Going to the doctor can be hard. Especially if you don’t have a good relationship with your medical provider. But even if you do, it can be hard. It’s certainly easier when you can go in and answer “What brings you in today” with a clear and concise answer.
For instance:
“What brings you in today?”
“My left leg is bending at a weird angle in the middle of my shin. I think it might be broken.”
“What brings you in today?”
“I have a sore throat, fever, and a cough that has lasted more than five days without getting any better.”
“What brings you in today?”
“It feels/looks like a curtain is being drawn over my eye1.”
“What brings you in today?”
“I have been vomiting for three days straight and can’t keep anything down.”
Compare that with:
“What brings you in today?”
“I’m not really sure2, and I feel kind of silly because it’s probably not that big of a deal3, but there have just been a couple of things4 that I’d like you to check on. I’ve had this pain in my back that comes and goes and it never gets super acutely painful but it aches enough to make me cry sometimes. Also, I’m itchy all over. I don’t have any redness or rash or anything, I’m just itchy.”
“Is there anything else concerning you?”
“Well, now that you ask, I’m having a really hard time getting out of bed in the morning even after I’ve had more than 8 hours of sleep. And sometimes my quads will be tight as if it is about to cramp but it doesn’t actually cramp. And it will stay that way for days or even weeks on end, no matter how I try to make it go away.”
You see, I’ve had these sorts of conversations. You wanna know what comes next?
“Hmm….well, you do have depression. So it’s probably that. How much do you exercise?”
“Well, the pain in my back makes it kind of hard to exercise, and I’ve had a really hard time being consistent because by the time I get home from work I’m exhausted.”
“It’s really important for people with depression to make sure they exercise regularly. Just do your best to get in more cardio and strength training. Make sure you stretch adequately too. That could be causing the muscle soreness. How about you try that for six weeks and if you need to follow up then you can. It was nice seeing you5.”
“Um, yeah. It was nice seeing you too.”
Then, on my drive home, I go:
“Crap! I forgot to tell him about the bone aches at night. And the tension headache I keep getting every month. And that I kind of think I might have hypoglycemia. Well, I didn’t forget to tell him that, I just chickened out because I don’t want to be the kind of patient that rolls in having diagnosed themselves with whatever disorder is trending on social media that week6.”
A little later:
“Wait a minute, he didn’t say anything about the itchiness. And I don’t even know if the pain in my back is skeleto-muscular. Did I tell him it’s been going on for more than a year? I don’t think I did. What am I supposed to do about that?”
And then I try to do what the doctor says. Most of the time it doesn’t help, but it feels like my fault because I’m not able to adequately put in the effort to truly apply the remedy they prescribe.
Anyone else have these sorts of struggles? What do you do that helps?
Footnotes
- If this ever happens, go to the doctor immediately. Specifically your eye doctor. Because that curtain is very possibly your retina detaching from the back of your eyeball. If untreated, it generally leads to blindness. ↩︎
- Because there are lot of little things and things that I don’t know if its normal or not so I don’t really know if there is anything that can be done about it. But I know that I don’t feel good. ↩︎
- I know, I know, don’t minimize my problems. Especially don’t minimize them when explaining them to a doctor. But if I say it is horrible and then it ends up being something completely benign, then they may not trust me what I come in with something else and say it’s horrible. At least, that’s my fear. ↩︎
- I am fully aware that coming to a normal doctor appointment with multiple complaints is really hard on doctors. When you have scheduled enough time for a single complaint, then bring up a whole bunch, the doctor has to either make everyone wait or only get to one or two of your complaints. Assume that for this appointment I have made sure to schedule a longer appointment. ↩︎
- I recognize that quite a few people, especially women, get an additional “come back when you’ve lost some weight” recommendation. Which really, really sucks. I’m lucky in that I’ve only had one provider tell me to lose weight, but even that was disheartening. ↩︎
- I don’t know how to handle this particular fear. Partly because I do get some of my information from social media. It’ll be something on social media that explains that one of my symptoms might have to do with [insert disorder here] or that this thing I thought was normal is not actually normal, so now I want to ask my doctor about it. If anyone has any ideas on how to handle this, I’d love to hear them. ↩︎
Emotional Support Sisters 
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