Doctors - Not what you expected?

[Autumn55]

I finally had the appointment with my NL that I was totally excited about.  I had brought with me past, MRI's lists of symptoms, questions and concerns and left disappointed.  

She knew a little about Syrinx's which made me happy.  So she refereed me to a urologist(already went through testing with one) for my bladder incontinence and a Neurosurgeon.

She asked me a bunch of questions, about what she thought my symptoms should be, and showed little interest in what my symptoms actually were.  She was very interested in ruling out MS, how much/well I sleep and if I felt like a band of pain around my abdomen, which I've never heard of.

I told her I was very worried about going back to work in a few months when my maternity leave is over because I can't do the heavy lifting or running required of me anymore, without pain and peeing myself.  She just smiled.  I was hoping she would tell me to avoid those things... or something, anything.

Anybody else disappointed with doctor appointments?

[jenniferk86]

I think that when we wait for so long, and especially if we have very high hopes of someone, if we expect something specific and in a specific time frame, we will set ourselves up for dissapointment, even if not specifically we are dissapointed in the dr. and it can make us feel like we are dissapointed in the doctor.  We also might not have enough time or have given that dr. enough chance.  I only say this because I had a very very similar experience and I will share.

I went for a year having awful symptoms and it was chalked up to fibromyalgia and depression but no real diagnosis was given, just probable and given pain meds, then i started gettind neurological symptoms and vision stuff and my dr. said if I seen a optomologist and my vision was fine, he would get an mri to check for ms... well my vision was fine... so I got an mri...

Guess what? No ms.. but they found Chiari malformation.. my doc reccomended seeing a neurosurgeon asap.. so i looked one up and I found out that Dr. Oro was the only one in colorado my area that accepted my insurance... and lo and behold he was also one of the most well known and best specialist in the area.. I was so excited and so ready for this to be over since my journey of this miserabelness had taken a year and literally my whole family and my dr. acted like it was my depression and this bothered me the most... and I psyched myself up for the appointment thinking I would have an appointment with Dr. Oro, he would reccomend surgery because my symptoms were so bad in a month and everything would get better... and guess what??

I WAS WRONG!!!  I was really dissappointed too.. probably because I was wrong... You know what Dr. Oro said? he said that he wanted me to go to physical therapy because I had a herniated disc too, and arthritis, and I had occipital pain also, which could be causing my headaches instead of the chiari.. and then after pysical therapy he wanted me to try pain management... he was all along VALIDATING my pain, which nobody had ever done... and I ignored that and I just heard a big NO.. you don't get surgery... and I felt dissapointed and mad..... I had recorded the appointment.. and I even posted on here about being dissapointed because my symptoms were so severe, I felt like, what else would it take to get surgery....but i listed back to the recording and heard him say that if the other things didnt work that we definitely did need to do surgery.. but I wanted it now!

He NEVER said I couldnt get surgery.. but I didnt even hear that all I heard was the dissapointment because I expected something and a timeline and it wasnt what I expected so I automatically assumed something and was dissapointed with the whole thing...   I am not saying this is your case.. but we can all get dissapointed when we expect something in our head and if we have high hopes and it doesnt go exactly as we hope...

Now I went in Monday and I am having surgery August 9th.. it is what I wanted.. and it is by him.. and I wanted it by him... if I would have gone somewhere or to someone else because I was dissapointed.. it would have been the wrong decision.. so I got what I wanted now so of course I am not dissapointed.. but just be sure you are not dissapointed for the wrong reasons... and listed to your dr. and make sure the dr. listens to you and give the dr. a fair shot if you believe the dr. is good.

[selmaS]

  Hi...I believe there is something they call the MS hug..and could be the pain that wraps the abdomen/chest area; she was asking about MS so I am thinking this is what she was getting at.

Unfortunately too many if us have been disappointed at Dr appointments...but u deff need to see a NS at this point...not a NL....they DX....and once u have the DX u need someone to tell u if u can be treated with MEDS, PT OR SURGERY.

  Sorry, but this is just a part of what we like to refer to as "the royal chiari runaround"

     "selma"

[karalee85]

jw
what does the sleep quality/amt and ab pain have to do w/ ms ? so  you know??

honestly. 3 out of 4 new drs i see im dissapointed with.. either they wanna discuss something thats not wrong with me, or look for problems thatve already been ruled out.. but what i hate the most, is when i feel like theyre just guessing on a dx or a rx... or like they dont really care about all or some of my symptoms, or medication sideeffects..