<...taking Lithium and Respiradone immediately to help with my
aggressivity and
irritability problem... Unbelieveable!>
Ruth, thank you for sharing your story. I am now compelled to share
mine. After years of feeling really terrible, losing cognitive capacity
to the point of fearing having to quit my job as a statistician, I
finally went out of my faithful, responsible, inadequate medical clinic
and went to Doc Don.
Seven months later, I feel better than I have in years with reasonable
treatment, but as I shared with Doc, I had real trepidation about
talking to any of the old guard again for fear of challenges to my
"unorthodox treatment"....i.e. I feel better but not on their terms.
This month was my annual gynecological exam. This particular doctor
(who I have respected and honored for good reason for many years) had
told me a year ago that perhaps in order to solve my horrendous PMS,
menstrual cycle panic attacks, horrible painful cycles, and migraines
that we should induce menopause. Fortunately for me, I decided to seek
treatment elsewhere. For the first time, I thought that she might just
not understand my particular medical problem.
Anyway, in looking at my medication list (time release T3, estrogen,
progesterone and cortisone --which she hadn't prescribed) she went on
the defensive as soon as she breezed in the door. "This is not standard
protocol, you realize.... And just where did you find this doctor?"
When I told her that the cognitive problems were effecting my job she
said that many women have problems with memory at my age, and they learn
to make a joke of it. "Why would you go to such extremes?" Why indeed.
I asked her what she would do if suddenly after years of being a
competent doctor, a medical condition that was being inadequately
treated was suddenly imparing her ability to think like the doctor she
knew she could be. She didn't have much to say to that.
When I pointed out that I was feeling better than I had in years, her
response was to say that placebo effect can be very powerful.
When I pointed out later that along with the disappearance of emotional
symptoms, my hair had stopped falling out, my skin had stopped cracking
and my fingernails were no longer painful and fragile (not necessarily
placebo type responses), she responded that pre-menopause is a dynamic
point in life and that it can cause my endocrine system to all change in
a heartbeat anyway. She went on to say that she can't WAIT to hear what
I say in a year, because this will all probably become ineffective very
soon.
Since I had spent the summer reading medical books on thyroid and the
endocrine system in general, I asked her a number of questions about the
relationship between thyroid and the female hormones. It became clear
that I knew a heck of a lot more about all of this than she did.
Finally, she flipped through my chart, looking over my past history.
"Well", she said, "you do have a pretty complicated history. I can see
where you might need to look at things in a less than conventional
manner." In my opinion, the battle was won but not the war. I came
home shaking and crying for about an hour.
Anyway, I am sharing to cathart with a group that understands but also
because I feel that it is important for all of us to remember that we
will always be our own advocates, and often our only advocates.
Sometimes I get really terrified at what my future holds as I get to my
mother's age, and have less gumption and sharp-wittedness to hold my own
against young, snippy, arrogant doctors. Let's hope we are well on our
way to educating the profession, painful for us though it may be,
whether they want to be or not. Do we have any other choice?
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