Tag: Doctors

Decisions, Decisions, Part II: Changing Doctors

Published on by Bubbles in the BrainLeave a comment

If your doctor dresses in a Renaissance plague mask, it might be time to consider a change.

To most, changing your doctor might not seem like a significant decision. However, when you have an illness that is pretty much guaranteed to haunt you long-term, your specialist is one of the most important people in your life. You rely on them for the overarching framework of your day-to-day treatment, and for the major things – operations, significant medication – that will ultimately steer your health journey. With endometriosis in particular, you have to talk to them about some deeply personal stuff – everything from your family planning to the sensations in, well, personal areas. At some point, they will almost certainly ask to conduct a fairly invasive examination of said areas. You want this person to be someone you trust. You want them to listen to you, believe you, and help you.

But what if they don’t? What if your specialist, whom you have trusted with your pain and probably your resultant heartache, is dismissive, insensitive or rude? What if they simply have run out of ideas? When do you say, “enough is enough” and decide to switch?

These are some of the important questions to consider when making your decision.

1) Are there others in the area?

This is less of an issue for those in populous, well-resourced cities, where specialists abound. However, in smaller towns or remote areas, your next closest specialist could be anything from a few hours to over a day’s drive away. Can you commit to travelling that distance for appointments? If you can, by all means, crack on. If it is more challenging for you logistically, you will need to weigh the issues with your current specialist against the issues with physically getting to the new one.

If you can travel, it can be worth it. Good specialists often congregate where there is high demand for their skills. To see one of my specialists, I travelled three to four hours each way (including post-op). To see my current specialist in person, I travel to the UK (although I’ve only done that once and he kindly consults by Skype). Whilst travelling halfway around the world is admittedly extreme, for me it has been worth it, because I couldn’t be happier with Dr Edi-Osagie. Even the three-hour journey for my previous specialist was worth it at first, because the quality of care I was receiving was significantly better than I felt I was getting closer to home.

2) Can you afford it?

Some specialists are cheaper than others. Some have a huge up-front cost but a lower ongoing cost, whilst others have a reasonably low cost for their initial appointment but higher costs overall. Some insist on an initial scan, at additional cost. With others, you may have to factor in additional travel costs.

3) What is prompting the change? Can a new doctor do more?

I’ve changed specialists three times. The first time, I lost confidence in her ability to do anything to help me. The second time, I felt like he didn’t believe me when I described the severity of my pain. The third time, he seemed too fixated on the idea of pregnancy as a cure, even whilst acknowledging it was a temporary fix at best, and it was clear our ideas about acceptable quality of life were not the same. With each doctor, I left the appointments feeling hopeless and a bit worthless, like it was my fault that I had this pain.

When the problem is a values clash, as with my second and third doctors, I think that changing specialists (all else being equal) is a straightforward decision. Life with endometriosis varies from hard to downright horrific. Enduring it is difficult even with everyone on your side. It is borderline impossible when the person who is supposed to be treating you gaslights and undermines you instead.

It’s more complex if your specialist can’t help you reduce your pain. It might be that they have reached the upper limits of their own knowledge, and another specialist could have new ideas or greater expertise. Alternatively, it might be that your disease has simply reached a stage where conventional medical treatment simply cannot assist you. This is an important distinction and one you should have with your doctor. If they are honest and have integrity, they’ll be able to tell you whether someone else can help where they can’t. It might still be worth getting a second opinion, especially if your relationship with your specialist isn’t that good or you feel that they are offended by the question.

Likewise, it is important to check out your specialist’s qualifications. If they are a fertility specialist first and deal with an endometriosis as a consequence of that, you may be able to get more advanced treatment from someone who focuses entirely on endo. If your surgeon has only tried ablation, it could be that excision is what you need. However, if you are already seeing someone at the top of the game, it could be that you have just run into the barrier of awfulness that is severe endometriosis.

4) What else can you do?

This question can mean “are there alternatives?” or it can mean “are there things I can do as well as change doctor?”

Alternatives may be explaining to your doctor how they have made you feel, if you think they will be open to changing.  It may mean staying with your primary doctor but seeking a second opinion, just to be safe.

Additions may mean making a complaint about your doctor to AHPRA, making a complaint to their practice, or commencing legal action against them.  I do not recommend taking to facebook or anywhere else and complaining about them to the general public.  It is far too easy to find yourself smacked with a defamation case by doing that, and that is the last thing you need.

If you do intend to sue your doctor for personal injury (if they’ve caused an injury, that is) please be aware that there are very strict time limits on your ability to do so, so get yourself to a lawyer ASAP for advice on your prospects.

 

Have you had a bad experience with a doctor that made you change to someone else?  Were there any limiting factors on your decision?  Let me know in the comments!

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Sorry for Being a Slacker

Published on by Bubbles in the Brain1 Comment

Hello, gentle reader.  I apologise for the lack of posts of late.  Like most people with a compromised immune system during flu season, I have managed to acquire myself my very own pet illness.

Thankfully, in this case, it isn’t flu.  It was a cold, and then it turned into another sinus infection, and it has just stayed that way for two weeks.  I anticipate that I will get at least one more before we kiss August goodbye, and I would not be surprised if I get multiple between now and then.

The super fun part of the infection, you’ll be surprised to learn, has not been the horrifically sore, swollen throat, the aching in my face that feels like goblins are trying to shove my eyes out of my sockets, or even the crushing exhaustion (I’m kind of used to that anyway).  It hasn’t even been the joint aches.

It’s been yet another disappointing encounter with a doctor.

I used to see this wonderful doctor at my local bulk-billing place who has consistently fixed every problem I have taken to him.  I trust him deeply.  Unfortunately, he only sees patients on a walk-in basis now, and I needed to actually book in.  I saw one doctor who is quite nice and who gave me the good antibiotics, but a week later I was still sick and getting worse so I went and saw another dude because the first doctor wasn’t available.

That doctor prescribed me weaker antibiotics, told me to use a treatment my favourite doctor had specifically told me was not beneficial and was possibly harmful, and then:-

  1. Said, “You don’t want a hysterectomy, we won’t do that for you” (I do want one);
  2. Told me there’s no need to go to the UK for a doctor because we have plenty of good ones here;
  3. Recommended a doctor who previously told me I couldn’t possibly have endometriosis so soon after my first surgery (I did);
  4. Told me that if my Australian specialist had refused to perform TPPE (he didn’t even know what it was) that’s because the surgeon knew what was best for me;

and just generally did his best to make me feel guilty about taking my medical care into my own hands with absolutely no understanding of what it took to do so.  Ok, that’s unfair – he was trying to be thorough and ensure that I was seeing someone for my endo – but he was unintentionally extremely condescending and made me feel like I had to defend my choices to change doctors and go to the UK to get surgery I literally could not get in Australia.

It’s another lesson in “if you don’t know the full story, stop judging.”

Yesterday I got sick of the weaker antibiotics not working and my sickness continuing to worsen, so I went as a walk-in and saw my favourite doctor.  He gave me the good stuff again.

Thank goodness for the good doctors.  Boo to the bad ones.

Dear Ella: What I Wish You Knew

Published on by Bubbles in the Brain3 Comments

It was June 2016 that I was first diagnosed with endometriosis. Since then I have learned a lot of things that I desperately wish I could go back and tell that young woman. If I could, these are some of the things I’d really want her to know. Some of them are personal to me, but most of them have fairly general applicability.

1) Don’t go to that doctor

I had no idea back then that there were different types of gynaecological specialities. I thought it was all much of a muchness. I was originally diagnosed and operated on by a fertility specialist. Whilst she knew about endometriosis, as any gynaecologist should, endometriosis was not her primary area. I don’t know if my increase in suffering after that operation was due to a lack of knowledge and skill on her part, her preference for surgery rather than attempting to manage the condition with medication first, or simply something that would have happened regardless of who I saw. Whichever, I wish I’d seen someone else, because when the problems arose, she was stumped and essentially told me she had no idea how to help me. Which leads me to…

2) Don’t have the surgery

I honestly thought I’d tried every medication I could to reduce my period pain and that surgery was the only option open to me now (an illusion that the abovementioned doctor did nothing to dispel). Whilst surgery is incredibly useful for many people, it was devastating for me and I wish I had been given other alternatives to at least try.

3) Find a doctor that you can trust

I don’t know if I could have done anything about this sooner than I did, because it took a while for me to realise each medical relationship wasn’t working, but I wish I had been with Dr Edi-Osagie from the start. I have yet to present a problem that he hasn’t been willing to try and beat or said something he hasn’t listened to. Previous doctors have either been stumped by my issues or decided that they’ve given me sufficient quality of life and I just need to be satisfied with that. I’m not, and neither is Dr Edi-Osagie. I trust him, and that’s a big deal.

4) Trust yourself more

Endometriosis is one of those diseases that plays tricks on your mind. There’s few visible symptoms, and people around you question and downplay your pain. This makes it very easy to doubt what you are feeling and convince yourself that you are wrong about the severity of your pain and the appropriateness of your reaction to it. The gaslighting effect is horrible and I think it causes delays in getting effective treatment. If I had had more trust in myself, I may not have had a better medical outcome, but I would have been a lot happier.

5) Be prepared for physical changes

I’ve been really struggling with body image (again) lately. Being in menopause has me putting on weight even though I’m exercising regularly and eating well (and yes, my caloric output exceeds my input by a decent margin). Between that and the swelling, I feel a bit like a pig, only without their body confidence and contentment. I wish I could brace my old self for those changes and revel in the body I had while I had it. Not just for looks, too – I’d take it for more runs just to feel the power in my legs, and lift more weights to experience that satisfying burn in my arms.

6) Do your research in the right places

Scouring WebMD for the clinical definition of endo doesn’t prepare you for what it is actually like. Even the list of symptoms is not exhaustive, and some website actually provide complete misinformation (the most common being that pregnancy or hysterectomy will cure you). The best source of information I have ever found is my local endo support group. I have learned so much from them and I should have joined and engaged the second I was diagnosed, checked if I was seeing the right doctor and being given accurate advice, and built connections with women who could help me.

7) Do better record-keeping

This is still something I could improve upon. Record-keeping on both a micro and macro level is really useful. By macro I mean having all your medical records collated and a timeline of major events (diagnoses, procedures, dates of starting and stopping medication). This makes it super easy for you and your doctors to review your history at a glance. By micro, I mean tracking your food, sleep, stress, exercise, mood and pain. This helps alert you to trends and triggers, which teaches you how to help yourself better by avoiding stuff that hurts and engaging in stuff that helps.

8) Understand that your life will change

The biggest thing I was unprepared for was how much I wouldn’t be able to do. I took it for granted that I could sit at a desk for hours at a time, walk 5km and then eat a garlicky meal with onions and beans. I took it for granted that I could shower at the end of a long day. Never did I think I’d become an occasional wheelchair user. I thought I’d be diagnosed, cured, and that was that. In fact…

9) Realise that a diagnosis is just the beginning

If you get a diagnosis and if that diagnosis is confirmed, that is not the beginning of the end. It is not as simple, sadly, as problem then solution. It is problem then several attempts at solutions and then many sub-problems, all requiring different solutions, some of which are in conflict with each other. It is not a simple journey, and while a diagnosis offers some hope, it is not a fait accompli from thereon out. I want to go back and seriously manage 25-year-old me’s expectations.

However…

10) A diagnosis is not the end

I cried the day I was diagnosed. It is scary being told that you have a disease that you didn’t know was there, even if you expected it. It is even scarier realising that you have it for life. I cannot properly convey the enormity of that. It’s not the end, though. Life may be very, very different after a diagnosis, and it may well be harder, but you also learn a lot of things about love, true friendship, your own abilities and limits, and weird medical facts. You have to change your life in a hundred annoying ways, but it does become the new normal and you learn to live with the differences. Endo is chronic but not terminal. While there’s life, there’s hope.

What do you wish you could say to your younger, pre-diagnosis self? Would you do anything differently?

The Selfishness of the Sick

Published on by Bubbles in the Brain1 Comment

There’s a weird thing that you experience when you’re chronically ill that you just don’t feel when you are healthy.  That’s the sensation of feeling selfish for wanting to be healthy.

I’ll try and explain.

When you have a cold that won’t go away and its really bad, you go and see the doctor, because you expect, quite rightly, that a cold should clear up.  After all, healthy is your normal state and it is to that state that you would like to return.  You don’t feel selfish for wanting to be healthy again, and that is absolutely as it should be.  The doctor doesn’t imply that you should just learn to deal with being sick better, or suggest that maybe you should just settle for a less bad cold than what you have because after all, it could be worse.  They listen, they give you your antibiotics, and you generally don’t leave feeling that you are being silently judged for wanting to be rid of your cold.

However, when you are chronically ill, it’s a bit different.  First of all there is the adjustment stage, where you have to learn to accept the fact that you will never be healthy in its true sense again.  That’s a topic for another post, because it really deserves a proper article.  Even when you’ve adjusted your own expectations, though, you have to deal with the expectations of the medical profession.

When it comes to endometriosis, a lot of doctors (not all, but too many) leave you feeling like you are asking for too much.  Hospitals are the worst at this – they just want to get you to a point where they can turf you back out with a pocket full of endone and not be their problem anymore.  Contrary to what you see on House or Scrubs, there is rarely any follow-up, insistence on solving the problem or finding a miracle cure.  Hospitals won’t keep you til the pain has reduced enough for you to walk easily or return to work.  They just wait for you to say that the pain seems to be reducing slightly, and you’re gone.  I know that hospitals are underfunded and understaffed, but it really makes you feel like a massive burden rather than someone with a right to health, or even a life without constant pain.

Private gynaecologists don’t have that excuse, but they do it too.  I’ve been told that I should expect to live the rest of my life with a base level of pain at 4/10 every single day.  At my last gynaecologist, I raised an ongoing issue that was causing me pain and inconvenience and he just seemed utterly uninterested.  After all, I could walk, couldn’t I?  What is worst for me is the silent undercurrent that seems to say “Why can’t you settle for what you have?  Why isn’t this good enough for you?”  It makes you feel naive and worst of all, selfish.

It isn’t enough for me, though.  I’ve had a great experience lately with Zoladex, a subcutaneous implant that dissolves over time and puts you into artificial menopause.  It has effectively ended a three-month flareup during which I could barely work.  At my last consult with him, Dr Edi-Osagie asked me if simply staying on the implant and avoiding surgery was an option for me.

I did seriously consider it, but in the end, I decided to pursue surgery anyway.  This is for a few reasons:-

  1. Zoladex has been a big improvement on where I was, but my quality of life is still nowhere near what it was prior to my first surgery;
  2. As long as I’m on it, I can’t conceive, and whilst I’m not in any rush to have a baby I do want the option;
  3. If the surgery is successful, I can come off all of the artificial hormones I’m on and let my body go back to normal, which is something I haven’t had in ten years;
  4. Zoladex and the accompanying hormone replacement therapy is expensive (about $160 a month for both);
  5. Being in menopause does have some not-so-great side effects, such as hot flushes, an increase in peach fuzz all over my face, and messed up sleep patterns;
  6. If I don’t take the opportunity to have this surgery, I may never have the chance again, and I will regret that forever.

I felt rude, assertive, guilty and incredibly selfish saying to Dr Edi-Osagie that near enough just wasn’t good enough for me.  However, he acknowledged my concerns and was so supportive of my decision, just as he was in my first consult.  I cannot recommend him highly enough.

It is really hard, asking for more.  Previously being beaten down by the health profession and being socialised as a woman against being assertive, which society reads as bad and bossy, as well as against being selfish, makes it really hard.  Women are taught to be passive and self-sacrificing, and sick people are told to be patient and grateful for what we have.  However, the risk has totally paid off for me.  Even if this surgery achieves nothing, I can fall back on the Zoladex, something I wouldn’t have if I had settled for my previous gynae’s advice, just like I wouldn’t have had the improvements in my health that he gave me if I had stuck with the advice of the two before him.  I now have a specialist who is supportive, validating and proactive.

So, if I can give one piece of advice, it is this: be selfish.  Ask for more.  You should not have to settle for “good enough” when it comes to your health.  In the end, you may have to, but don’t stop trying as long as you have the resources to do so.  It is your health.  It is your quality of life.  You are allowed to be “selfish”.

The Stages of Endometriosis

Published on by Bubbles in the BrainLeave a comment

If you’ve just been diagnosed with endometriosis, you may have been given a number along with it.  That’s because, broadly speaking, endometriosis can be categorised into four different stages, conveniently if unimaginatively labelled Stages 1 – 4.  It’s a system first used in America that is now recognised internationally.

I’ll explain what these stages are in just a sec, but first I want to highlight the most important thing about these stages –  THEY ARE NOT AN INDICATOR OF HOW BAD YOUR SYMPTOMS ARE.  I’m normally the first to complain about doctors dismissing you, but if a doctor says that you only have Stage One endometriosis don’t see that as them saying your endometriosis isn’t bad.  I only have Stage 2 confirmed and Stage 3 suspected, but my pain can be absolutely crippling.  Others may have Stage 4 and have practically no symptoms.  Someone with only Stage One may be in far worse pain than me.  Endometriosis is a truly wacky disease that makes no sense whatsoever, but it is really important to remember that you should not measure your pain by what stage you are diagnosed as having.

What stage your endometriosis is at refers to two things:- the spread of the lesions over your organs, and the depth those lesions are embedded to.  It can also include the severity of any scarring or adhesion, both of which can cause additional pain without actually being endometriosis in the strictest sense.

A quick word on the lingo I’m going to use below:-

  • Adhesions – where two organs become stuck together.  This usually happens because there are rough patches on the organs so they can’t slide against each other like they should.  This is common after surgery or where something (like endo) changes the texture of the organs).
  • Scars – when bits of endometriosis are removed or die back, they can leave behind scarring.  This is another thing that can lead to adhesions because scars roughen the surfaces of the organs.
  • Lesions – the little lumps of endo.  I think of them almost like pimples, with a visible head and a body that may be either shallowly or deeply embedded into the lining of whatever they are on.

Stage One (aka minimal) endometriosis is characterised by little bits of endometriosis here and there with no or very few scars and adhesions.  Generally endometriosis at this stage is confined to only a few areas, usually only in the pelvic cavity rather than on other organs.  The endometriosis lesions are generally only shallowly embedded at this stage.

Stage Two (aka mild) endometriosis starts to get a little more dramatic, with endometriosis lesions spread over a wider area, including the ovaries and the back of the uterus rather than just the upper portion.  The lesions are still generally only shallowly embedded.  There may be some adhesions but generally all the organs will be moving relatively freely.

Stage Three (aka moderate) endometriosis takes a turn for the worse, with multiple bits of endometriosis spread over a wide variety of organs.  The lesions can be deeply embedded in the lining of the pelvic cavity and the organs, and there may be significant adhesions and scarring.

At Stage Four (aka severe), the organs may be warped and distended by the endometriosis and the fallopian tubes may be severely impacted.  Organs may be stuck together at multiple points or twisted.  The lesions are deeply embedded and running amok over whatever they can latch their evil little hands onto.  Organs may be seriously scarred.

Knowing what stage you are at can be handy purely to know where the endometriosis might be and what your organs might be looking like.  Mine are largely where they should be, moving against each other smoothly, and the right shape.  My last surgeon showed me some comparative pictures of some endometriosis at Stage 4 where the ovary was totally adhered the bowel and twisted around on itself.  It was messy.  There were really visible lesions everywhere and the whole thing just looked awful.  My insides looked quite neat and tidy by comparison.

However, it is important that you don’t define your endometriosis purely by its stage.  As I said above, the stage you are at is absolutely no indicator of the symptoms you may have or the level of pain you will endure.  Further, you may have endometriosis that doesn’t fit neatly into any category.  For example, mine is probably on my bowel as well as my uterus and my lesions are apparently relatively deep, both of which would indicate that I have Stage Four endometriosis.  However, I have no adhesions, the lesions are tiny and barely visible, and the stuff on my uterus is confined to a relatively small area, all of which are Stage Two characteristics.  These stages are not the be all and end all of endometriosis description.

Hopefully that goes some way to demystifying what these stages are (if, indeed, you were mystified by it).  What stage do you have?  Did your doctor explain to you what that meant?  Did they explain to you that it had no bearing on your symptoms and pain?  Let me know in the comments.