Don't believe everything to what doctors say

[GoingThere]

As I am a very deductive person consequently I often embarrass doctors with my question or/and arguments.
Well my last experience confirmed that the most important person who is in charge for your health is yourself.
If I would repeat my last lab test on Friday instead on Thursday, no one would spot mild rejection who is in my opinion residual from first infection. On Friday creat went down for 0.4 and doctors would simply assign this to dehydration. So please use your common sense, demand explanations.
I feel sorry for elderly people who are afraid to confront doctors as they see them as Gods in white.

Uros

[MooseMom]

I guess I am very lucky because I've never felt the need to "confront" any doctor.  Out of all of the docs I've encountered during this renal "journey" (blech), there was only one who was an egotistical ass, and I just giggled as he talked.  I didn't need anything from him but a signature, anyway.  I've had quite a few docs tell me that they were very impressed with how educated and pro-active I was.  No one has treated me as they would a child.  I guess I always go in with the attitude that I am the captain of this particular ship, and perhaps that attitude radiates something that the docs don't think to diminish.

I think of my medical team as, well, a team, not as the enemy.  They consult me as much as I consult them.  It works for me.

[Gerald Lively]

Early on in my dialysis experience, I took control.  I encountered nurses that took too much water, had excuses for exery uncomfortable twitch and irregularity.  I read everything I could find on dialysis because - after all - it was my body.  After eight months on the blood sucking machine, I demanded a retest.  There was much resistence.

Did the blood and urine thing and the doctor came around after a period of silence, I demanded the results. He said, "You can go home if you wish!".  I unhooked and vowed to never return. Now and then I stop by and visit the old timers whose lives are forever determined by a schedule of three days a week on the machine and a disinterested nurse.

gl

[Speedy1wrc]

The taking control of your own health should be at the top of everyone's to do list.

I have had more inept and/or disinterested Dr's than I can count. I lost my kidney's in the first place due to a "bad" Dr. Then throughout this whole ordeal it's been one mistake after another including losing my transplanted pancreas to another screw up. I used to be insistent on being involved in my care but now I am even more insistent and I try to be even more informed.

Before any Dr visit or hospital stay I print out my full history and medication list. It includes formal and generic name's of the drugs. The dose, frequency and time. And almost 100% of the time when the first rounds of med's comes, they have something wrong. I've had outright mistakes and other less subtle issues. And inevitably the nurses get angry if you try to tell them there is indeed a mistake. The most infuriating thing is when a Dr you've never heard of or have even met for that matter makes changes from a desk several floors away.

When you mention arguing with Dr's, it gets me when an internist fresh out of school tries to explain diabetes to me. I've had diabetes for more years than most of them are old. And yet they choose to challenge what I've experienced for over 40 years with what they learned in one seminar of medical school. Angering.

I too wonder how those with less cognicence manage to stay alive. For every mistake in medication or treatment I catch, I cringe at those poor souls who don't catch the gross errors. I even go so far as to when I am having some procedure done where I may be loopy for an extended period of time to provide all that same information to whoever will be visiting me to make sure they keep watch over me just in case.

[MooseMom]

A few months ago, I had to be admitted to hospital because of neutropenia.  It was first and only serious malady post-tx (for now, at least), and because of some weird insurance proviso in my HMO, I had to be seen by some young doc that I'd never met.  I am always acutely aware whenever I see a doc who is not a nephrologist that s/he is not an expert in renal disease or renal transplantation.  The first words out of my mouth upon meeting her/him is, "This is my condition, this is my situation...do you feel comfortable in treating me?"  Maybe that's a weird thing to say, but most docs seem to appreciate it.  I think it makes them feel that I don't expect them to know everything, and that that's OK.  It makes them less defensive.  But, that's just my own experience.

[Riki]

I probably wouldn't think of my medical team as "the enemy" if they didn't act that way.  If they included me in decision making and didn't outright lie to me about things, I might feel differently.

I like my current nephrologist, though I do know that he's only been a nephrologist for about 5 years.  I can stump him. *L*  There have been a few times when I've asked him a question, and he'd get this blank look on his face and say, "I'll do some research and get back to you on that." *L*

[MaryD]

I don't mind a doctor (or nurse) occasionally being floored by a question, if they can admit it.  I have more faith in what they do advise, if I have previously asked a curly question and they have bothered to say they'll have to check it out.

[Riki]

no, it doesn't bother me, I just think it's funny.. one of the reasons I like the guy, as opposed to my family doctor, is that he doesn't pretend to know it all.

There's 2 nephrologists that look after my unit and one of them was around a few weeks ago, and I told him how I thought I might be going through the change of life early.  He asked me to describe what was going on, so I did, and he seemed incredibly uncomfortable with it all.  The nurse that was with him was trying not to laugh, and so was I.

My new favorite saying is "the funniest way to make a man of science trip over his words is to tell him about your lack of a menstrual cycle."  *LOL*

[sullidog]

I love my doctors but I do take control of my care, the only dr. I'm not looking forward to is my post transplant neph which I won't start seeing until my surgeon releases me from his care. I met him pretransplant and I wasn't impressed as he told me that I must of been sick as a kid, uh no I wasn't, and how can he judge me. Let's just say it kind of made him mad when I told him that I was a very healthy child.