Or if there is no one in your immediate area who specializes in what you have, and the specialists that would take you 2+ hours to get to aren't taking new patients (and have never been taking new patients whenever you've called), or worse yet -- now both specialists for this region have retired, leaving a lot of us with no choice but to try to educate our PCPs about the disease.
And your point is??? I tried to make it clear that I did say I had allergies and did list what I was allergic to and did take charge when he was writing a prescription for an antibiotic without checking first.
I still maintain that the fact that he has hundreds of patients, and not enough time to read what should have been clearly stated in the chart, doesn't change the fact that he should have asked me if I'm allergic to any antibiotic before writing the script. Saying to me don't worry, I know what to do is definitely not something I think he should have said to an adult who doesn't appear to be senile or retarded, especially because of the malpractice problems doctors face.
Lucille.
Precisely. Ginger's doctor didn't know he shouldn't give this to someone with that allergy, and didn't take the time to look it up. He brought that malpractice suit on himself.
My doctors falsified medical records. The law says that I can trust my doctor to keep accurate medical records and not fictionalized ones. Their malpractice was their own fault, not some failure by me to give them information -- handwritten notes show that I gave them the right information and they ignored it; they dictated something far different than I told them but forgot to destroy the evidence of what I really said. They sent me a 6-page form to fill out about my symptoms, living situation, things I have difficulty with, allergies, etc. -- then tried to put the blame on me for not telling them, except, lo and behold, there was all that information in writing on their form. They were forced to testify that I wasted an hour by filling out a form that they didn't even bother to look at.
While there are people who sue for malpractice over that 1% chance of a potential problem that they were made aware of, there are plenty of people who sue for malpractice over the doctor's laziness or incompetence that led to some result they weren't warned about. I certainly was never warned that my doctors hadn't looked at the forms I filled out, or that they didn't believe in CFS and were going to dictate notes disparaging it as "self-diagnosed" so they could change the diagnosis I'd received from several specialists to something they liked better. If the words "I don't believe in CFS" had ever escaped that man's mouth, I would've been out of there before he said another word. He lied, and my only mistake was believing his lies.
What exactly do you gain by repeating the same stuff in this forum almost daily?
If there is some benefit, I'd love to hear about it, because all I see is a waste of your energy, something you have in short supply due to to the CFS.
Caryn p.s. go ahead and bash away at me for "slamming poor Karen" I really don't give a crap.
QUOTES FROM EXPERTS
Just because the doctor may not be familiar with your medical condition does not mean it isn?t real.? Devin Starlanyl, M.D.
It is a sorry state when patients must be responsible for the education of their doctors, but that is where we are.? Devin Starlanyl, M.D.
Historically, illnesses are attributed to temperament when science lacks, or refuses to seek, answers.? B.F. Synhorst, M.S.W.
CFS represents the final common pathway for multifactorial disorder with a limbic system encephalopathy causing autonomic dysfunction and subtle neuroendocrine derangements. ? Jay Goldstein, M.D.
CFS is a debilitating illness involving symptoms and abnormalities of the immune system, circulatory system, central nervous system, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. ? Dr. Katrina Berne
The name ?Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? was selected by a small group of politically motivated scientists. Their deliberate intention was to obfuscate the nature of the disease by placing it in the realm of the psychiatric rather than the organic. The harm they have caused is surely one of the great tragedies of medicine. ? Hillary J. Johnson
The name of an illness has a profound impact upon those who suffer from it, upon how the uninformed perceive it, and upon medical research and treatment.? John Herd
Attribution of illness to ... unconscious motivation is inaccurate, unfair and insulting. ? Dr. Katrina Berne
This is not a ?benign? disease. The loss to the minds and bodies is inestimable. ? Michael Goldberg, M.D.
Avoid the labels ?somatizer?, ?hypochondriac?, ?neurotic? and ?crock?. All symptoms have origins and should be taken seriously.? Dr. Katrina Berne
?Just learn to live with it? is not an acceptable approach to pain management.? Steve Fanto, M.D.
Just because standard testing shows normal values does not always mean everything is fine. It may simply mean that the proper tests have not been run. ? Devin Starlanyl, M.D.
Fibromyalgia is a systemic dysregulation of the neurotransmitters, with many biochemical causes.? Devin Starlanyl, M.D.
When these conditions are vigorously and appropriately treated at their onset, much pain and dysfunction can be prevented. ? Devin Starlanyl, M.D.
Fibromyalgia is a systemic, non-degenerative, non-inflammatory, non-progressive dysfunction of the neurotransmitters.? Devin Starlanyl, M.D.
Just because the mechanisms of fibromyalgia aren?t understood doesn?t mean that it is less real. ? Kristin Thorson
Fibromyalgia represents a distinct rheumatic disorder and should not be regarded as a somatic illness secondary to psychiatric disorder. ? Dr. Dunne
CFS is characterized by extreme exhaustion lasting 6 months as well as biochemical abnormalities
The fact that you function at all with fibromyalgia is often a miracle.? Devin Starlanyl, M.D.
It is not the patients who are disturbed, it is the physicians who are psychologically disturbed because they ignore the data, and whatever data there is, they manipulate it to say what they want it to say. -- Muhammed B. Yunus, M.D.
Dr. Paul Cheney found that in dual chromatography analyses, many CFIDS patients actually had more derangement of the brain, on a biochemical level, than Parkinson?s or Alzheimer?s patients.
Dr. Sheila Bastien, who studied a group of educated patients, was stunned to realize that patients who initially appeared very lucid had suffered tremendous drops in IQ.
Nobody has partaken in such a zealous barrage of metaphoric lampoons since the nineteenth century days of multiple sclerosis, which was called in its early years ?hysterical paralysis?.
The incidence of CFIDS is now higher than that of lung cancer, breast cancer or HIV infection in women.
It?s stupid to call it Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It should be called the forever dead syndrome. ?Keith Jarrett, jazz pianist and CFS patient
Dr. Mark Loveless, an infectious disease specialist and head of the CFS and AIDS Clinic at Oregon Health Sciences University, proclaimed that a CFIDS patient ?feels every day significantly the same as an AIDS patient feels two months before death.?
Dr. Daniel Peterson?s Medical Outcome Study revealed that no other set of patients had ever measured so poorly. CFIDS patients experienced greater ?functional severity? than the studied patients with heart disease, virtually all types of cancer, and all other chronic illnesses.
This disease is actually more debilitating than just about any other kind of medical problem in the world. ? Dr. Leonard Jason
When asked on CNN how many of his CFIDS patients had fully recovered in fifteen years, Dr. Peterson unequivocally and chillingly stated ?None?.
2000+ research studies have identified objective physical/organic abnormalities in CFS patients40% of CFS patients studied by a Chicago group were completely disabled by the disease. Nearly all of these said they had been denied Social Security benefits.
Many doctors have tried to find a causal link between CFS and personality traits that, in the case of any other illness, would be considered exemplary: blaming patients for having had a strong work ethic (calling them ?overachievers?) or exercising regularly (being ?too driven?).
Many medical disorders present as psychological disturbances. Pancreatic cancer can cause visual hallucinations. Adrenal tumors will cause behavior that can seem psychotic. So you have to be very careful not to accept psychiatric diagnoses at face value. ? Sheila Bastien, Ph.D.
I remember thinking that if I were testing nothing but Alzheimer's patients, then I would say ?This group isn't very impaired.? But they were more impaired than the head concussion cases that I've tested that have been in litigation. ... And it looked worse than most of your average depressions. ? Sheila Bastien, Ph.D.
There are many well accepted disorders that lack objective physical findings. The same physicians who have such difficulty understanding and accepting FM have no problems at all injecting or operating on patients with de Quervain's tenosynovitis, medial and lateral epicondylitis, rotator cuff tendonitis, and greater trochanteric bursitis, despite the utter absence of any "objective" physical findings in any of these conditions. ? Kevin P. White, M.D.
We have little understanding of disease mechanisms for many well accepted disorders, such as polymyalgia rheumatica, migraine headache, and trigeminal neuralgia. And we have very few effective treatments for disorders such as scleroderma and ankylosing spondylitis. Yet none of these disorders comes under the same intensely zealous scrutiny as FM. What is it about FM that provokes such ire? It should not be that FM symptoms all are subjective ? all symptoms are, by definition, subjective. ? Kevin P. White, M.D.
Why do those who belittle the concept of FM offer virtually nothing more of an argument than their own feeble versions of "common sense," while repeatedly ignoring a huge and ever-growing body of evidence supporting its legitimacy? ? Kevin P. White, M.D., Ph.D., Rheumatologist and Epidemiologist The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
- Bertrand Russell The apparently disinterested CDC essentially turned its back on the devastation in Incline Village and elsewhere. On a name change petition, Hillary J. Johnson, author of Osler's Web, commented that the name "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" was selected ?by a small group of politically motivated and/or poorly informed scientists and doctors who were vastly more concerned about costs to insurance companies and the Social Security Administration than about public health. Their deliberate intention ?? based on the correspondence they exchanged over a period of months ?? was to obfuscate the nature of the disease by placing it in the realm of the psychiatric rather than the organic. The harm they have caused is surely one of the great tragedies of medicine. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and Other Invisible Illnesses, Katrina Berne, Ph.D., page 10
Same book, page 13, David Bell, M.D., considers the word "fatigue" inappropriate since it is defined as a response to exertion that is relieved by rest, whereas CFS "fatigue" may result from little or no exertion and is not substantially relieved by rest. ...The CDC agreed to study the matter [of a name change] but later announced that the adoption of a new name is premature. In a catch-22, the present name trivializes the illness, thereby discouraging the research funding needed to uncover the pathophysiology of the disorder, which would help determine a more accurate name.
That's a foot problem? I've heard the condition is very painful, but I know nothing about it.
Dianne
It's tendonitis which goes from you heel to the underside of your arch. I had it a few years ago and the only way to really get rid of it is to stretch it constantly and roll the feet over a juice bottle full of water and then frozen in the freezer. Just roll the foot back and forth for 20 minutes about ten times a day and stretch and stay off of it. Very painful.
Is that a rhetorical question?
Thou doth protest tooooooo much.
Duh! Like that's a surprise. Ruby
I tottaly agree with you lucille ,,, It should be written on your file, he should have read it and still asked you. But if he didn`t ask and you noted he prescribed you a medicine You are allergic to, you Have to tell him , and he should have Listened and reread your chart....if not it means he is Irresponsible, and dangerous for you. The fact that he sees so many patients DOESN~T free him of it . mirjam
The only thing that fascinates me about "Poor Karen" is that she ALWAYS seems to be the victim. If anthing can go wrong - it does. If there`s a wrong decision to be made or an error to be made - it`s ALWAYS down to someone else`s shortcoming. You`d think that there was a "get Karen" campaign going on. Frankly it would make you terrified of having to receive medical treatment in America, and I can`t believe that THAT`S true!
Pat P
There *are* people who fall through the cracks. I'm sure that happens in your country as well as ours. I mentioned in an earlier post that my husband was denied care because his neurologist said he was faking, and I have the transcript to prove what he said and the diagnosis he made. He flatly lied, even though tests proved what my husband had - as primitive a diagnosis as it was at that time. It wasn't until my husband lost his eyesight and he sought out the Kellogg Center for eye diseases that he learned his diagnosis: MS.
It's not always easy and not everyone has the wherewithall to search the country for doctors. And even if you do, you may not find one that has the answer you are looking for. You can try to take charge, but that's all one can do: try. Medical science is complicated and often doesn't have answers to our questions. Often times doctors disagree about diagnosis or treatment. With all the medical language to sift through, it's difficult for a lay person to sort through it all. It also depends upon even knowing what specialist to go to. Or what your insurance will cover. I can't imagine what it must be like for someone to be suffering horribly and not have answers nor insurance to help you get those answers.
I think it's terrible that Karen is being singled out and talked about here as if she didn't exist. If her posts bore or bother you or anyone else here, it's a simple matter to ignore them. And it's the kind thing to do.
Dianne
Pat, it's not typical. I have always had good physicians who respected me and when there was the occasion with a new doctor who was disrespectful I left and never went back. Please don't look at this thinking the whole US has this, it certainly does not.
Dianne, your best resort is to killfile.
It seems it is their sport to kick Karen, school yard bullying at it's worst. OTOH it is ok for Caryn to bore everyone to death with details of her long lists of medications, illnesses etc. for Vic to relate all her medical history, for Pat to tell us how she knows a woman who copes far better than Karen - etc etc. all of which they do over and over again, seemingly not seeing they accuse Karen of doing that !
If it was not so unkind, it would be hilariously funny, some sort of farce !
But it`s very peculiar that the same person falls through all the cracks, don`t you think? I`d happily ignore her (I have her killfiled) but if there was some way of preventing her posts coming through as part of other people`s replies, I`ve yet to find it!
Pat P
As I said - I CAN`T believe it`s true!
Pat P
Thanks Sheena. This really needed saying. I guess there's no end to the misery some people can inflict on others and they don't seem to understand the concept of "enough is enough."
Everyone doesn't have to love each other, but it would be so nice if they at least respected each other.
Lucille
It is awfully hard to ignore her when she won't shut up.
Caryn
At the same time, our system is not without significant flaws. We have a lot of competing demands placed on doctors, and we have a lot of forces in our system that create a situation in which nearly 100,000 people a year are estimated to die
*in hospitals* as a result of medical errors. Nearly 7,000 people per year die from medication errors (not patient errors such as taking a properly prescribed medication incorrectly, but errors on the part of the prescribing physician or the pharmacist). That makes medical errors the eighth leading cause of death in the US. It is estimated that the cost of medical errors is over $37 billion, and around $17 billion of that is from preventable errors. We're never going to have a perfect system where there are no medical errors. People are not perfect. However, a substantial portion of these errors *are* preventable. They exist because of poor procedures and lack of will to replace them with more robust procedures. It's not just a matter of "bad" people in the system (though, as with any other profession, there are some bad apples). It's simply that the way the system is constructed, there are competing pressures that guide the actions of those operating within the system in ways that make errors more likely. And that's long *before* we get to the issue of problems due not to mistakes, but to policy (e.g., treatment protocols contrary to best practices due to economic or legal concerns, etc.). So, it's hardly surprising that there are people who have a difficult time navigating the system successfully, especially those with a condition that is not well understood by many for for which there is not a consensus on etiology and treatment.Best wishes, Ericka
Killfile based on content words for the types of posts you find objectionable. Don't like the stuff about CFS? Then killfile posts with that term in them. It's unlikely you'll miss too much that's on topic. Or does your software not killfile based on content of the message itself?
Best wishes, Ericka
The other one that you left out, is the occurrence of infections that are rife in any hospital now.
I think it is because those in contact with patients all wear gloves, so they do not wash as they once used to. A friend just had a severe stroke and now, just as he was trying to claw his way back, he is laid low with the Norwalk Virus.
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