#docfrustration , #Needanswers, #allinmyhead
Being chronically ill for over 20 yrs now and ongoing visits to doctors and specialists I've definitely discovered the great importance of becoming my own health advocate. Communication via the medical staff is sometimes literally ABSENT!!!! Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with my care team but does anyone feel like their Dr's are thinking all what u r feeling is imaginary? All the tests performed, lab work and still no definitive answers on what's going on. Finding a compassionate, understanding, extremely knowledgeable doctor is, in my opinion, more challenging nowadays. To b honest, I've lost some respect for medical professionals. Not all of them r willing to actually take extra time with their patients and research his or her condition. They r too quick to pass u on to another doctor, then another. I realize they r limited to a certain amt of time with each patient, but many medical facility websites offer patient portals as a way to communicate with their team. Doctors really need to gain that patient/doctor relationship and b continually monitoring patient progress, researching possible answers to mysterious symptoms. I will give u one perfect example: prior to my immune deficiency diagnosis in March 2013, I had multiple lab draws to check various blood levels. I was suffering infection after infection, given tons of antibiotics. Back in 2000, my eosinophil levels were way off and absolutely nothing was done about it. Other lab tests throughout a 13 yr span depicted the same results. If doctors had treated me at the time these levels were so messed up, I'm pretty sure my life would b a lot different today. So sorry for the super long post. Please share any similar experiences and your feelings on the medical community. Thanks for reading.