Posted by Adam on August 8, 2001, at 19:11:56
In reply to Re: I may need help...., posted by Lorraine on August 8, 2001, at 12:47:30
Hey, Lorraine,
OK, let me come clean with this: I sometimes just get like I got in the posts far above in this thread. I just do. I don't know why, and have given up trying to figure it out. Something weird and distressing gets thrown my way, and Adam's little brain goes into hyper-overdrive. Now, that's not to say that I didn't experience every symptom that I described above. It's also not to say that I'm a complete lunatic for worrying about the possible diagnoses that I worried about; my rather infuriating cluster of non-specific symptoms falls quite neatly into the profile of numerous ailments. It's just that I never had anything even remotely like this before.
So I got scared, and started thinking in rather catastrophic terms. Not delusional terms, mind you, but certainly not optimistic or measured ones. As it is, I've been given the standard battery of tests, and they've all been negative. I must concede that while my symptoms could be associated with, say, FMS, MS, or Lyme, nothing screamed out a particular disease before, and the tests may have adequately ruled out my initial concerns.
Something is wrong, there's no question in my mind. But, I've managed to get almost used to it at this point, so my anxiety level is ratcheting itself down a bit; but kudos to my new primary care doc; I got all the tests I asked for since then.
Much to my suprise, it's my primary care doc who is my big hero so far. I rather thought, as I scrambled to find a new PCP when this all began, that it would be the internal med. folks who would be brushing me off, and the psych folks would be pushing for me. I was right to anticipate the psychosommatic angle, just wrong about who would be advocating for it.
So lets give a big hand to my new PCP: After he got to know me, he believed in my conviction that there was something physically wrong. He took my concerns about some illnesses seriously. He was frank in his assessment that the symptoms I had could be any number of possible ailments, but agreed with me that my concerns were reasonable to a certain degree, and felt we should order certain tests, if for no other reason but to exclude spurious candidates. He has shown remarkable patience, persistance, and clearly has enough of a sense of bedside manner to deal shrewdly with a pugilistic worry-wort such as myself. Plus, he, without simply caving in, recognized I am someone with a modicum of intelligence, and, despite his own doubts, also took seriously my own hypotheses, for the very fact that I knew my symptoms and might just be right. This is all I could ever hope to ask for.
Now, what to do about the pdoc...she's not so bad most of the time, and I guess I should at least be willing, if my search proves fruitless, to go it her way. I just fundamentally disagree with her sense of timing and rather narrow focus on the psychological. So, again, what to do...I guess I should determine if she is wrong or right before I make that decision.
> A couple of comments:
>
> First, when doctors accuse the patient of being a hypochondriac, it just means that the doctors don't know what the problem is, and, being doctors, the fault must lie elsewhere--with the patient. So it is your fault that they don't know what is wrong with you. Sweet, huh?
>
> Second, with the type of illness you are describing--Lyme disease, CFS, FMS etc you need a particular type of doctor. One who isn't a skeptic. You need a doctor who specializes in these types of conditions. If you can find a CFS or FMS doctor in your area, they will be able to do the type of testing necessary to determine what is going on. You might want to visit the site beatcfsandfms.com or it might be beatfmsandcfs.com or maybe .org. anyway it is a great site and will help put you on track.
>
> I've been on Selegiline and doubt your symptoms have to do with this, but I'm not a doctor.
poster:Adam
thread:69963
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010804/msgs/74235.html