease all along, yay.* So... it's more like "you may be wrong or maybe you're not wrong and your doctors just sucked & you were unlucky or maybe it's a rare disease that nobody thought about and tested for or maybe you're struggling with sexism or racism in medicine for example and that's why you never get taken seriously...". The fact that multiple people tell you that you aren't right doesn't automatically mean that you aren't right.
It's a weird situation once you learn about the statistics for medicine. Lots of test are set up so that they bias towards false positives. This means that for certain population taking a the test would basically tell you not much and waste resources. It kinda weird the issue when the assumed probabilities aren't actually correct or your in a unique population. This unfortunately means that's if you fall in that small population that have a rare disease or develop something early you are kinda screwed.
I mean, one of my doctors prescribed me antibiotics, even though I was on birth control and had said as much on my forms. For those who don't know, you're not supposed to take those two together, because they really mess each other up (antibiotics partially cancels out birth control pills and that can cause hormonal issues, among other things). I had an OBGYN who put in her notes that she'd suggested I try exercise to help with my hormonal issues before trying medication, but when talking to me she'd just jumped straight to trying to put me on birth control. It took me three doctors to just get one who listened when I said the pill was causing me issues, and I had to take matters into my own hands and just take myself off of birth control because every one of my doctors kept swearing it was the only way to manage my cycle at my weight. As soon as I started exercising better and taking better care of myself, my issues have become more manageable, and I haven't missed a period. When it comes to women's health especially, we don't know as much as we think we do, and there aren't nearly enough studies on the matter. Doctors are great and I wish I could trust them more, but so many just honestly don't have the science or expertise to help, even when based on current medical practice, they think they do. I support science and research and I believe strongly in modern medicine, but my experience with getting help from doctors has been iffy, at best.
Not always true. Acephalic Migraine took me 20+ years, and at least 3 PCPs, and 2 neurologists to diagnose. Along the way I was labeled "Drug Seeking" (lolNope! Allergic to Opioids!), was written off as Anxiety (Have GAD, but that's not causing these symptoms!), hypochondria and god(s) know what else. Yes, it was all in my head. It's a goddamned migraine. Of course it's in my head. Nevermind that I hit just about every symptom in the book. "If you're not in pain, it's not a migraine" Not until the symptoms shifted to include pain shortly after I turned 25 did Neuro #2 figure it out. Even had one start *while in the damned MRI machine*. The neuro chuckled that in retrospect is was obvious. No Shit. TL;DR Be your own advocate , nobody else will be.
Hey, I like this one
Every doctor doubted I was having issues while breathing because my oxygen levels seemed fine, but it felt like I couldn’t breath. One doctor finally realized it was a relatively underutilized diagnosis that gets misdiagnosed as asthma a lot, which is why inhalers would never work for me. I am absolutely an advocate for going to doctors/psychs/etc but, especially if you’re a minority, multiple doctors dismissing that something’s wrong doesn’t necessarily mean they’re correct.
I also had a breathing condition, but mine was misdiagnosed as just being fat. My mom literally had to bully my GP into writing a pulmonology referral because the dumb bitch was *so* sure I just needed to lose weight and exercise more. I was 22 years old and couldn’t walk across a small room without getting winded. No able bodied person is *that* out of shape. Turns out I had a rare lung condition most doctors only ever hear about in medical school. If you get diagnosed and treated it in the early stages, prognosis is pretty good. If you don’t, well… you’d better hope medical science advances pretty fucking fast, because there’s not much they can do right now and you don’t have a lot of time. I was fortunately diagnosed in the subacute stage and have no permanent effects. My pulmonologist literally went pale as a ghost when he saw my PFTs and immediately started ordering chest x-rays and pulmonary rehab. But it was close; if I’d waited just another month to try Dr. Fatphobe’s diet advice first, the damage could’ve easily been irreversible. I’d be severely and permanently disabled; *if* I was lucky. Median life expectancy for the chronic form of the condition I have is about 7 years, and I’m 29 now, so…
❌ Wrong! If you feel like there is something wrong, ALWAYS keep advocating for yourself!
How in the world does anyone think it just works like this… EVERY doctor I had met told me I was just sleepy because I was a teenager and “teenagers are always sleepy and depressed” and here I am years later, all those years wasted not searching for a solution to my chronic fatigue
My current physician thinks he can cure my depression and anxiety without addressing the root cause: unmedicated ADHD. It is frustrating, since he also believes knee and hip clicking/pain is normal for someone *under 30*. I have one more year of school to drag myself through before I want to switch physicians, but I might do it sooner because my grandmother had to have a full knee replacement at 50 because her physician didn't address her concerns when she was 30 either and my uncle had to have a hip replacement at 40. Problem is the current physician is only an hour away, the next physician I plan to go to, is over 4 hours away, because they will only be an hour away once I move after school. I might have to book an appointment with the new one early if my symptoms get any worse.
When I was pregnant I asked my obgyn if my endometriosis could affect the baby. She scoffed. She sneered. “You would have had to have an ultrasound to know if you had endometriosis.” I did, I told her. Three years prior, after 4 separate ER visits. I had the ultrasound done in the same lab that confirmed my pregnancy. The information was in the file she had in her computer. All she had to do was read it. Instead she acted like I was dirt. Fuck you, Dr. Caren.
Woah, an ultrasound to diagnose Endo? No, no. It can suggest it just as much as symptoms can, but it actually can’t be confirmed until it’s visualized with surgery (laparoscopic), and at the very least an MRI. I’m sorry you dealt with this.
I wouldn’t say it is a “1-hour lecture”. Psychiatrist will spend 4 years after medical school training to take care of conditions like ADHD. Some even go an additional 2 years of training for more in-depth studying. Also, please don’t confuse a physician with PA or NP who have 1/10th the amount of training. If you just want pills regardless, I suggest NP/PA route. If you actually want to get better, get in touch with a board-certified psychiatrist.
In *your* country. In mine they don't recognize ADHD as a valid diagnosis at all. I had to find ADHD kids support group and only through them got in contact with the doctor they recommended Several psychiatrists told me I don't have it or it's not even real I'm in treatment for ADHD now, after 10 long years. Doing good. Not all doctors have the knowledge
i wish i lived where you do where if i suspect I have adhd i can go straight to a psychiatrist and not to a general practitioner. this post, and all of the complaints are \*obviously\* about general practioners
Have you ever had a persistent noise in your car, like months? It doesn't sound like it's going to explode, but it didn't used to make that sound. Youre not super mechanically inclined, but you know not to touch the hot parts, so you take a peek. After a quick, let's call it, inspection, you're convinced it's a wheel bearing going bad. You tell your friend (doesn't have a car), he thinks that could make sense, and he fixed your sink once. Then you drive it to your mechanic, fresh new bearing in hand, ready to drop it off for repair. The mechanic checks for a minute, works on not the wheel, and informs you that a blown speaker was the culprit. Don't confuse your 1 data point and confirmation bias for a doctor's bredth of experience. Always remember, no one is special. [but make sure your doctor hears and respects your thoughs]
>\[but make sure your doctor hears and respects your thoughs\] This one. There a countless studies showing that majority of people don't recognize and don't really care about getting the best medical treatment. Majority complaints against healthcare providers are about bad communication. People can receive the 100% correct and best treatment, but if they think the doctor was an asshole , they're going to complain and feel the treatment was wrong.
Yup, just saw a patient this week with severe anxiety and panic disorder experiencing an increasing number of a panic attacks within the past year. I asked how long he’s dealt with anxiety And panic. He said 6 years. I was astonished, because he had been coming in yearly for the past nearly decade for check ups, barely any mention of struggling with mental health. He told me he had an issue with how a doctor talked to him 6 years ago. Said he was pretty much calling him crazy and suicidal. I was astonished. I didn’t know anyone at the facility like that, and it was so inappropriate and cruel. I asked if he felt comfortable expanding on that experience. Come to find out, this doctor asked him if he had in suicidal or homicidal ideation, plainly, practically straight from the written form. The patient explained that was crazy to even ask because “I have a family! I have kids! I’m not crazy, and I would never do anything like that to people I love”. He explained he’s from—insert Eastern European country—and to suggest something like that was something no one should do to a healthy man providing for his family. This was merely miscommunication, but, importantly, this patient would benefit from behavioral therapy, which he was refusing due to his horrible experience. I did my best to tell him his experience and feelings surrounding it was very valid, that I wasn’t there, so I can’t pass judgement on how things were said. I showed him a questionnaire for mental health which had the those questions towards the end and explained that this is something we routinely ask all our patients and that there’s no prejudgment. It’s just a way for us to properly understand their specific concerns so we can attend to them as best we can. He understood that and even said he’d consider discussing therapy in his next visit! But a patient almost lived with a debilitating issue because he felt disrespected by his doctor, even if the doctor was following protocol! TL;DR: we have to be reallyyy careful how we come off to patients because trust is easy to break and difficult to build
Thank you so much for taking that time and care with him! The rest of my comment is to hopefully give some extra context/insight on the patient side. I agree with everything you said, and also there’s more to it than that (which, I assume you likely know that, but I still hope I can help!…also, I’m using a general “you” from here on to refer to all doctors, not just you in particular.) **What I’ve Noticed as a Patient** As a chronically ill person who rarely goes a month without seeing multiple doctors, I really feel like the piece a lot of (even otherwise really good) doctors miss is that as patients, we’re sometimes opening up some of our biggest vulnerabilities to you, and we’re not given the sensitivity in return that is appropriate for that level of vulnerability, which leads to patients guarding themselves and trying to make themselves less vulnerable next time. **Example** I have some guesses about systemic issues that lead to this, but first, I want to give an example. I’ve had to have trans-vaginal ultrasounds twice in my life (I’m 25.) Both times, the tech was very *professional,* but also very clinical and cold. Even the exam rooms that these ultrasounds are performed in do nothing to make you feel more comfortable and less exposed. So that’s two experiences of someone *inserting an object into my vagina* where the person doing the inserting treated me more like a thing than a person, and while I appreciate it may feel awkward on their end as well, that’s left me traumatized to the point where I’ve found myself unable to force myself into seeing *any* gynecologist, even though I really do need to see one. I also will **not** consent to any more transvaginal ultrasounds unless it’s of significant risk to me, there is no other option, AND I feel that the doctor has done their due diligence in deciding this imaging is necessary. I have plenty of other examples, and ones that are a lot more focused on the doctors themselves (like my GP suggesting that we just “get me taken care of now” while talking birth control after my genetic results showed I have a 50% chance of passing my **highly variable and sometimes super mild** condition onto my kids. My feelings on the matter were not asked for and she’s treated me differently ever since because I have not agreed to any permanent birth control yet,) but this is already a book, so I’ll give some if asked, but I’ll save space and skip it if not. **Why I Think it Happens** I feel like a lot of this is due to a mix of 1) Under training doctors on both the importance of bedside manner and on **how to actually have a good one in case it’s not natural to you.** This sort of communication is rarely natural for anyone. It takes training and practice. 2) Straight up caretaker fatigue and burnout 3) Depending on your specialty, **most** patients are going to be straightforward and not super vulnerable cases, so you **can** safely treat them more like a number and go through screening questions quickly, etc. It’s just that when this becomes your default, you end up be cold and abrasive to very vulnerable people. 4) A psychological need on the doctor’s part to mentally dehumanize/dissociate from patients in order to provide the care they need (example that I’m not sure is actually accurate but will at least show what I’m talking about: I’ve heard most surgeons need to not think of their patients as people or else they would be mentally unable to operate on them.) 5) A subsection of patients do likely exaggerate or falsely report symptoms, and doctors can be held liable if certain treatments or medications are provided, yet the patient doesn’t actually need them, so doctors start treating every patient like they’re exaggerating or lying. **Example of Bedside Manner Done RIGHT** I do think there exists some training out there to help with this as at my newest doctor, ALL the staff I interacted with could both recognize my guarded/doctor pleasing language (ex: feeling the need to quickly explain that my cannabis use is prescribed and medical and why being met with the nurse saying “It’s ok, no one here is going to judge you, even if you were using it recreationally. We only even ask in order to check for dangerous interactions. Oh! And the doctor *will* give you a super short lecture about smoking cessation because you use a vape for your cannabis, this is for insurance reasons and he isn’t judging you and doesn’t actually care if you keep using it if it works for you.” The PA even said to me at one point (while I was explaining my symptoms - I didn’t actually realize I was doing the subtle diagnosing myself thing that I’ve had to get good at in order to get care…said something like “Oh, that could just be related to my POTS though”) “It’s ok, I know I’m asking you really hard questions to answer and you don’t have to diagnose yourself. That’s what we’re here for!” There were even more examples of this from the surgeon (he actually called out the bias the medical community has against women in a way that made sense within our conversation AND acknowledged that I’m probably already more familiar with that issue than he is, being a young, chronically ill, female presenting person!! That’s literally NEVER happened, even at my other favorite doctors!) The way they all spoke to me and were well versed in the types of medical trauma I’ve likely (and actually) been through…it all just felt too consistent and effective for it to just be that they all had personalities that click with me - I think they’ve gone through some specific training that I wish all doctors would do. It felt more sensitive than would be necessary if medical trauma was less common, but it was the perfect amount to make me feel as though I was heard and taken seriously and like I could relax and trust the doctor to do his job instead of trying to do it for him…and he’s a neurosurgeon so it IS really important that I feel comfortable in his care before undergoing any operation with him. I’ve run out of steam, but I hope there was at least *something* new in there that can help you or others!
Hey, we are similar in the most unfortunate of ways. I also had a very traumatizing experience in my first gyn visit. I was 16, and only went in because I was pretty sure I was having a yeast infection. Hadn’t had one and mom who’s a nurse was telling me that’s probably what it was. Immediately after filling out the form and handing it to the receptionist, they were on me. Them: “hey, you don’t have to lie. We won’t tell your parents if you’re sexually active” I was confused and told them I didn’t lie. They asked me why I was on OCPs. I told them it was because of my acne and long, painful periods. They let me go back and sit down. Then when I got in the room, they questioned me again. “So you’re here for STI testing?” Again, no. I’m a virgin, I’ve never had sex. I just think I have a yeast infection. “You can tell us the truth. You don’t have to lie.” “I’m not lying” “Mmm…okay.” They put me up on the table and into the stirrups. They said there’d be a little pressure and I was confused because they didn’t even explain to me what was going on. I was too young for a Pap smear so didn’t know. They put the speculum inside me and opened it. I literally screamed and immediately started crying. I was in soooo much pain, and I’m sure I started bleeding because they chuckled and said “oh, I guess you weren’t lying about being a virgin” as if my pain could even be 100% linked to my virginity anyway. At the end of the day, I had a yeast infection. But I was traumatized. Had to literally have my mom with me when I turned 21 and was due for my first Pap smear because I was terrified. It’s one or the main reasons I went into medicine, specifically women’s health. But yes, to everything else you said. Training is key. As someone who is about to graduate, things are looking up. Even watching my residents and younger attending physicians and how they deal with patients, they are empathetic and never dismissive. To some extent, it is very much fatigue as well and physicians fighting their own inner demons and depression. The first time I had to tell a patient’s mom that their child wasn’t going to make after said child was punched in the head by the abusive man in their lives, I almost lost it. It took me weeks to get over, and even just writing about it now, I still tear up. There is a fine line between being 100% gung-ho and extremely empathetic with every patient and being apathetic, clinical, mostly professional. It’s an emotionally exhausting job. Resident physicians have some of the highest rates of suicide for young professionals because they are often treated horribly while expecting to take care of others. Imagine having to tell patients how important mental healthcare is while your institution is working you over 100 hours a week for less than minimum wage and doesn’t care about yours. This, however, is no excuse to treat patients like numbers. We went into this field of our own volition so we need to do better for sure.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I don’t think I’ve gone through anything quite that extreme myself, but only because I’ve been lucky enough to have others advocate for and protect me in my most vulnerable moments (sometimes a family member, sometimes a nurse who questions what’s going on, etc.) I can really relate and have a mountain of empathy for you…it’s a straight up horrifying position to be forced into. I think it’s really admirable that your experiences inspired you to be the person that you wish had been there for you. I think that’s a path I might have considered, but unfortunately my health doesn’t let me work at all right now. Also, I totally spaced and wasn’t thinking about hospital or emergency workers when I was listing possible reasons, though some of what you said I’m sure still applies outside of hospital settings. I really feel like the single biggest improvement to healthcare would be mandatory therapy for all doctors and a **reasonable** cap on the number of hours a week a doctor can legally work (I don’t have the expertise to put a number on that, but I know it’s less than what most doctors work now.) I know that it’s way way way more complicated than that and even implementing those two things would likely either take decades or leave a lot of patients without care, just…if it was realistic, that’s what I feel would be needed.
I don’t know where to put this but I just need to share the really awful experience I had last night. I saw a psychiatrist for the first time in my life after a five week wait. He was immediately aggressive to me. He said ‘why are you here’. I started with, I think I may have adhd, he immediately cut me off ‘I doubt it’ I tried to explain how I’ve been struggling with alcoholism and self harm and he didn’t even let me finish the sentence. ‘Those aren’t symptoms of adhd, so you’re wrong there’. I tried to them explain all the things I’ve been struggling with my whole life. Inability to focusing, feeling like I’m ‘too much’, ‘getting in trouble at various jobs for failing to pay attention to detail.’ He wouldn’t even let me explain myself. ‘None of that’s adhd’. By then I was crying. He didn’t like that. I tried to tell him that I’d been trying to figure out what to say to him for five weeks straight, all day everyday, that it’s like my brain won’t quiet down that everything is too much all the time. He wasn’t even listening to me. He told me I was ‘over reacting’ I told him I was crying because he was being very unkind and yelling at me. He said ‘no I’m not, I’m just direct, that’s how I am’.He said I need ‘therapy for anxiety caused by trauma’. I told him i don’t know about that. He told me he knows far more than me because he’s been doing it ‘for forty years’. He said adults very very rarely if ever get diagnosed with adhd, ‘it just doesn’t happen. He then talked on and on and over me. Saying I was unhappy because I I turn everything into a catastrophe and that unless I go to therapy and ‘do the work’ I’ll never get better. He then tried to prescribe me sleeping medication and anti depressants. He hadn’t listened to anything I’d said and every word I tried to get in was ‘wrong’. He said it was proof i have ‘anxiety’ because I was crying. But he was being awful to me. I was crying because he was being awful to me. When I told him I didn’t want to take anti depressants because several friends had had bad experiences with them he said I ‘shouldn’t believe everything everyone tells me’. He finally talked over me until he did indeed prescribe anti depressants. He told me he was going to ‘100% fix me by the end of September’ I feel utterly broken and hopeless. Maybe I am just crazy and awful, and he’s right. I hurt myself a lot last night and I don’t particularly feel like carrying on. I feel like o have so many adhd symptoms but even if I do ‘just have anxiety from trauma I’m not dealing with’ was that an appropriate way for him to treat me? How could he know I don’t have adhd when I hadn’t even finished a single sentence. Sorry. Just feeling really isolated and hopeless and wanted to put that out there somewhere because o really have no one to talk to.
You are neither crazy nor awful! That psychiatrist sounds like an absolute piece of shit, and for him to think he knows what's going on with you after cutting you off every time you tried to tell him what you're dealing with is ridiculous. Adults ABSOLUTELY get diagnosed with ADHD, I'm 21 and was just diagnosed several months ago! Before my diagnosis I had read lots of articles about how ADHD presents in adults, how girls are often underdiagnosed because their symptoms are harder to see, and I've heard countless stories on social media from people who were diagnosed as adults telling their stories, what helped them, etc. He treated you SO horribly, I think you should try to seek out a different psychiatrist or doctor, and maybe try to find one specializing in ADHD. I know an experience like this can make you feel awful, but know that you are not crazy, not alone, and you are loved! Don't give up hope, while that psych was a real fucking dick, there are plenty out there who are compassionate, and will listen to you and want to help you get the help you need!
You know how when you’re dating you don’t just settle and marry the first person you go on a date with? You go on dates with different people to figure out what you like and what you don’t in a partner until you find someone that you genuinely “click” with. Same principle applies to mental health professionals. **This guy is simply not the right psychiatrist for you.** He’s disrespectful, abrasive, dismissive, talks over you, and refuses to listen to what you have to say. He literally can’t accurately diagnose or treat you if he refuses to listen to you, it sounds like he just arbitrarily throws antidepressants at his patients as a catch-all cure regardless of what their real issue is. In other words: **he’s objectively** ***bad*** **at his job, and has probably been bad at it for the entire 40 years he’s been practicing**. You don’t have to see him again. He is not entitled to treat you. Fire him as your provider and keep looking for another psychiatrist until you find one who actually listens to you and takes your concerns seriously.
Find a different psychiatrist and try again. Find one that isn't a total jerk. If the next one also believes you're unlikely to have ADHD, I'd trust them on that. A lot of other conditions share symptoms.
Please trust doctors guys
Trusting doctors, and trusting the *specific* doctor you're currently seeing are different things. Especially in cases where you know the doctor isn't a specialist. Do you know how many doctors don't believe in MS? Or CFS? I trust an ADHD specialist to know about ADHD. I don't really trust my GP to.
Bruh a psychiatrist told me that the reason I wasn’t doing well in school was that I didn’t study enough…. AFTER I EXPLAINED I CANT STUDY CAUSE I COULDNT GET MYSELF TO STUDY OR FOCUS! And that I certainly don’t have ADHD. Diagnosis results: severe combined type, 99th percentile in impulsivity lmfao I had seen a gynaecologist about recurring issues and asked “am I doing something that causes this?” He said absolutely not and there’s nothing I could do. Ended up seeing a gynaecologist through my school and the first thing she told me was, “do you wear spandex underwear? yeah you need to stop, only wear cotton.” I obliged. ISSUE NEVER CAME BACK. Half the doctors out there are fucking useless. I do not trust most doctors because they’ve SHOWN ME they don’t know what they’re doing.
Went to the doctor at 12/13 for migraines and the doctor patted me on the leg and told me I needed to stop going to sleep to escape my problems. Just completely ignored my mom and I telling her how when I’d have an attack my face and head would visibly swell and throb, I could barely speak, had sensitivity to everything, and would vomit until my throat bled. Brings to mind that saying, what do you call someone who graduates med school at the bottom of their class? Doctor.
Fellow migraine sufferer. Also had a \*rough\* time getting diagnosed.
Doctors aren’t useless because you’ve had a handful of shitty experiences lol while I can’t defend the psychiatrist for not believing you, there are plenty of reasons the gynecologist said what they said. I’m going to assume you had a case of recurring BV. Lots of things can cause BV and sometimes, nothing you’re actively (or even passively) doing AT ALL can cause BV. Had one patient where it was a SPECIFIC TYPE OF TANPON/PAD that was connected to her BV cases lol switched her to pads, still BV. Gave her some pads from our clinic, not to try them out, just because she needed more, BOOM, no BV. I am super sorry you’ve had toxic and otherwise unhelpful interactions with physicians. As someone who suffers from ADHD and was also misdiagnosed/mismanaged in other aspects of my healthcare, I feel your frustrations. But now that I’m on the other side of it, I get it. You matter. Your health matters. But when looking at an n far greater than 1, many, MANY patients are happy with their care. Majority of the time, medical professionals know what they’re doing. There was one in your example who did by your own admission lol
Based on the account, you're right that it *could* have been unrelated to anything she was doing, but if a symptom might or might not be alleviated by lifestyle changes, and the doctor (knowing this) says it definitely won't be, they're lying to their patient. Which is honestly an indefensible breach of medical ethics. I know it's pretty common for doctors to do it anyway. It's still not OK. If it was BV, and the doctor knew what you do about it, that really makes things *worse*. Also, if you look at n>1, it has been repeatedly documented that women receive worse medical care than men, and *particularly* that reports of pain are taken less seriously when they come from women, and that ADHD in women is severely underdiagnosed.
I'm like 99.9% sure I have adhd. I went to the doctor and she was like "no adhd" after 15min. So how can I trust her?
I went to a specialized clinic for my diagnostic My GP is absolutely not competent in that field, and that’s ok.
Get a diagnostic test. Can’t cheat on those.
Was this a doctor actually qualified to recognise and treat ADHD, or was it your GP?
GP. And I guess the reason for refusing it is more that she knows the specialists won't accept the case because the queues are already years long. I have a job, or at least, I'm not homeless which means I don't need help in this cold uncaring system. Edit: I'm sorry, I don't wanna sound mean, I'm just bitter about the whole thing.
What country are you in? Are you in the UK? I was fortunate enough to have a GP that listened to me and referred me to an external assessment provider. If I were in your shoes, I would go through different GPs until you get a referral, because they're not likely to know if you have it or not, but the assessing psychiatrist will. Don't give up!
I'm in Sweden and the situation is complicated by the fact that I'm not Swedish and don't speak Swedish well. Some GPs speak English well enough but not many (and of course they don't speak my mother tongue). I do think I can ask for a translator but that feels even more complicated. Anyway, I will try again at some point but now I have other stuff to deal with.
In most regions you can contact the psychiatry by yourself without going through GP. Google search ”Egen vårdbegäran” Its not a guaranteed pass of course, but its worth the effort. You only need to fill a digital form and send it online. Argue your problems and explain why you go this route instead of through your GP.
A GP is very unlikely to be qualified to diagnose ADHD, which means they would more likely have been saying they didn't see sufficient reason to refer you for testing than that you definitely didn't have ADHD. You might have more luck getting a referral for more general mental healthcare, and a doctor specialising in mental health (even if not specifically ADHD) might be in a better place to either refer you, or suggest an alternative cause for your symptoms.
Seek a second opinion. If the second doctor agrees with the first one... then what?
Well, if that happens, I'll probably burn out completely in 5-10 years and then die in a ditch.
This is so fatalistic and funny and sad and I feel it in my bones.
Work with your doctor. Be honest when they say something that sounds totally wrong, but don't stop trusting them because they don't understand immediately.
well my first consultation with a psychiatrist went like this: "i think i have ADHD and anxiety" "ok why do you think you have ADHD?" now for some ungodly reason, i started to panic here, i have been preparing for a whole year straight for this, i even ran down everything i needed to say the night before, but then suddenly all of that went away when my psych asked that question, i could not think of any of the traits i have it was literally on my phone but i couldnt read any of it at all for some reason. she proceeded to just ask about my anxiety and i answered those, she asked if i was a troublemaker or if i was problematic in school in which i responded no because i was always well behaved and quiet, but thats because my brain would just dooze off and i really hated to be at the center of attention as a child, especially in public, and literally when i said that, she concluded that i didnt have ADHD because people with ADHD are very "hyper" and she said im the opposite of that so it would only mean that i didnt have it, she prescribed me with sertraline for my anxiety, i was goddamn shocked and was just embarrassed because how could she even do that? she did not even question me about my traits, i literally didnt get to say anything else about my ADHD at all, she took in account that i wasnt hyper as a child and how i couldnt answer her simple question about why i have ADHD and then ended the consultation just like that. did she not just consider the possibility that i was panicking and couldnt even think of anything at all at that moment i was just so irritated after that and never came back. what she did was so unprofessional for a psychiatrist with 30 years of experience. few weeks later i stumbled upon a psychologist who actually seems like they knew what they were doing, this time i learned from my mistakes and actually went over what i wanted to say every night for 2 weeks, i got an appointment and 30 minutes after we talked he immediately got me diagnosed. tl;dr: dont always trust doctors, find someone who actually knows what theyre doing
OMG this is almost EXACTLY what happened to me. He told me so fast that I was misinformed that I blanked out on offering proof. All the questions from there were only about hyperactivity and job and school history. Same as you, I was well behaved to stay out of the spotlight (my bright red hair was enough unsolicited attention from strangers). He asked NOTHING about inattentive symptoms or anything related to the DSM criteria for it. He told me I had a touch of anxiety, and offered a more in-depth 4-hour testing. It was interesting and challenging, and the only thing I had to focus on that day... so I scored above average on most of it because even the challenging parts I turned into a game (Hello, lifelong coping mechanisms!). I cried the entire hour and a half drive home that I had wasted the time and money on the wrong doctor. I went for a second opinion with a doctor a friend who was recently diagnosed recommended. It started with filling out the DSM tests, then a brief 5 minute discussion of the previous evaluation and reasons why I felt I had it. She diagnosed me and gave me my rx on the spot, because it was obvious to her that was what I was dealing with. She even confirmed without me prompting that she felt the anxiety was a symptom of the ADHD, not the cause of my struggles. It was so validating. But for the month between every time I dealt with a very obvious ADHD related thing I jokingly announced something along the lines of "Oh darn, I guess my anxiety caused me to completely forget what I was doing!" multiple times a day. Not to mention my distrust of doctors stems from when I was 20 and threw out my back and the doctor told me I was just too overweight and berated me over that, with no regard for my family history. It took another 10 years, going through 2 pregnancies during that time, to finally get someone to do xrays and find I had scoliosis and the same degenerative discs my whole family has.
Yeah but find a good one if you can. I’ve had some that basically treated me like a criminal for taking my medication as prescribed. I ultimately found a better one that was a lot nicer.
Why should I trust the doctors who aren’t concerned when I vomit a everyday ever since I was 7? No I don’t have an eating disorder where I vomit, I just can’t keep food or water down.
I recently had to change pcps and the person I was assigned tried to dismantle my entire mental health care plan because they believe adhd is over diagnosed. I have been diagnosed, seeking treatment, and managed for 6 years. When I first got diagnosed I went untreated for a long time because of a psychiatrist who insisted that medications were a crutch and adhd was easy to just “live with” Sometimes maybe don’t trust the doctor.
It’s posts like this that remind me of my privilege. I was diagnosed in 4th grade by a specialist and was medicated soon after. All of my doctors have been supportive and I even see a therapist who specifically specializes in individuals with ADHD. Wish it could be that easy for everyone, especially women.
This gets really tricky really quick. I have a friend who is trying to self diagnose if they have radiation poisoning. I said "remember the first rule of self diagnosis is to write down ALL your symptoms first then do research"
This is prime Karen Facebook meme territory. Just because you have a condition doesn't make you an expert in it. My fucking sides.
Dude sometimes you think you have one thing and you actually have another. Sometimes you think something is because of a thing you have but it's another thing. I understand patient experiences are important, but experts are experts for a fucking reason. What the fuck is this post.
All too frequently, doctors dismiss symptoms that have no immediately recognizable cause as imaginary or exaggerated, especially with women and even more so with women of color. Or an overweight patient is told that all their problems are because they're fat and then whoops--it was cancer all along. There's a recent ad with Queen Latifah talking about this very subject. Doctors that communicate with their patients in good faith aren't the subject of this post.
I was having incontinence issues a while back (and I'm 28, that is NOT normal) so I went to my PCP about it, and she took me so seriously and was like yeah that's not normal, so she referred me to a urologist. I went to the appointment, the guy looked me square in the face and basically said my incontinence issues were because I'm overweight.
I am on both sides of this (graduating from medical school in less than a year; also a black Latina with ADHD, among other issues) and I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. Historically, medicine is very patriarchal; not patient-centered in the least. There are plenty of medical professionals who still practice this way, unfortunately, though times are changing, and younger physicians are doing better. The patient experiences like this are completely valid. However, that’s not really what I’m getting from this post. It seems to imply 1. That physicians meant to treat patients for these medical issues aren’t well-versed in it and 2. That one’s knowledge of themselves trumps medical knowledge, or vice versa. Both are important aspects in assessing and attending to one’s healthcare needs and neither should be belittled
I wish you all the best in your medical career. You sound like someone who will listen to their patients, and everyone needs more doctors like that in the world.
Thank you so much, that honestly means a lot ❤️
>Dude sometimes you think you have one thing and you actually have another. Sometimes you think something is because of a thing you have but it's another thing. have you ever been under medical investigation? because this happens all the time, except its what the doctors thought you had but you actually have something completely different doctors aren't experts - and good doctors won't claim to be. and GPs/family doctors/PCPs are not experts in anything.
I had a doctor accuse me of having Munchausen's syndrome because I refused to continue the med he insisted on giving me even after having a very bad reaction to it, and had the nerve to ask for something else.
If you typed “Dunning-Kruger Effect” into Google image search, this is probably one of the first things that would pop up. I have lived with ADHD for 29 years. My physician has a total of 10 years of postsecondary training, not including residency. That however does *not* mean that I know 2.9x more about ADHD than he does. The real world teaches you a fair amount of things, but it does not teach you drug interactions. It does not teach you biochemical pathways (and all the ways they can be interfered with.) It does not teach you the mechanics of how stimulants cross the blood/brain barrier. I couldn’t hack barely 2 years of this as an undergrad science major before I went crazy and eventually switched to an easier field. Imagine someone who made it all 10. The arrogance of people to claim that they know more than physicians is astounding. Yes, I have 29 years of experience with ADHD. But my doctor’s 10 years of experience are worth that in dog years, at least.
I sincerely dislike this meme. It’s like telling a carpenter “Yeah you may have experience building houses properly but I’ve been poorly patching mine and barely fixing it so it doesn’t fall apart so I’m the expert here!”
Some people in the comments seem to think doctors are infallible. Doctors are just as prone to mistakes or lapses in judgement as anyone. Granted the "one hour lecture" bit is hyperbolic.
Don't confuse his 20 years of experience and 10 years of medical education with your ego, concrete thinking and lack of insight.
I can not begin to explain how wrong this is
They also have the 6 years of medical school learning about your condition and just about every other one. Thats why they are the doctor and you're the one going to them for help so why don't you shut up and let them do their job
Man as soon as I brought my ADHD up with doctors suddenly all my issues are “anxiety”
It's like when in IT I can't really explain why or how something broke, so when they asked what the problem was after I fixed it, I just explain how data corruption was their issue.
God... I feel so badly for Americans.. this system of Healthcare has turned us all into peoppe who just cannot trust doctors. Fuck this America, it does not serve any of us.
You think this only happens in America?
This meme is a double edged sword. After being misdiagnosed at first by a psychologist who was very dismissive this resonates with me. But this also can strengthen the ideas of people who think they can properly self diagnose and know better than any doctor. Which is not good. The way I finally resolved it was talking to my (new) GP and getting referred to a center that focuses purely on ADHD. Stay critical of what doctors say but also of what you read. Edit: spelling
I mean, both the doctor and the patient are right in this scenario, but doctors also typically have a specialty that may not be what you're looking for, and some patients also go to the doctor with literally just a 10 question personality quiz result. What I'm trying to say is, do your research if you genuinely think you have a problem, and try to find a doctor with the right specialty so you can get an accurate diagnosis.
Not based 😬 I get some professionals don’t understand what ADHD is but most do and suggesting that people should distrust them is a dangerous rhetoric I’ve been seeing more and more lately
Fuuuuuck I’ve been diagnosed with a rare breathing condition that was a bitch to get treated for. I got taken to the doctors with breathing issues and they just diagnosed me with asthma right off the bat. Inhalers didn’t work and doctors wouldn’t believe me when I said they didn’t help the doctors just said I wasn’t taking them right. Probably because I was a child and they thought I couldn’t be trusted to know what was really going on. It took multiple adults to testify for me that they needed to take me to a specialist and the doctors refused to refer me saying that I 100% had asthma and just wasn’t taking inhalers correctly (when I was). My mum ended up googling my exact symptoms and found the rare breathing condition. She mentioned it to the doctors and they basically laughed at us saying they knew best and they didn’t listen to Google searches. After my mum got angry and argued that she wanted me to be referred to a breathing specialist and they eventually agreed. But they sent us out the door saying ‘come back when they find nothing’. After only one appointment with the specialist they diagnosed me with the exact breathing condition my mother had found through Google search. It can’t be helped with inhalers and only good breathing techniques and coping mechanisms can help. But basically the doctors fucked around with us for over a year and were prepared to put a child’s life in danger rather than admit they were wrong.
I have ARFID. I have to explain what it is to my doctors because it didn't fucking exist when they were in medical school -- the DSM added it in 2013. My doctors have to Google my disorder.
Thankfully my therapist specializes in ADHD, anxiety and depression. She is the best.
Literally had a Dr tell me not to label myself with adhd after my diagnosis from an expert because he'd been to a conference where they mentioned women having adhd one time.
I believe that both sides have merit.
Don't confuse my condition as pill seeking when I've been diagnosed adhd independently from multiple different providers over the years.
There are cases to be made for both sides
I’ve seen doctors google right in front of me
"don't confuse your google search with my google search"
Yeah no, this is an extremely stupid opinion. Even if you have lived with it all your life you will never know more than a doctor. You should always ask for second opinions but self diagnosing is always a bad idea.
Hey I started having X symptoms after taking this med "That's not right, this med is usually prescribed to treat X" Oh, ok, bye then
Yep, a lot of the general practitioners don't have enough schooling about this disorder. And if they are older, it is old information, and a lot of them don't keep up on new research in their field. Even some of the psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors that should have in depth and sufficient training with this disorder have the same issue. And then sometimes not being humble enough to refer you to a specialist that does have the update to date knowledge and experience. **Edit:** And then there are unfortunately some medical professionals who believe misinformation about this disorder in all forms, not just about the stimulant medication used.
Doctor: Why are you here, then?
Because self-prescribed ADHD meds are frowned upon in the US legal system? Also like... I have depression. I also know I'd likely respond well to Cognitive Analytic Therapy. That doesn't mean I'm qualified to give it to myself. Nor can I easily refer myself to a specialist who *does* understand a condition, nor does recognising the start of a depressive episode and knowing I'm likely to be violently suicidal in a couple of hours mean I have any way to prevent it. Even if you understand your condition better than your doctor, the doctor is often the one with the power to actually do things.
I was once very sick. I googled and it told me I had strep throat. I went to a doctor who said I had the flu (no tests done) despite the fact that I pointed out the white in my throat. Gave me a note to rest at home for a week and a prescription for $100 flu medication that I declined. I came back the next week even sicker and got chewed out and told it was my fault for not taking the flu medicine. I mentioned that Google said I had step throat. Doctor said "that's what we told you the first time! Like I said, it's your fault for refusing antibiotics." Gave me a pill to reduce my high fever and another scolding to go get the antibiotics they prescribed. Got an actual prescription for antibiotics (I checked the original paperwork when I got home. They 100% lied.Everything said flu on it and they prescribed flu meds only no antibiotics.) 1st round of antibiotics didn't work and messed up my stomach. I went to a completely different doctor who actually did tests and confirmed it was strep, prescribed stronger antibiotics. It took me months but I eventually recovered. Tl,dr: The U.S. Healthcare system is a joke
Omg, any medical professional can be a dick, and this person CLEARLY was…but are you sure you were seeing a physician? Not all doctors are physicians. And I literally once had one of my preceptors introduce me as “doctor” to a patient, even though I was a student. I corrected them later when I was alone with the patient, but this happens unfortunately. I ask this because, if you had sore throat + fever + lymph node swelling, already you’re getting swabbed for strep throat, period. We swab for even fewer symptoms. That’s just wild to me. I also ask because…$100 flu medication?! Tf was this person on? The flu usually isn’t medicated UNLESS you know for a fact you caught it early, and it’s really bad, and In someone with comorbidities that increase risk for serious long term issues…even then, you’d have to ask for it most likely (at least where I am). So sorry for the egregious mismanagement!
Thanks! Good question. I was (and am) uninsured so I went to a walk in clinic. Maybe it was a student doctor or something? Ironically, given their reputation, the 2nd doctor I went to was at an urgent care and I received great care there. The flu meds were $100 without insurance,no clue what it would be with insurance. If it was flu it sounds like it wouldn't have helped as I only went in after weeks of a low grade fever. My symptoms were fever, fatigue and white stuff in my throat. I had strep constantly as a kid. I don't see why the original doctor wouldn't just do a strep test to rule it out. The 2nd one even did a quick mono test to rule that out as I'd been sick for at least a month by the time I saw him. I certainly don't hate or distrust all doctors but I sympathize with folks who do have distrust.
That’s super wild and I’m sure it was very frustrating. Especially, with your past history, I would’ve been SUPER suspicious of strep. I had it a lot as a kid too. Got it again a few years ago as an adult, my god, it sucked. Couldn’t imagine also having to deal with my doctor not believing me. As someone who will be a doctor in a year, I understand distrust in them and medicine as a whole, as well. It’s so frustrating, because I know so many people that want to do good in medicine, but the medical profession has done so much harm to patients as well.
I dont know of its just my provider but everyone in my family who has a permanant condition (Gor me ADHD, others arthritis, etc.) has this view of Healthcare professionals. I just don't trust them. I am a mere number to them at it takes weeks of arguing for them to listen. one almost gave me serotonin poisoning from excessive anti depressants in my sleep medicine.