So I met with a doctor at the UW clinic in Northgate and I was super optimistic about being proactive in finding the cause of my chronic pain and fatigue, and then find the right treatment. I was prepared for the multiple specialists visits, the copays, the waiting game.
I didn't go into the first appointing with hopes of a miracle answer day one. I wanted to just meet the doctor, feel her out, give her some of the complaints and ask her where we should proceed from there. During this time, not only was I having chronic back pain that began to prevent me from doing the best at my job and affecting my sleep, I also began to have heavy and excruciatingly painful periods that were lasting 1-2 months at a time! I went from having 3-4 periods per year since it all started at 13, to being 30 and almost bleeding constantly with maybe a full week of respite between if I was lucky. So, we set up a wellness exam to begin with.
When I came back for the wellness exam, the periods were still killing me and I really wanted to get my blood tested to check my overall health. I was convinced that I was developing type 2 diabetes due to being so overweight, and I wanted to check everything that I could to get some answers. In hindsight I can see that my demands were a little all over the place and I just don't think that this young doctor had the experience in her belt to guide someone like me. She also wanted to do a pelvic exam at that visit, but I was so uncomfortable that I asked to just get a referral to a gyno. I did get a flu shot and updated my vaccines though!
After a long wait, I finally got an appointment at Rheumatologist to try to get some once and for all answers. Unfortunately I was not aware that it was going to be yet another, even younger, and male student doctor. His bedside manner was atrocious. He was short and thin and I could tell he immediately just focused on my weight. He listened absentmindedly to my history of do I or don't I have Lupus or some similar autoimmune. He asked me the same questions that even a generic google search could have come up with. Do I have light sensitivity? Where does it hurt? Have I ever had a urinalysis with protein spills? blah blah. Then he said that based on what I've said and answered, he doesn't believe that I have Lupus and isn't going to order any tests. He stood up and said he wanted to test something. He said he was going to press on some pressure points and I was to tell him if it hurts or was tender there. Every spot hurt. It both hurt and felt some kind of relief by being pressed, like the good pain of a massage.
He excused himself from the room, and I was fuming mad. I felt like he just dismissed me completely. I didn't necessarily hope to have Lupus or another AI, what I hoped for was a doctor who listened to me, who explained things without dismissing me, and who was proactive in finding what was the actual cause of the pain. I sat there just allowing myself to get more and more angry, rather than calming myself down in order to speak up.
He came back with an older male doctor who said he was his supervising doctor. That's when I realized that I was dealing with a n00b and it turned my anger from red to crimson. The older doctor just repeated what the younger one had said and then said that based on the pressure point exam, I have Fibromyalgia and they handed me a one page printout on what that means. Then they sent me home. No explanation of Fibromyalgia, no advice on how to deal with it, nothing at all about where to go from there. The print out basically told me that Fibromyalgia is a disorder that can't be tested for other than being pressed on and is determined by the doctor based on opinion. It also informed me that Fibromyalgia is often diagnosed when there just isn't any other explanation for the pain but that a certain percentage of the pressure points trigger pain when pressed. And the only treatment for Fibromyalgia was antidepressants, the one that I quit taking.
I remember sitting in my car thinking, That's it? That's the answer? I had a hard time accepting that Fibromyalgia explained everything based on how dismissive the doctors were with what I was actually saying, how little information they got from me before just deciding I have Fibromyalgia, and my gut just told me that it was wrong. I still don't know if it was a true diagnosis or not.
Shortly after that appointment, I had my gyno appointment. I was so thrilled that it was a woman. I told her about my menstrual experience and also mentioned that I was concerned that it could be PCOS. I had been watching My Big Fat Fabulous Life on TLC and I had so much in common with Whitney's body and health issues. I could sense immediately that the gyno had inwardly rolled her eyes. I told her my symptoms that made me think that it was a possibility. She performed a pelvic exam, took a biopsy sample, swabbed for STD testing (because I asked), and talked me into getting a Mirena IUD with the promise that it would stop my heavy and irregular bleeding as well as being a birth control method. I trusted her, even though it wasn't what I was coming in for. But I desperately wanted the bleeding to stop, so I went for it. She told me it was super easy, she could do it right then and it may only cramp for a day or so afterward. I didn't feel anything at all when it was inserted and got up and walked out feeling like a woman in charge of her own body!
I'll continue this series on my health journey next week.
xoxo Sheri
