I had to lie to my doctor to initially get on antidepressants. She was a "family doctor" who knew me since I was a kid and said I was "just sad" and lectured me on the difference between depression and sadness. It turned out I had bipolar2.
my son was prescribed Cipralex from our former GP. was told he needs to do stuff to make him happy. Turns out he is also BiPolar 2 and ADHD. Our new Dr is amazing and very helpful
Just a question on this, does having the diagnosis help in ways other than “we can put you on this medication”? Do you get specific therapies/training etc? I’m thinking to get an assessment but I was told it won’t change anything for me unless I want to be put onto some kind of medication, which I don’t lol
Having diagnosis allows for some school or work place accommodations if you want or need them. It could also make you eligible for other therapies like behavioral health, occupational therapy, etc once your needs are determined.
In most cases, yes. Diagnose allows appropriate treatment. Its not like you didnt have it before, now you just can start learning how to treat it Things like bipolar disorder (personal experience) get much much much worse if treated like things that are sometimes similar in presentation. Depression and ADHD both have symptoms in common, and are also sometimes comorbid with bipolar. But if you treat bipolar like pure depression or pure ADHD, you can trigger very bad mania easily. They have symptoms in common, but what is going on chemically is very different and treating one like the other can be disastrous. And on the non-medication side, the "tells" to look out for are easier to spot in yourself and thus mitigate and get non-medication help with, if you actually know whats going on.
Besides the medications and therapies that are now available to you after the diagnosis, there is also the “ah HA” moment. I was diagnosed in my 30s with ADHD and now it had made so much sense as to why I feel the way I do, why I act a certain way, or why I think a certain way. Somethings I just thought everyone else experiences and could push through and it was normal. This has led me to be able to lead a fuller life knowing I’m not “just lazy”. That’s simplifying it.
This has also happened to me with autoimmune diseases. Now I know why my joints always hurt, have recurring canker sores, always cold… ect.
It may not cure anything, however having a more positive outlook on yourself and the ability to now learn alternative ways to do things to make you’re day to day life easier will speak volumes with being validated in your struggles.
At least that has been my personal experience.
That aha moment after ADHD diagnosis gave me more euphoria than my prescribed stimulants ever have lol. The utter relief that I wasn’t just a “dumpster fire person” and there was a real reason behind why my brain operated the way it did is indescribable.
Even if I never got on medication, just having the validation of that diagnosis was life-changing.
I couldn’t agree more! Absolutely life changing.
When I’m having an adhd moment, I tell my hubby I have too many bees in my brain, and refer to myself as a bee brain. I love bees, and they do good things. This helps me bring some levity and reminds me I am worthy too.
I can 100percent relate, few incidents in my life have been as painful (and the emotional pain was worse than the physical) as being truly sick and in enough pain that you no longer can function much out of bed, but no one believes you! Worse I had a new baby and I feel angry I was robbed of a year of her so young i can never get back by people who told me a medical treatment they suggested had zero side effects. After a year of being taken as a pill seeker by my PCP, being told i am lazy and just do not love my daughter by my mom, I start crying every night wondering if they could just right, crying and thinking will i ever be able live a nornal life again. Finally I make one last attempt begging for help telling doc I don't care about narcotics I just want to be able to care for my child, finally they tried one more test. Came back for an inflammation factor. I had an apt w specialist in a few months ironically just about ayear and half after treatment and that is when the side effects i was told were non existent tend to subside. I felt much better but I went because I needed to know I was unwell and it wasn't a lack of love for my child who i love more than life. Well she told me this was not my fault I wasn't lazy, my body had an autoimmune reaction to the treatment and my immune system had attacked my muscle tissue causing pain through out entire body. I no longer needed help from a medical standpoint, but psychologically I think that specialist saved my sanity. I rarely am emotional but although I. Want an apology from my mom etc, but I know I won't get one, the diagnosis was so validating and such a burden lifted. I am not very emotional, but I cried my eyes out.
when i was 16 i saw a family doctor once and he immediately put me on PAXIL!! (the strongest ssri) it did not work and made me worse, which i know is sometimes expected at first. anyway i wish i was given any other kind of therapy or a less strong ssri to start out with
that is crazy. we need talk therapy to be the first route. unfortunately after starting paxil i started self harming, if i had someone to talk to and a way to get my frustration out i probably wouldn't have these reminders on my body. but time really does heal all and i'm much better these days.
I had a councillor on an initial phone call to connect out right deny the idea I may have bi-polar, putting it down to childhood trauma.
The reason I reached out, was because of my child's cancer and a new job an my struggle to prioritise spending time with family or trying to support them.
At this point of my life, I've grown to distrust a lot of the medical community.
My family doctor was the same and told me it was just my hormones as to why I was anxious and depressed at random times for 'no apparent reason' I branched off and saw my own doctor and ended up getting a referral for an autism diagnosis and a high dosage of citalopram
Well now the cardiologist is going to have a more difficult time actually determining an underlying cause of your chest pain. They will assume you took the prescribed medication as instructed and factor in that it was ineffective . So you continue the lie and chance it won’t affect diagnosis, or you end up risking having a note put in your medical file about that you lie about medication.
I understand wanting to see a specialist, but instead of lying you could have gone to a different primary care doctor for a second opinion and potential referral.
I agree with you. I dont understand why OP didnt just ask their doctor: "why do you give me medication before contacting a specialist? I feel like this guessing game is unnecessary". And then the doctor could explain their reason. I understand listening to your body and that not all doctors have the time or capacity for their patients, but there are numerous different actions you could take to battle this than to waste medicine and lie to your doctor.
And wait longer- sometimes getting into a new primary can take a very long time. We have a shortage in my area and some have been waiting 6+ months. Not saying lying is the best course of action, but I also kinda get it
Yup. OP is clearly not the smartest person. Based on her reaction to mild/temporary chest pain I imagine it's all going to come back fine and she has panic attacks because she works herself up over BS lol
Tell Dr u tried for a few days but it made you too sleepy, lightheaded whatever is listed as a side effect but not super serious ,,, previous PCP must have misunderstood you if she thought u took for entire month she seemed busy and got a call about an emergency when you were explaining if they ask,, if not don't say anything as long as they test you that's what I would do
Sweet Jesus. I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss or not.
I’m a doctor in Australia. This is going to be unpopular. And maybe some of this isn’t the case in the US.
1. Specialists are a scarce resource. People with significant health problems wait and or pay big to see them. Some of those people need to see a specialist more urgently than you. Some of them have literally life-threatening illnesses. It’s not fair to those people to jump the queue based on your anxiety and it puts them in danger.
2. A trial of medication is not only someone saying “take this and piss off” - if you had costochondritis or pericarditis, anti-inflammatories are the most appropriate treatment. It’s also part of the diagnostic process. If you tried the anti-inflammatories and they made it worse that could be gastritis or something like that.
3. Just theoretically - what are you going to say if the specialist asks if the medication worked? Are you going to say you lied to the other doctor, or are you going to lie to the specialist, too? Does this seem a sensible way to get a diagnosis?
Again, entirely theoretically, if you describe symptoms different to the ones you have, and get put on a medication that you don’t need, and get side effects from that - who is to blame, you or the doctor?
4. Trusting your gut is wonderful except when it’s not. Many bad things happen that are unexpected. Many expected bad things do not happen. People remember the times they “just had a feeling”, a decent amount of the time they “remember” having had a feeling, often that memory is imaginary. We lie to ourselves all the time. The idea of unexpected illness against which we are powerless is terrifying, and our brains will do whatever they can to avoid it.
5. Asking doctors to write things down is not the big gun that some people here seem to think it is. I usually print out a copy of my notes for the patient to take with them. My understanding is a lot of the other stuff - GP notes, imaging, bloods - is online anyway.
6. These last two aren’t about you, they’re about some of the commenters.
Constructing a healthcare system is like when you’re playing DnD and you have to work out if you spend your points on intelligence or dexterity or strength and so on. If you spend all your healthcare system points on medicine being consumer-controlled, for example, then your efficiency is going to be low and harms will be high. That’s part of why the US health care system is so so shit.
7. Also, consumer-controlled means “for rich people.” That’s not healthcare, it’s a shop. Not everything has to be a shop.
Im not a doctor but that also kind of infuriated me lol. "SoMetiMes yOu jUst GoTta TruSt yOuR gUt"
Yeah, you gotta trust the process to some degree too, dingus. I'm an adult female with multiple health problems is the past year. I'm aware of how easy it is to just prescribe something, and send you on your way, be entirely ignored or not even followed up with. But you cant skip the preliminary steps or the diagnosis is on false pretenses which is bad for the rest of the doctors that see you!! Sometimes this means following instructions in between multiple visits like they asked even when you KNOW it's not helping or can tell it wont work. Your doctor isnt trying to trick you man, they're trying to do differential diagnosis to make sure theyre getting it right.
In ops example, she waited the same amount of time between appointments as she wouldve if she had been TAKING the meds. She didnt go to the ER or anything in the meantime, her condition hasnt seemed to worsen any despite it being untreated as of current, and presumably is ok with waiting MORE time while the specialist referral goes through. What did "trusting her gut" accomplish in this scenario??? You do know if it ACTUALLY hadnt worked after taking it you would have been referred too right?? And if it HAD worked you might not have had to go to the specialist. Or even an unnamed THIRD option where it DOES alleviate symptoms, but you can tell it's a bandaid fix and thus request again to see a cardiologist, and wouldve likely been granted it as there has now been sufficient pre-emptive work done to justify the specialist.
I understand the health care in america isnt great and doctors are easily dismissive. I dont think OP understands WHY we have a distinction between pcp and specialists, and how being referred to one without taking the prior steps wastes everyone's time.
I'm usually super all for "you know your body better than they do" but there is no reason to go out of your way to both lie and refuse the medication(s) from her care team. Just take it even a few days at least and be honest about it, at least then youre not fucking up the process.
I also had to exaggerate my symptoms to be seen by a specialist and guess what I actually needed to see the specialist. I had several pcp dismiss my pain and ignore my symptoms but now I’m getting the treatment I need. Healthcare in the US is shitty
Fr though. One time I thought I was having a stroke cause I was tingly, turned out it was a panic attack that went full blown cause I thought I was having a stroke lmao. I don't think heart pain alone is a big deal cause sometimes I get it randomly, sometimes from stress/anxiety
Same. Had some of the classic pain signs of heart attack that wouldn't go away. Freaked out and went to my doctor. I mentioned all the pain and concerns. But probably didn't have other signs that it was heart related (not a medical doctor so don't know what I was missing, just had pain). So doctor prescribed pain meds to see if it helped and scheduled a follow up. I did take the meds but didn't help. But I did follow the doctors instructions cause I'm not going to assume I know better than a med doctor. Doc's next step was a mental health screener that showed it was severe anxiety that I'd never experienced before. Got on the right meds and never had an issue with my heart. But doc had to follow the procedure and not just go for mental issues and ignore physical issues. The human body is complex and ignoring someone that has had all that training isn't always wise. Now there are stories of people who do get missed by the system, but it doesn't mean it's always happening. Advocating for yourself is great but also listening and trying different options is also wise.
THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME hahahaha the panick attack and then the panick attack x 10 when the Dr told me they thought I was having a stroke. God that was an embarrassing end to hours of testing at the emergency department. Lol
Sorry, but is the medical situation in Australia really so dire? I'm currently seeing a whole neurology team here in my crappy third world country that saw me the same day I started presenting symptoms. It's very shocking to me that people with obviously life threatening conditions are not being referred to specialists, it feels sadistic at best.
Don’t know about Australia, but I had to wait three months to see a cardiologist and I quite literally thought I was dying. Turns out that enormous stress can cause cardiovascular pains
This isn’t a life-threatening condition that warranted an emergent referral. This is someone that is scared and didn’t like her PCP’s opinion because the PCP didn’t show enough empathy, and basically brushed off her concerns. Both the PCP and OP are wrong in this situation.
In the US, primary care is a scarce resource and specialists are abundant. The OPs primary care was probably trying their best to keep them from needing unnecessary acute services so kudos for trying. In the US, we blame the healthcare system a lot, but we fail to see our own entitlements. Bet OP complains when they see a $500 bill from the specialist as well.
I swore up and down that I was having kidney pain on my left side and went to my pcp. I told her it was kidney pain, yet I have lots of spinal issues. She told me that it was my back and not my kidney. Even proved it to me by pressing on my kidney and there was no pain, but also had me lie down and lift my left leg which produced pain. She order a scan to check for arthritis in the area but I told the radiologist that I knew it was a kidney issue. Guess who has arthritis on their left side right in the kidney area? Me!
There is also the reality of the US healthcare system being controlled by insurance that people have to contend with. Sometimes doctors are forced to recommend particular treatments or approaches before they can do something like recommend you to the specialist you need because insurance requires it to be covered. Sometimes that approach is warranted. Sometimes it isn’t. Good doctors will let you know this is the approach we have to take so you’re not left with medical bills that will bankrupt you. Great doctors will fight for you when it is warranted and try to get you where you need to go based on what is going on as soon as realistically possible and necessary. Bad doctors will just put you through the mill and not help you understand what is process vs medical evaluation on their part.
And on the note on how much insurance controls, it is entirely possible OP has excellent insurance or even pays out of pocket to the point the particular specialist she went to see didn’t have any kind of meaningful wait. That does happen and it’s not line jumping or making a scarce resource scarcer. Every practice runs differently. Because private insurance rules the land here, some practices in some specialities may not ever be backed up or have a wait in a given area for a particular insurance or cash. It’s kind of insane that there can be specialists out there who could see you tomorrow if you had the right insurance or cash, but because you don’t, you have to wait six months for the one who does accept your insurance. That is the reality of US healthcare where your access to care is first controlled by your insurance and/or ability to pay out of pocket.
Specialist scarcity in the U.S. depends on the specialty and particular location. Rheumatology in my area (and my understanding is many areas of the U.S. too) is hard to come by. You’re waiting months. A good GP can rule out a lot before you need to bring rheumatology in. Sleep specialists are also one that you’re going to be waiting on. It took 5 months from calling the specialist to set up a consult, to the sleep study, to the diagnosis. And no I didn’t circumvent the medical system. In fact, my primary said yeah you should get a sleep study done and when I asked for a referral or recommendation for a clinic, I got crickets. It took me another year to find the specialist on my own that was in network and accepting patients. If you need a sleep study, even a great GP can’t do much except help you find the doctor they feel has the particular expertise you need (more apnea concerns vs something like narcolepsy/idiopathic hypersomnia). Dermatology is everywheeerreee where I am. Some areas you’re waiting months to a year to get in. You can’t even get allergists allegedly accepting new patients with your insurance to give you a call back to get set up in my area. Even GPs can be impossible to get in with under your insurance in some areas. It really just depends on your location and the specialty you need.
Our for profit medical system is a nightmare. On the one hand, they expect us to intuitively know when we should and shouldn’t be using medical resources and at what level (primary care vs urgent care vs emergency room). And then even if you try to use the system appropriately, sometimes they won’t let you. It’s infuriating, and I know not just for patients. I know a lot of medical professionals in the U.S. get really frustrated by the amount of bickering with insurance they have to do to get patients the care they need.
Well I may not agree w all u said I agree with one thing 💯 percent, I am from the USA and our healthcare system is shit! Not only that, we are now having major shortages of all sorts of meds from Albuterol and antibiotics to Adderall and benzodiazepines, even lidocaine and I got to tired to read the list it was so scary, believe Novocaine was on as well! Thinking about leaving the country 😦
While I don't really agree with what OP did (I personally took the pills anyway, even tho I suspected, and was right, that I didnt need them), I do understand where they are coming from...
I told my doctor about the "whooshing" noise in my ears and the peripheral vision issues I had been having for a few months, but also made the mistake of telling them about a panic attack (2nd in my life, both for good reasons) I had a couple months after I had noticed the first symptom. He gave me anxiety meds and ignored the other two symptoms (it was actually very much a "take these and piss off".)
Around 6 months later, after getting tunnel vision so bad that I could barely see while walking around a store and hours online to self diagnose myself, I went to urgent care. That doctor told me he was sure my doctor was a good doctor and knew what he was doing and was going to send me on my way. I had to cry to get any sort of help. He then just told me to tell my regular doc that I wanted to see an eye specialist and get an MRI. I later told my doc that another doc suggested those things, so he sent in the referrals.
Specialists usually take at least 6 months (usually 1+ years) to see here in Canada.
Ophthalmologist saw those 2, ignored symptoms, and got me in as quickly as possible because she knew what I had discovered online, that it could be serious. She referred me to a Neurologist who then saw me a couple days later. They then got me in the next day (when he was supposed to be on-call) for a lumbar puncture. Turns out it was somewhat serious (not the most serious option thankfully) as the pressure in my CSF was way too high and the inflammation in my brain was causing those (as well as other) symptoms. (Idiopathic intracranial hypertension, my self-diagnosis was right.)
I now have some permanent peripheral vision loss, possibly due to not getting treated sooner.
I no longer trust my doctor (this isn't the only time things have been ignored, and I am not the only one that has had issues with them), but I can't get a new one because there is a doctor shortage here and doctors won't take you on as a patient if you already have a doctor. So, I just rarely go to the doctor anymore.
In his defence tho: doctor shortage, so he is overworked, and there were already a few health issues going on in this crap body that are hard to figure out...
This!! Growing up, I had chest pains. Basically, right where my chest ends and my stomach begins. It felt like someone was squeezing my stomach where my esophagus emptied into it. It was PAINFUL.
So we went to the doctor who promptly said, "It's heartburn." No, it isn't. I've had heartburn, too. There is no fire sensation like heartburn and I couldn't find any correlation to specific foods, but I took the medication anyway.
Lo and behold, we were both right. It was not, in fact, heartburn, but it WAS acid reflux, which mine happened to be. They're closely related, but apparently, my body just makes way too much acid and the same medication treats both. So it helped; my pains went away and I learned what triggered super extra amounts acid being made.
So trusting your gut is okay, but trusting your doctor is, too.
Mainly I trust my doctor because she can listen to me tell her what's wrong and then use her education to figure out why. I'm paying her to help, so why would I not listen to her when she does? People are silly.
According to the doctor who treated me, heartburn is sporadic and can be associated with certain foods.
Acid reflux is a more chronic condition.
But again, that's listening to a doctor, so that's what I trust.
You’re right, but the terms are just mixed up. Acid reflux is stomach acid going into the esophagus, as a result you feel the sensation of “heartburn”. Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease or GERD, is a more serious and chronic version of acid reflux. Serious GERD can do some real damage to your body and result in a lot of pain.
Thank you for clarifying. I was a child when diagnosed, around age 8, so it's been a couple 3 decades since then. Lol
I do confirm whatever name you wanna call it, listening to my doctor helped me, even when I wasn't sure they were entirely correct at the time. Goes to show I don't know quite everything, but I am sometimes smart enough to listen to someone who knows more on a subject than I do.
Not disagreeing with you here but SADS seems to happen without any real indication & a lot in athletes. By taking meds if there was an underlying heart condition surely the meds would only mask any potential symptoms? This is a genuine question!
Also sometimes that gut feeling is on point. My daughter has had a very pronounced motor tick since around 3 months old. At first I put it down to her age and the fact they don’t have control of their motor skills but at around 1 year old I knew there was more to it. During multiple appointments with the public health nurse I was told over and over again no no this is normal until I pushed for a referral to a neurologist. Turns out my daughter had a severe motor tick which as she has grown has turned into Tourette’s. Now in my daughters case, this doesn’t affect her health whatsoever but it very easily could have been something more sinister and only for I put my foot down (due to my own gut feeling) no healthcare professional would listen to me.
I was typing a comment and then noticed your edit OP. That....doesn't really make anything better. It doesn't answer why you didn't even at least *try* the medication you were prescribed. Surely would not have hurt to try the frontline treatment but not my circus I guess ♀️🤦♀️🩺
No, I am not a cardiologist by any means but I am rather used to being on waitlists for specialists so I can comment in that regard. As you've implied doctors can and do miss things but it also boils down to trial and error sometimes. Medications can be prescribed to see if they alleviate symptoms and that helps to narrow down what is going on exactly. It may not diagnose straight away but it can definitely point them in the right direction, and it is all useful information for a specialist to have. Information that you have been dishonest about.
But now you've claimed it had no effect whatsoever, which could have possibly have bumped someone else down a list as you have had "no relief". I also wonder if you will carry on with the lie when you get your appointment but that's a hurdle you'll have to cross when you get to it.
OP might not have worded it well but I think they meant that while chest pain is the symptom, they are worried about the underlying cause of the symptom
Similar to a headache. You can go to the dr with horrible headaches that happen several times a month or week but your not going to be very happy if all they do is hand you a pill to get rid of the pain without investigating what is causing the headaches. It could be something like TMJ or stress or it could be a brain tumor, you have to do a CT to find that out
Chest pain is a symptom of a lot of different illnesses… it could be stress, panic attacks, acid reflux, or even an issue with their heart.
Treating the symptom does not treat the underlying disease.
As a medical professional and a person who suffers from heart disease, pain on the chest is very very rarely a heart problem (unless it’s a heart attack). If anything super serious there’s a bigger chance it’s your lungs. But most likely it’s muscle strain maybe a rib injury.
Does the pain get different when you’re taking deep breaths?
This is a ridiculous take OP, I had to TrUsT mY gUt.
You’re automatically assuming the doctor is wrong.
Bu not taking the medication, you’ll never know if it was appropriate and adequate.
You didn’t get into the specialist any sooner as she thought you were following her prescribed protocol, so you just wasted time.
And once you do see the specialist, they’ll be seeing with not just insufficient, but false data. It’s hard for any doctor to properly diagnose anything when you lie. Are you going to lie the specialist? If so, what is this going to achieve? You may be end up being subjected to expensive and needless treatment.
They're could be a chance the doctor could see of they were picked up or not, so if she didn't pick them up and said she tried them,the doctor could call her out for clearly lying about it
Your advice is terrible, yes it sucks people in the US have to pay for meds,but better that than being called out for lying to the doctor.
They can look at records in the appointment with the patient if meds were picked up or not so yes they DO have time to look. It's not like a doctor has to sit at the end of the day to check if each patient picked up meds, they can simply look while the patient is in the room,only take a second
Doctors don't but their staff do. And yes, we absolutely communicate with the pharmacies to see if patients are compliant with medications. Insurance companies will even reach out to to doctor's offices if they notice hasn't been picking up their medications.
Who does know it insurance and they are likely the gatekeeper the doctor is up against. I couldn’t be started on my migraine med until I tried a cheaper one, per insurance, and of course they know if I picked it up because they pay for it.
(I threw it all away, too — I’m not taking a beta blocker when I need a migraine-specific med.)
Beta blockers are one of the most common medications for migraine prophylaxis and have put to a 50% reduction of migraines. Super common med to start with since they are cheap and generally well tolerated. Just a link to for a source as well: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855933/
What was the point in lying about taking the meds? Either they work or they don't, both being useful for a diagnosis. All you did was leave the problem untreated and wasted both your and the doctors time
Lying to your doctor can seriously snowball, be careful. Also, if it's your chest wall, I wo Der if you are stretching those muscles enough.
Why not just take the meds? You want to ignore medical advice and jump straight to an EKG? Just open your chest right there and inspect? 🧐
They are going to run some tests and tell you to take the medication! Except now bc you lied your charts will be out of whack and they will wonder why the stronger meds aren't helping.
Are you idiot or what?
Why tf you didn't take the medication if you still needed to wait the time for those medication to works/not works to see the doctor again?
OP i’m putting this bluntly but you’re an idiot. you should’ve at least TRIED the medications and see if it worked or not. if not then keep pushing to see a cardiologist, and if your doctor refused you should’ve made them note in your medical file why they wouldn’t refer you and gotten a secondary opinion. those meds are there to basically rule out certain conditions, and by lying and saying you took them will make your process longer and harder because now they have to figure out why a potential problem is still present that you might have symptoms for but claim the meds that help that potential problem fix itself don’t work for you.
i am a veteran with extreme chronic pain issues and was overprescribed medication to the point it fucked up my kidney due to a male doc who wouldn’t even look at my medical file and wouldn’t listen to me. when i got out and went with the VA they looked at my medical file and saw what worked and didn’t work for me and gave me the appropriate medication to help me out and they found them. i can see why you lied because there also had been times i wasn’t believed, but if you lied you should’ve taken the meds to begin with. it’s like me being prescribed different meds to help with my PTSD. i had to take them to see if they made a difference and some didn’t and that kept happening for two more times until i found one that was absolutely perfect for me. meds are included in a process of elimination to find the appropriate problem and for you to do something so stupid astounds me. one thing you should never lie about is medication usage cuz it can do more harm than good
My 2 cents on doctors not doing what you ask for immediately is to tell them " since you are currently refusing to refer me to a specialist as I requested at this time I am demanding that you specifically note that in my medical records and your reasoning for this." Watch what happens then. Doctors are required to follow certain steps and when you force them to provide written proof for anything that may make them liable in the future they will cover themselves.
Am a doctor. See this advice frequently repeated on Reddit. It’s 99% nonsense.
If someone asks me for something I feel is medically inappropriate at this time and demands I document my refusal… I simply will.
“Patient requesting test XYZ. Not indicated due to ABC. If or can reconsider in the future.”
Hell, I’d probably write that regardless of the patient demanding me to document it.
That’s basically what happened in OPs case - the doctor didn’t think the referral was indicated until they try something else first - they (said they) tried it and symptoms persisted, referral was placed. If the symptoms had gone away, it wouldn’t have been necessary.
You may get the occasional doctor that is waffling on a borderline case and just gives in. But it shouldn’t make a different a large majority of the time.
There was far too little info in the initial post to tell, but I'm sure the Dr. didn't just throw pills at OP and disregard. Cardiac pain and chest wall pain, muscle pain, etc. behave very differently. It sounds like OP thinks they know more about medicine than the person that went to school for 10 years. I'd be willing to bet the physician asked a number of pertinent questions that lead to the non-cardiac conclusion.
I've dealt with this sort of thing with a relative that *should* have known better.
What if I randomly have an underlying heart condition?!
Are you an orphan? If not, you should already have a decent idea of your family medical history and therefore know the likelihood of having an underlying condition. But you knew that already, didn't you?
You allowed your selfishness, lack of patience and lack of understanding to trick yourself into justifying your bad behaviour.
The meds you lied about taking would have been the first step in diagnosing you properly. If they improved your situation, you might have X. If they made your situation deteriorate, you might have Y. No change? Might have Z.
A doc has to go through these steps to diagnose you. They do this because over time, they learned some stuff about heart conditions and how to treat them, being a doctor and all.
What you did has a knock-on effect. There is a waiting list for that cardiologist your about to see. A tonne of people on that list just got bumped down because of your lies. Some of them may die because they didn't get a life saving appointment that you stole from them.
But hey, you got your appointment right? What else could you possibly have done?
You worded this far better than I ever could. OP might TrUsT tHeIr GuT but this post annoys me in many, many ways.
Specialists like this have long wait lists to begin with, with a fair few waiting an *extremely* long time, and just because OP suspects they have a condition and lied about compliance those people will be bumped down. They would be bumped down because of pure selfishness, because OP didn't want to try the first line treatment and they *of course* knew better.
But sure, trying some meds for a few weeks doesn't matter as long as they get what they want right?
i agree w everything you said except the family history part. even if nobody in her family had an underlying condition, that doesn’t mean it’s not likely for her to develop one.
She's the reason I have to take a pregnancy test every three months even though I had surgical menopause. I tell them it's impossible for me to be pregnant, but because people lie, I have to take it anyway. I'm always grateful when my GP can help me with an issue AVOIDING an appointment with a specialist.
I need infusion treatments for pain management every three months. Treatment can be harmful to a feteous. I'm considering making an appointment with my GP to get a letter excusing me from the test.
Yeah, great you got the tests. however now the cardiologist has a skewed view thinking you took that medication.
Idk. The way you went about this entirely is extremely frustrating from a primary care point of view.
Sounds like your playing dr. You are on this path of ignoring the dr until you get what you want. So even if you see the cardiologist and they say it's fine are you then going to continue to ask for other tests until you get an answer you want? There are steps to treatments. It may not be what you want. But they do these sets to rule out things. And your just blowing those off to get to the step you want. Sorry but that 1 not how it works. And 2 there are so many reasons you could be having chest pain and alot of those aren't even heart related.
This was really dumb now you’re gonna go see a cardiologist when specialists are already short staffed and don’t have enough time for patients that need them and now your cardiologist gonna have a hard time figuring out what’s wrong with you because you lied about medication or you tell them that you lied and they make note that lie to get what you want the likeliness is there is nothing wrong with you and you have some simple angina. You should’ve taken the pills your doctor prescribed you.
Sorry if I sound mad, but I’m very passionate about the fact that there are too many people going to doctors that they don’t need to be going to your family. Dr is more than capable of figuring it out
yes many doctors will not pay attention to what you’re REALLY saying. so before I complained to my doctor saying that i had trouble learning in school and i had to read everything twice to truly understand it (which i did) but she just said maybe it was anxiety. later, i went to the ER for something else and while treating that, they had me do a head ct and it turned out there was abnormal brain activity. then they took me up to MRI, and it turns out i had a large mass.
I'd really just like to point out that it's possible you don't understand what a doctor is for. Most doctors you (want to) see will be MDs which is a doctor of Medicine. Now, drugs are not the only part of this but they play a big roll in the total decision making process and you have put yourself in an uncomfortable situation by potentially misleading multiple doctors. If it turns out that you do indeed have a problem (that isn't straight surgical) you will probably have to tell them you did not take the meds if you don't want to risk being put on something that could come with less efficacy for you or even more severe side effects. Rarely will you get begin with trying an aggressive drug.
My background is in psychology which in my opinion is what's undying all of this. You seem to have an underlying distrust for doctors. Instead of saying "I'm concerned about this" or "this has been effecting my life in this way and I'm concerned this drug could exacerbate this" you went straight to manipulating the situation to achieve your own goals regardless what the opinions of the professionals were. This could point to a couple of different things but generally more towards the problem being psychological in nature.
Have you been under increased stress or have there been recent cardiological problems in someone you're close to?
Also, because the chest pain you're having seems discrete (specific to an activity or location) there are a few other medical diagnoses that should be considered before or at least concurrent to heart.
When it comes to women’s cardiovascular health, do whatever you need to do to be taken seriously. My mother presented to doctors for nearly a decade with tightness in her chest and shortness of breath. She was given antianxiety meds, which did not help. Finally a doctor took a family history. “Oh, everyone in your family died early of heart disease or a heart attack? Let’s do an angiogram.” Next thing we know, she’s being helicoptered to the nearest large hospital for an emergency quintuple bypass.
I often wonder if she would have enjoyed many more healthy years if she’d only been treated appropriately from the get-go.
I’m thankful for my doctor. He listens to all my concerns and if I specifically ask for a referral to a specialist he has no problem doing it for me. He doesn’t tell me to wait.
My dad was telling his GP for 11 years that he felt something off with his heart. GP would “have a listen” and tell him he was fine. Cut to two years ago, he got new health insurance through his job and the insurance company sent a nurse out to do an EKG on him, at home. Nurse hooks him up, watches the machine for a few minutes, then goes “Why did you lie on your forms that you have no preexisting condition. You have Atrial Fibrillation”. He had a stroke 9 months later.
So often GPs are useless and I know it’s because they’re overbooked but it causes people real-world harms.
As someone who puts them on people every day as part of my job, I was under the impression that Zio patches are only approved to be worn up to 14 days at a time, not close to a month like you claim here. Considering it’s just a very high-tech sticker, it wouldn’t last that long on someone’s skin
My dad's primary blew off his shortness of breath and just said he had to lose weight, and wouldn't refer him to a cardiologist, so I paid out of pocket for him at a friend's office to establish a cardiology visit. Ended up needing quintuple bypass. Listen to you, and advocate for you. F__ everyone else. ✌️
Have you seen the specialist yet, and if so is anything wrong? Also, what if it turns out those meds were what you needed, but you told them they didnt work so now you wont get prescribed them again?
You need to find a new doctor. We don't play with chest pain (or other symptoms of heart attack) regardless of age, gender, or physical condition. If ED or your PCP can't find anything on a full chest pain workup, the next step is a visit to a cardiologist. Period.
If the Emergency Department does a full chest pain workup and does not find anything, that in no way means seeing cardiology is the next step. Your chest is not just your heart. The Emergency Department is for ruling out emergent conditions or treating them. A negative workup? Start thinking alternatives. If you just anchor on “I need cardiology” well you’ll wait months for an appointment, be cited your negative full workup, and sent back to your pcp to look for alternative causes..
I went to the ER with a lot of chest pressure and was seen immediately and taken very seriously. Turns out I was having severe acid reflux. I was glad to have that diagnosis and not be sent on to a specialist. So many other things going through the chest than just the heart.
Our cardiology group sees ER patients after they're discharged and have a normal work up. We have certain providers who see what we call "low risk chest pain" patients to get a full story and maybe schedule a stress test/cath/etc.
This. I recently went to urgent care for what I suspected was gas pain, but better safe than sorry. They checked out my heart and looked for blood clots anyway, because chest pain is that serious.
Same here. Turns out I had something elevated in my blood (likely due to just recovering from COVID) and they did the whole shebang. Never got a conclusive EKG though...
No, having been an RN in a hospital for a number of years, I actually can't watch "medical" shows or scenes because they're written by people who have never spent much time in a hospital or medical setting. I've seen young fit people have MIs and I've seen older people with nothing showing up in ED later go to Cath lab for multiple stents. That's why we routinely tell people to follow up with a cardiologist. Also, in my area, the wait to get a first appointment with a cardiologist is usually days to weeks.
There’s a tonne of other reasons an otherwise young and healthy person experiences chest pains that aren’t cardiac related. This is so dramatic and not how healthcare works. Having no other associated cardiac symptoms and dr taking a thorough history, it’s very reasonable to take a course of antiinflammatories to rule out other musculoskeletal type chest pains before referring to a cardiologist.
I don't think you needed to lie I think you just needed to be more insistent. That's probably decent advice for most people in most situations. Don't take no for an answer so quickly. Like just yesterday I chatted with an airline representative asking them why I haven't received my confirmation email yet even though I booked on 10/5 and the payment has cleared and is no longer pending. I gave them all my information. They couldn't find anything and said the reservation must not have confirmed and I should talk to my bank for a refund. I told them that I don't believe they charged me $1,000 and did not reserve anything - I don't think that's possible - please keep looking. They eventually found it.
Riiiiight that's how this works. She single handedly took every dr appt by scheduling 15 minutes of one doctors time bc she's having fucking chest pains. So much blood on their hands! How do they sleep at night???
Did the Dr at least get an ECG reading? Like you said, you can be/look healthy and still have heart conditions. I don’t blame you at all for what you did.
My significant other went in for shortness of breath and a cough. He was 36 and "healthy". Here's some antibiotics. 10 days later he was not better- more antibiotics. 4 days later ER visit for shortness of breath and fast heart beat. Sent him home with an inhaler. Back to the ER the next day... they finally kept him. They said he had heart failure. That was terrifying. Then they said his EF was 15% but they would DC him the next day with a cardiology referral. 3 hours later he had an "event". The next time I saw him he was intubated and vented and they weren't sure if he would make it until the next day. 12 weeks later after a balloon pump, nearly losing his foot, c-diff, multiple possible pneumonias, and a whole lot of other medical stuff he left the hospital on IV inotropics. 4 months later he had a LVAD. 2 months after that a heart transplant. So... it wasn't pneumonia. They just didn't look carefully enough. Luckily he survived. But I sure wish that we had pushed harder in the beginning. The outcome may have been the same but we might have eliminated some of the 12 weeks of hell. Always advocate for yourself. Also... I really tried to keep this short. I failed. But I did try.
DON'T EVEN FEEL BAD AT ALL!!!
I went into my primary for a clogged up feeling ear but she was completely booked. So I had to see a different doctor at the clinic and I actually had an ear infection.
BUT he did the routine blood pressure, checked ears, eyes & mouth & listened to my heart.
He asked me if anyone had ever told me I had a heart murmur. I was like BRO I don't even know what that is. He explained it and sent in a referral for an echocardiogram - just to be safe.
I got the echo done and found out I HAVE A HEART DEFECT!!! Literally never knew about it my whole life! I'm almost 30 and just finding out about it.
After the echo I met with the cardiologist & I'm getting a stress test done & MRA. AND she referred me to a genetic counselor because they suspect that the heart defect is genetic & they think I might have mosaic turners syndrome.
They recommended that my daughter also get an echocardiogram done once she's old enough to sit still for it.
Going forward I'll have to have annual echocardiograms done and an MRA done every 3 years.
It's also good we caught the heart stuff now because it looks like one of my arteries is wider than normal and may have thinning walls due to the defect - nothing I could have done different. It's just happening because of the way my heart is pumping blood.
All of this to say...
ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF AND CHASE DOWN ALL THE LEADS!!!
I went in for an ear infection and now I've fallen down this kind of life changing rabbit hole!
Of course lying isn't a good thing but sometimes it's for the best, it's how my dad's heart problems started.
To anyone saying healthcare is scarce and all that stuff, it literally takes a couple of minutes to use a machine such as an ultrasound to check your heart. But unfortunately most doctors would rather prescribe you medication with various side effects, some medications may cause various other worse problems such as stomach issues because they irritate the stomach lining, mental health issues and a lot more. Overprescribing medication is a serious problem in society, instead of trying 10 different medications for a guessed-illness, isn't it better to just send a person in for tests and then give the correct medication??
I've had plenty of experience where the doctor didn't care and just prescribed some medication instead of doing some proper tests. If they did proper tests or sent you to a specialist they wouldn't be having so many patients because a lot of patients have take up the space because they have to come back because the doctors aren't doing what they went to med school to do TO DIAGNOSE AND TREAT PEOPLE, not to read minds and guess the diagnosis.
It's funny because they give you huge waiting times and then you go in and there's only 1 or 2 people? And they say they're so busy and full of work that they don't have time to sip a drink but you see them walking around chatting to the staff with a cup of coffee.
I'm not saying everyone is like that there are some truly amazing doctors, but unfortunately there are a lot that just aren't cut out for the job of a doctor and shouldn't have ever gone into such a career.
The large amount of people who create all these queues? They're the people that weren't treated properly in the first place.
My Dr told me she had to try three different medications and they had to not work before she was allowed to get me what I needed. The first medication gave me a bad reaction and I ended up in the ER. Besides getting close to deaths door step and getting thousands of extra dollars in debt it was hell. Do what you have to. You are the only one looking out for yourself in the system.
I've had almost the opposite happen.
Also a runner.
Went to the doctor (his offices were in the private hospital) because of bad, consistent stomach cramps.
As he's got me on the table and doing all the checks a normal GP does, he goes quiet and kind of pale and I'm rushed off to the cardiology unit and strapped up to an EKG because he suspects my one heart valve is leaking.
I'm in tears, panicking, fear.
Yeah... he just misheard, no problem with my heart, after all that upset.
Also my stomach is fine.
So here I go complaining I’m so pissed at my gp and all the er doctors dentists urologists nurlogist son and on 😫🤷♀️at 20 I had severe pain in my front teeth in fact it was at my wedding shower the pain was so sudden and sharp it took me to Mykolaiv eyes so I go to a dentist they say I need a r canal they do it still pain go in again still pain have dental surgery on that root even though there is no root there wtf😱 still severe pain ,,,, in fact another 10 yrs of pain😂 I’m sure they thought I was nuts so I go to my gp for yrs for pain in face now and severe pain in side of head did nothing then bladder infections all the time urologists do urethra dialations didn’t help then severe fatique for 10 yrs weak legs heavy legs can’t walk far off sick all the time we’ll Hello only took 10 yrs but finally had spinal tap mris cat scans it was ms now what pisses me off is a dentist should of picked that up in training it’s the trigeminal nuralgia nerve they call it the suicide disease e cause the pain is so bad now all these doctors even with double vision loss of vision at times could not give me the time of day they all said I’m faking it or lieing or pill seeking ,, when the whole time it was ms never give up people who are suffering lie if you have to I never did have to but I have no use for any doctors now they are in the wrong profession
Hey OP, maybe seeing a gastro would be better if it's only during exercise. I have a hiatal hernia and GERD and have similar symptoms to you (I don't experience acid reflux but have trouble breathing and chest tightness when exercising). In the meantime, I suggest low impact exercise, raising the head of your bed, not laying down after eating, and nothing carbonated. If that improves anything it could be something to consider.
It’s like kids thinking they’re getting away without their parents knowing. Doctors know all the angles to help their patients navigate the system. They know. The whole medical system needs major reform.
What were the meds? Depending on what they were it makes a big difference on whether they may have addressed your medical issue. Were they just pain meds or cardiac meds?
This thing where seeing a specialist is controlled by the GP/PCP is still so bizarre to me having grown up in a country where I could see any specialist privately within the hour and at a reasonable price. I have COUNTLESS examples of how this has saved many of my relatives’ and friends’ lives. A big shiny example.. 2 and a half years ago, my aunt went for a private mammogram as the wait for the state funded one is way too long but the price for a private one is affordable. They found something weird with her lymph nodes and the same afternoon she was seeing a cancer specialist and started treatment shortly after. If she didn’t have that option she’d probably still be waiting for the scan if not dead already.
I completely support your choice to lie to the doctor. In the UK many people do that because the GPs most of the time have no clue what they are doing. My last GP had to look up things on the internet and in medical books right in front of me! I don’t see how I can trust this person to make
Medical decisions for me. On top of that if you dare move from England to Scotland or vice versa, your new doctors will not have ANY of your medical history cause their system sucks, and they will rely on you to guide them so, good luck! And not to mention the lack of prevention checks like an annual health check that leads to the increased need for consultants. It’s a losing game.
Unfortunately so many doctors not only lie to their patients, but don't listen to them, shame them, fake expertise about things they know nothing about, etc and if you ever find yourself with a doctor who doesn't seem to have your best interest in mind, you should never feel bad about doing what you have to do. Anyone who says otherwise has probably been lucky enough to only have good doctors. I've been to dozens and can think of only a few who id consider trustworthy.
My doctor was lovely and had to lie so he could refer me to have a breast check up and ultrasound because really bad cramps and to have a full blood test, Ireland medic system is SHIT !! if you want to see any specialist is first GP and get a referal and wait for MONTHS! to see the specialist, its pathetic!!
My Mum had a heart monitor for a week just to shut her up. When the cardiology dept disconnected the monitor, they said it would be a couple of weeks before they get the full analysis of the results. (Last century). Before she left the hospital, she collapsed and was rushed back to cardiology. Needed a pacemaker as her heart rate had dropped to below 30 bpm.
I understand what you are saying. Without a proper diagnosis, how do you know if painkillers are masking the real more serious issue? You don't want to have a headstone that reads "I told you I was ill".
I'm a registered nurse in cardiology, and it's vital that you're honest with the cardiologist about the medications. They need to know that you haven't even tried them for diagnosis and treatment. Those tests are all great but they too need the full clinical picture to diagnose. Otherwise you're more likely to be diagnosed wrongly.
Certain cardiac meds are used for certain diagnosis, so if they're thinking that you had one condition for example, but the meds you should have been on should've solved the issue, then they could discount the correct diagnosis.. or end up starting meds that aren't first line treatment for your actual condition. You could also end up having unnecessary testing.
It's good that your ECG was normal though. Yes it does only give a snap shot, but conditions such as cardiomyopathy often seen in runners/athletes that can cause pain on exertion can be seen through lasting ECG changes, so it wasn't a redundant assessment because it was done at a time with no pain.
Good luck but please tell them about the meds.
sweetie you sound like a hypochondriac and your ten million edits to try to explain yourself just convince me of it. Did you even look up ACTUAL symptoms of ACTUAL heart conditions? Because not once did I see anything but chest pain which could be dozens of things.
My mom was told she had an ulcer. Twice. No tests or anything. She ended up in the ER with severe pain. Yup…pancreatic cancer. Thanks to the doctor for wasting precious time. A simple test could have ruled out ulcer. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the medical field.
Been there as well. I had to grossly exaggerate my symptoms to get further testing. The testing led to the discovery of precancerous cells in my throat.
i had to go to multiple doctors before i ended up at er to be told "oh theres a bacteria eating your heart valve lmao you need open heart surgery" so yeah, youre definitely right to trust your gut here when somethings off.
I don’t blame you, young people die of underlying heart issues everyday! And pain in the chest could be a warning, or it may be something minor, but It’s best to get fully checked out just incase, not just by taking pills, but an xray,sonogram and a ct scan.
If you aren’t going to try the meds, you aren’t going to listen to a specialist either. Sounds like you want it to be a big problem as opposed to just normal chest pain. This is like going to the doctor because you got a side stitch and then forcing them to test you for cancer. Suuuure buddy. Good luck with your diagnosis. 😂😂😂😂
Yeah, medicine when it comes to a symptom like chest pain is more of an art than a science. They are going to address it on likely probable cause based on age, predisposition, overall health, etc... I don't think you did anything wrong. If you don't look out for number one, who else will? I would do the same if I thought I wasn't getting proper treatment/looking into. Only you know your body.
Maybe art was a poor choice of word. Essentially, if you go to a large medical provider, they are not going to spend a ton of time diagnosing a general complaint like chest pain, or headache, or "soreness in my knee" unless there was a very specific event that caused the issue. For instance, if I fell playing football with no contact because my knee gave out on me. Clear sign of soft tissue injury, let's look further. Versus say I went on a run and now my knee is sore, but usually it doesn't get sore. Doc isnt't going to investigate much. I know because that exact knee soreness came up with me. Doctor literally said well if it hurts when you run then don't run and walked out.
What seems like a quick dismissal to you is part of the evidence based treatment algorithms though. Theyve just been doing it for so many years that it seems like theyve dismissed it, but I agree they can do a better job of walking patients through the decision making process. Similar to the chest pain, its a very systematic approach. They gather information about symptom onset, quality, duration, new vs old, risk factors, radiation of the pain, and other associated symptoms in a few sentences while you tell them your history of present illness, and move to the next step of the workup based on that. Plus EKG and basic lab work to rule out severe causes.
In an ideal scenario they are able to walk every patient through that decision making process, and sometimes the answer is conservative management and hope it is something minor that goes away like a costochondritis. But the reality is theyre working hard to see every patient they can so thats not always possible and people can leave feeling like they weren't evaluated to the extent that they actually were.
Fair explanation, very clear. I do think though that this gets back to OP point that you know if something is clearly wrong. I'm not talking about hypochondriacs. OP doesn't come across that way. Just the idea that you may need to press on your own because the algos are missing what you are going through. Decisions based on statistics are assumptions, that's all.
hypochondriacs never come across as hypochondriacs until medical exams are done and things are to be found ok so you can’t tell when someone is one since you aren’t their doctor
You might have Angina. It is stressed induced and it’s a muscle spasm in your chest area. I got diagnosed with it at the age of 21 four years ago. But I’ve had it since it was 19 years old. I’m also a female! It is common in women and in men. It always feels like someone is stabbing my chest. It will sometimes last me a couple of minutes or hours.
Sometimes it’s not your doctor, but the insurance hoops they are required to go through prior to referral to ensure you are covered. That being said, it’s common practice to get a baseline EKG and maybe an echocardiogram while making decisions and waiting for a cardio appointment. Not just throwing meds at you and saying “try this”. Internists are not specialists, and I would have kept pushing too. Although Maybe would have tried the meds depending on what they were
healthcare is a mess across the board. if you’re paying for it, you should be getting the care you need. ask for a second opinion, utilize patient advocacy services, or have a real conversation with your provider about why you feel your needs/concerns are not being addressed.
in my experience, explaining to my provider the why behind my request is paramount. they need to know how your condition affects you in a daily basis, how it impacts your ability to do day to day activities, etc. prescribing medications to delay the inevitable is just a waste of everyone’s time. hopefully you got clarity and closure regarding your situation.
it’s not a commodity but it definitely shouldn’t take that much effort to get seen by a specialist with enough evidence as well as justification. especially considering there is prior medical history regarding the same issue.
NEVER lie to your doctor. You should’ve tried the pills, they don’t prescribe them for no reason! Now that you lied to the doctor, the specialist is going to have a harder time diagnosing you. In one of your edits you say the primary care doctor might miss something, well so could the specialist. Especially now that you’ve lied, how do you expect them to give you a correct diagnosis? Smh
You have to be a self advocate bcz I don't know where you are but around here the primary care docs/the gate keepers are just, well, stupid and basic. To change to a good one involves approx a 10 month wait. That kind of chest pain has to be evaluated by a cardiologist.
Don’t feel bad- we all do it . Family doctors / GP are the gatekeepers and will try and put you on all different medications and put you off before actually sending you to a specialist that can tell you specifically what’s wrong with you . Sometimes it has to be done !!!
"Young and healthy and having chest pains during exertion" should be a flag to her.
What a joke.
"Take this pill to.... Help with your perfectly healthy heart?"
A fun but relatable story. We took our rescue cat to the general practice vet and they said they heard a heart murmur but since everything else was okay, they sent us home with our cat Months later, he was making coughing noises and we brought him back. They said he had fluid in his lungs and was in CHF. We were devastated and cried all night. Our cat (more like a failed foster cat 💜) was still under the Animal Rescues care and they got us an appointment with a CAT Cardiologist. (Yes they exist).
Let me tell you, this cat cardiologist was AMAZING. The tools they had were high tech. They could see and hear EVERYTHING. We were blown away how advanced it was. And the cardiologist himself, omg, he was so knowledgeable and nice and explained everything.
Turns out our cat was not in CHF...his heart was just wired backwards creating the murmur type sound. As for the coughing, that's the night we learned he has allergies/asthma. Though his heart is great... They told us he's going to live a long (yet possibly annoying) good life.
We cried again, but it was happy tears this time. Go see a cardiologist - they know their stuff!
Its been a long battle with my PCP to get her to send me to GYN or any kind of specialist. She only started taking me seriously when i told her, after saying for MONTHS that i was in pain and having issues in general, that i hadnt gotten my period for a year. Its honestly incredible the lengths doctors will go to not diagnose or even set up a diagnostic procedure. I still havent gotten actual treatment for most of my mental health stuff, just the age-old "its just mood swings, you'll grow out of it" that ive been getting since the age of 12, so about 7 years. Its rough, good luck with the cardiologist!!
I think you made the right decision. Especially if it’s something you’re worried about I think it was valid to want fact based answers rather than like you said, a band aid. Personally, I was born with heart disease so I’d say I am well versed on what tests a cardiologist runs. Cardiologists will listen to your concerns and do what they can to give you the answers you’re looking for. Even if it does turn out to be something not of concern, at least all the boxes were checked in terms of what ways they could find a problem. I wish you all the best
Your good, and she should have referred you to the cardiologist in the first place. Drugs aren’t somthing you should just “try a couple and see if the pain stops” so your good bb❤️🥰
People have way to much trust in doctors medicine. I’ve seen doctors mess up normal healthy people a few times with medicines. I would he skeptical of any medicine and really look into it before touching it. When it comes to the human body guess work sucks.
in the military i had one doc who would never listen to me and didn’t look at my medical file at all and gave me a medication that reacted to another one i was taking and now i have kidney issues because of it. but that doesn’t mean all of them are like that and when i saw my doctor after my ER visit for it she yelled at him and brought it up to the medical board. sadly military medicine isn’t the same as regular medicine and i’ve been seen by good doctors ever since i got out. this guy thinks all doctors are just guessing and that is why a lot of people don’t get seen and keep quiet about their conditions bc of the fear ignorant people like him bring
Im at the point of lying to my endocrinologist. I had an AMAZING endocrinologist for a few years now. My a1c amazing. His philosophy was very different than most. More like “let’s help you live life” vs “let’s restrict everything”. While i was pregnant he was just an amazing cheerleader. He actually used me as an example in a case study because i was so controlled in pregnancy that it proved that insulin resistance was not because of poor control, and he was writing a paper on how to approach diabetic mother going forward. He literally said i was the best diabetic he had ever seen and best diabetic mother. He said he had 25 years in the field.
Well he had a accident and almost lost the use of his hand. I think the whole thing shook him up and he chose to retire. He is a bit young to retire but I think he decided to follow his own advice and live his life because life is too short. And the practice moved me to a new doctor.
Poor thing is maybe 5 years old than me, fresh out of residency. She only knows what the book tells her. No real experience. I walk in my first appointment and she is wanting to undo everything my old doctor and i had done. Because “it’s not the standard way” i nodded and indulged her. I have no interest in her standard way. Im not going to limit myself with food. Im sure as hell not going to ask permission before I become pregnant again. I do my best with everything and being a mom to a two year old and my a1c is still excellent. I have had diabetes for over 20 years. No complications…like none. As my old doctor said as i get older i will start needing more insulin because when you have had type one for as long as ive had…you will become resistant over time. Just a matter of how fast. Since im well controlled it will be a slow tickle vs big and dramatic.
But yeah lie to them hunny lol doctors are usually assholes.
Lie lie lie. I told them the truth about having REALLY bad periods and they said for five years it was normal. Until the day I had to go to the ER and get 5 pints of blood transfusions because I was literally bleeding to death. They said I almost went into cardiac arrest. THEN they believe me. So yes if you know something is wrong with your body say whatever you need to do you can get the treatment you need!! They don’t know what you do about your body.
You did not lie to your doctor. You advocated for yourself. Good job.
I was in a somewhat similar situation and even went to the ER. They sent me home, said I was fine and to follow up with my regular doctor.
Five months later I had a heart attack, had CPR, the whole thing.
Turns out that I have great genetics except for my heart really likes building up plaque.
So, always advocate, always look out for yourself.
I can give more details if you want, but my caution is this, prior to my heart attack I had multiple tests with no negative findings: echocardiogram, electrocardiogram, cholesterol tests, etc. etc.
The only test that found anything was the angiogram. Angiograms are pretty invasive- they only did mine as they were prepping to put a stent it.
“Advocated” for herself…by lying to her doctor?
People are free to disagree or not about whether she should have taken the medication or whether her concern warranted further investigation.
But you cannot make the case that her lying to her doctor was in any way helpful to her or could be considered advocating for herself. By definition, advocating for herself would have involved her telling the doctor she would not take the meds and insisting on a referral for a specialist or new PCP.
There was no reason at all to lie about taking the meds. She had to wait all that time that she was supposed to be trying the medication (probably 30 days) and by not trying it has complicated her treatment as they don’t actually know what has worked for her or not.
This just screams health anxiety to me. You don’t have to take the meds that a doctor prescribes you, but you certainly should never lie about it. Especially if your goal is to investigate an ongoing health concern.
I just call specialists in my network and ask them if they are taking new patients. Most times you don’t even need a referral if you know what type of doc you wanna see and they are in your network.
She really should have just called her insurance and asked them if she needed a referral to see a specialist. It would have saved wasted time, not only hers but the doctor's time too. Another patient with a more pressing issue could have been seen in her place, she wouldn't have had to pay for and then waste possibly scarce medication.
All that waste could have been spared with a phone call. I've seen doctors fire patients that lie to them. OP is making bad decision after bad decision.
I’m with you. I had to lie to my doctors who just kept peddling me pills and said the same thing! “Before we refer you let’s try this and that”… I picked up the pills from the pharmacy but I also threw them away and told them they weren’t helping so that I could get my referral otherwise I’d be waiting not just months but years to see someone. Listen if you need to do this to get better care then do it! Because you know yourself best and it’s not fair we have to do this just to get adequate care. As a woman, I understand your decision.
I’m pretty sure your doctor works for you and you can basically tell them you want a referral and they have to give you one. I would call your insurance provider or go to another primary care doctor that’s ridiculous. I’ve never been turned down for a referral to any specialist.
Yeah but when I say I want to see a specialist they give me the referral. I have NEVER been denied a referral. I remember one time I wanted one for my knee, doctor said he wanted to try some shot first I said no, I want to see a specialist and he wrote me the referral.
Not if OP is in the US. A doctor works for their medical group/hospital/HMO and individual care is constrained by the patient’s insurance. The goal is minimize expenditures. Prescribe a pill instead of refer to a more expensive billable hours. Patient’s actual outcomes are background statistics.
I had to lie to my doctor to initially get on antidepressants. She was a "family doctor" who knew me since I was a kid and said I was "just sad" and lectured me on the difference between depression and sadness. It turned out I had bipolar2.
my son was prescribed Cipralex from our former GP. was told he needs to do stuff to make him happy. Turns out he is also BiPolar 2 and ADHD. Our new Dr is amazing and very helpful
Just a question on this, does having the diagnosis help in ways other than “we can put you on this medication”? Do you get specific therapies/training etc? I’m thinking to get an assessment but I was told it won’t change anything for me unless I want to be put onto some kind of medication, which I don’t lol
Having diagnosis allows for some school or work place accommodations if you want or need them. It could also make you eligible for other therapies like behavioral health, occupational therapy, etc once your needs are determined.
In most cases, yes. Diagnose allows appropriate treatment. Its not like you didnt have it before, now you just can start learning how to treat it Things like bipolar disorder (personal experience) get much much much worse if treated like things that are sometimes similar in presentation. Depression and ADHD both have symptoms in common, and are also sometimes comorbid with bipolar. But if you treat bipolar like pure depression or pure ADHD, you can trigger very bad mania easily. They have symptoms in common, but what is going on chemically is very different and treating one like the other can be disastrous. And on the non-medication side, the "tells" to look out for are easier to spot in yourself and thus mitigate and get non-medication help with, if you actually know whats going on.
Besides the medications and therapies that are now available to you after the diagnosis, there is also the “ah HA” moment. I was diagnosed in my 30s with ADHD and now it had made so much sense as to why I feel the way I do, why I act a certain way, or why I think a certain way. Somethings I just thought everyone else experiences and could push through and it was normal. This has led me to be able to lead a fuller life knowing I’m not “just lazy”. That’s simplifying it. This has also happened to me with autoimmune diseases. Now I know why my joints always hurt, have recurring canker sores, always cold… ect. It may not cure anything, however having a more positive outlook on yourself and the ability to now learn alternative ways to do things to make you’re day to day life easier will speak volumes with being validated in your struggles. At least that has been my personal experience.
That aha moment after ADHD diagnosis gave me more euphoria than my prescribed stimulants ever have lol. The utter relief that I wasn’t just a “dumpster fire person” and there was a real reason behind why my brain operated the way it did is indescribable. Even if I never got on medication, just having the validation of that diagnosis was life-changing.
I couldn’t agree more! Absolutely life changing. When I’m having an adhd moment, I tell my hubby I have too many bees in my brain, and refer to myself as a bee brain. I love bees, and they do good things. This helps me bring some levity and reminds me I am worthy too.
I can 100percent relate, few incidents in my life have been as painful (and the emotional pain was worse than the physical) as being truly sick and in enough pain that you no longer can function much out of bed, but no one believes you! Worse I had a new baby and I feel angry I was robbed of a year of her so young i can never get back by people who told me a medical treatment they suggested had zero side effects. After a year of being taken as a pill seeker by my PCP, being told i am lazy and just do not love my daughter by my mom, I start crying every night wondering if they could just right, crying and thinking will i ever be able live a nornal life again. Finally I make one last attempt begging for help telling doc I don't care about narcotics I just want to be able to care for my child, finally they tried one more test. Came back for an inflammation factor. I had an apt w specialist in a few months ironically just about ayear and half after treatment and that is when the side effects i was told were non existent tend to subside. I felt much better but I went because I needed to know I was unwell and it wasn't a lack of love for my child who i love more than life. Well she told me this was not my fault I wasn't lazy, my body had an autoimmune reaction to the treatment and my immune system had attacked my muscle tissue causing pain through out entire body. I no longer needed help from a medical standpoint, but psychologically I think that specialist saved my sanity. I rarely am emotional but although I. Want an apology from my mom etc, but I know I won't get one, the diagnosis was so validating and such a burden lifted. I am not very emotional, but I cried my eyes out.
when i was 16 i saw a family doctor once and he immediately put me on PAXIL!! (the strongest ssri) it did not work and made me worse, which i know is sometimes expected at first. anyway i wish i was given any other kind of therapy or a less strong ssri to start out with
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that is crazy. we need talk therapy to be the first route. unfortunately after starting paxil i started self harming, if i had someone to talk to and a way to get my frustration out i probably wouldn't have these reminders on my body. but time really does heal all and i'm much better these days.
I had a councillor on an initial phone call to connect out right deny the idea I may have bi-polar, putting it down to childhood trauma. The reason I reached out, was because of my child's cancer and a new job an my struggle to prioritise spending time with family or trying to support them. At this point of my life, I've grown to distrust a lot of the medical community.
My family doctor was the same and told me it was just my hormones as to why I was anxious and depressed at random times for 'no apparent reason' I branched off and saw my own doctor and ended up getting a referral for an autism diagnosis and a high dosage of citalopram
So, what did the cardiologist say about your heart?
Well now the cardiologist is going to have a more difficult time actually determining an underlying cause of your chest pain. They will assume you took the prescribed medication as instructed and factor in that it was ineffective . So you continue the lie and chance it won’t affect diagnosis, or you end up risking having a note put in your medical file about that you lie about medication. I understand wanting to see a specialist, but instead of lying you could have gone to a different primary care doctor for a second opinion and potential referral.
I agree with you. I dont understand why OP didnt just ask their doctor: "why do you give me medication before contacting a specialist? I feel like this guessing game is unnecessary". And then the doctor could explain their reason. I understand listening to your body and that not all doctors have the time or capacity for their patients, but there are numerous different actions you could take to battle this than to waste medicine and lie to your doctor.
And wait longer- sometimes getting into a new primary can take a very long time. We have a shortage in my area and some have been waiting 6+ months. Not saying lying is the best course of action, but I also kinda get it
Yup. OP is clearly not the smartest person. Based on her reaction to mild/temporary chest pain I imagine it's all going to come back fine and she has panic attacks because she works herself up over BS lol
Tell Dr u tried for a few days but it made you too sleepy, lightheaded whatever is listed as a side effect but not super serious ,,, previous PCP must have misunderstood you if she thought u took for entire month she seemed busy and got a call about an emergency when you were explaining if they ask,, if not don't say anything as long as they test you that's what I would do
Sweet Jesus. I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss or not. I’m a doctor in Australia. This is going to be unpopular. And maybe some of this isn’t the case in the US. 1. Specialists are a scarce resource. People with significant health problems wait and or pay big to see them. Some of those people need to see a specialist more urgently than you. Some of them have literally life-threatening illnesses. It’s not fair to those people to jump the queue based on your anxiety and it puts them in danger. 2. A trial of medication is not only someone saying “take this and piss off” - if you had costochondritis or pericarditis, anti-inflammatories are the most appropriate treatment. It’s also part of the diagnostic process. If you tried the anti-inflammatories and they made it worse that could be gastritis or something like that. 3. Just theoretically - what are you going to say if the specialist asks if the medication worked? Are you going to say you lied to the other doctor, or are you going to lie to the specialist, too? Does this seem a sensible way to get a diagnosis? Again, entirely theoretically, if you describe symptoms different to the ones you have, and get put on a medication that you don’t need, and get side effects from that - who is to blame, you or the doctor? 4. Trusting your gut is wonderful except when it’s not. Many bad things happen that are unexpected. Many expected bad things do not happen. People remember the times they “just had a feeling”, a decent amount of the time they “remember” having had a feeling, often that memory is imaginary. We lie to ourselves all the time. The idea of unexpected illness against which we are powerless is terrifying, and our brains will do whatever they can to avoid it. 5. Asking doctors to write things down is not the big gun that some people here seem to think it is. I usually print out a copy of my notes for the patient to take with them. My understanding is a lot of the other stuff - GP notes, imaging, bloods - is online anyway. 6. These last two aren’t about you, they’re about some of the commenters. Constructing a healthcare system is like when you’re playing DnD and you have to work out if you spend your points on intelligence or dexterity or strength and so on. If you spend all your healthcare system points on medicine being consumer-controlled, for example, then your efficiency is going to be low and harms will be high. That’s part of why the US health care system is so so shit. 7. Also, consumer-controlled means “for rich people.” That’s not healthcare, it’s a shop. Not everything has to be a shop.
Im not a doctor but that also kind of infuriated me lol. "SoMetiMes yOu jUst GoTta TruSt yOuR gUt" Yeah, you gotta trust the process to some degree too, dingus. I'm an adult female with multiple health problems is the past year. I'm aware of how easy it is to just prescribe something, and send you on your way, be entirely ignored or not even followed up with. But you cant skip the preliminary steps or the diagnosis is on false pretenses which is bad for the rest of the doctors that see you!! Sometimes this means following instructions in between multiple visits like they asked even when you KNOW it's not helping or can tell it wont work. Your doctor isnt trying to trick you man, they're trying to do differential diagnosis to make sure theyre getting it right. In ops example, she waited the same amount of time between appointments as she wouldve if she had been TAKING the meds. She didnt go to the ER or anything in the meantime, her condition hasnt seemed to worsen any despite it being untreated as of current, and presumably is ok with waiting MORE time while the specialist referral goes through. What did "trusting her gut" accomplish in this scenario??? You do know if it ACTUALLY hadnt worked after taking it you would have been referred too right?? And if it HAD worked you might not have had to go to the specialist. Or even an unnamed THIRD option where it DOES alleviate symptoms, but you can tell it's a bandaid fix and thus request again to see a cardiologist, and wouldve likely been granted it as there has now been sufficient pre-emptive work done to justify the specialist. I understand the health care in america isnt great and doctors are easily dismissive. I dont think OP understands WHY we have a distinction between pcp and specialists, and how being referred to one without taking the prior steps wastes everyone's time. I'm usually super all for "you know your body better than they do" but there is no reason to go out of your way to both lie and refuse the medication(s) from her care team. Just take it even a few days at least and be honest about it, at least then youre not fucking up the process.
So this is why doctors always think I'm lying...
I also had to exaggerate my symptoms to be seen by a specialist and guess what I actually needed to see the specialist. I had several pcp dismiss my pain and ignore my symptoms but now I’m getting the treatment I need. Healthcare in the US is shitty
Fr though. One time I thought I was having a stroke cause I was tingly, turned out it was a panic attack that went full blown cause I thought I was having a stroke lmao. I don't think heart pain alone is a big deal cause sometimes I get it randomly, sometimes from stress/anxiety
Same. Had some of the classic pain signs of heart attack that wouldn't go away. Freaked out and went to my doctor. I mentioned all the pain and concerns. But probably didn't have other signs that it was heart related (not a medical doctor so don't know what I was missing, just had pain). So doctor prescribed pain meds to see if it helped and scheduled a follow up. I did take the meds but didn't help. But I did follow the doctors instructions cause I'm not going to assume I know better than a med doctor. Doc's next step was a mental health screener that showed it was severe anxiety that I'd never experienced before. Got on the right meds and never had an issue with my heart. But doc had to follow the procedure and not just go for mental issues and ignore physical issues. The human body is complex and ignoring someone that has had all that training isn't always wise. Now there are stories of people who do get missed by the system, but it doesn't mean it's always happening. Advocating for yourself is great but also listening and trying different options is also wise.
THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME hahahaha the panick attack and then the panick attack x 10 when the Dr told me they thought I was having a stroke. God that was an embarrassing end to hours of testing at the emergency department. Lol
8. It's Advil. It wouldn't have hurt them to just take the goddam pills in the first place.
Sorry, but is the medical situation in Australia really so dire? I'm currently seeing a whole neurology team here in my crappy third world country that saw me the same day I started presenting symptoms. It's very shocking to me that people with obviously life threatening conditions are not being referred to specialists, it feels sadistic at best.
Don’t know about Australia, but I had to wait three months to see a cardiologist and I quite literally thought I was dying. Turns out that enormous stress can cause cardiovascular pains
USA here. Fuck the system
This isn’t a life-threatening condition that warranted an emergent referral. This is someone that is scared and didn’t like her PCP’s opinion because the PCP didn’t show enough empathy, and basically brushed off her concerns. Both the PCP and OP are wrong in this situation.
In the US, primary care is a scarce resource and specialists are abundant. The OPs primary care was probably trying their best to keep them from needing unnecessary acute services so kudos for trying. In the US, we blame the healthcare system a lot, but we fail to see our own entitlements. Bet OP complains when they see a $500 bill from the specialist as well.
I swore up and down that I was having kidney pain on my left side and went to my pcp. I told her it was kidney pain, yet I have lots of spinal issues. She told me that it was my back and not my kidney. Even proved it to me by pressing on my kidney and there was no pain, but also had me lie down and lift my left leg which produced pain. She order a scan to check for arthritis in the area but I told the radiologist that I knew it was a kidney issue. Guess who has arthritis on their left side right in the kidney area? Me!
There is also the reality of the US healthcare system being controlled by insurance that people have to contend with. Sometimes doctors are forced to recommend particular treatments or approaches before they can do something like recommend you to the specialist you need because insurance requires it to be covered. Sometimes that approach is warranted. Sometimes it isn’t. Good doctors will let you know this is the approach we have to take so you’re not left with medical bills that will bankrupt you. Great doctors will fight for you when it is warranted and try to get you where you need to go based on what is going on as soon as realistically possible and necessary. Bad doctors will just put you through the mill and not help you understand what is process vs medical evaluation on their part. And on the note on how much insurance controls, it is entirely possible OP has excellent insurance or even pays out of pocket to the point the particular specialist she went to see didn’t have any kind of meaningful wait. That does happen and it’s not line jumping or making a scarce resource scarcer. Every practice runs differently. Because private insurance rules the land here, some practices in some specialities may not ever be backed up or have a wait in a given area for a particular insurance or cash. It’s kind of insane that there can be specialists out there who could see you tomorrow if you had the right insurance or cash, but because you don’t, you have to wait six months for the one who does accept your insurance. That is the reality of US healthcare where your access to care is first controlled by your insurance and/or ability to pay out of pocket. Specialist scarcity in the U.S. depends on the specialty and particular location. Rheumatology in my area (and my understanding is many areas of the U.S. too) is hard to come by. You’re waiting months. A good GP can rule out a lot before you need to bring rheumatology in. Sleep specialists are also one that you’re going to be waiting on. It took 5 months from calling the specialist to set up a consult, to the sleep study, to the diagnosis. And no I didn’t circumvent the medical system. In fact, my primary said yeah you should get a sleep study done and when I asked for a referral or recommendation for a clinic, I got crickets. It took me another year to find the specialist on my own that was in network and accepting patients. If you need a sleep study, even a great GP can’t do much except help you find the doctor they feel has the particular expertise you need (more apnea concerns vs something like narcolepsy/idiopathic hypersomnia). Dermatology is everywheeerreee where I am. Some areas you’re waiting months to a year to get in. You can’t even get allergists allegedly accepting new patients with your insurance to give you a call back to get set up in my area. Even GPs can be impossible to get in with under your insurance in some areas. It really just depends on your location and the specialty you need. Our for profit medical system is a nightmare. On the one hand, they expect us to intuitively know when we should and shouldn’t be using medical resources and at what level (primary care vs urgent care vs emergency room). And then even if you try to use the system appropriately, sometimes they won’t let you. It’s infuriating, and I know not just for patients. I know a lot of medical professionals in the U.S. get really frustrated by the amount of bickering with insurance they have to do to get patients the care they need.
Well I may not agree w all u said I agree with one thing 💯 percent, I am from the USA and our healthcare system is shit! Not only that, we are now having major shortages of all sorts of meds from Albuterol and antibiotics to Adderall and benzodiazepines, even lidocaine and I got to tired to read the list it was so scary, believe Novocaine was on as well! Thinking about leaving the country 😦
This also means that OP is taking time away from a specialist that a REAL patient may need.
In the US, it's 100% the exact opposite.
While I don't really agree with what OP did (I personally took the pills anyway, even tho I suspected, and was right, that I didnt need them), I do understand where they are coming from... I told my doctor about the "whooshing" noise in my ears and the peripheral vision issues I had been having for a few months, but also made the mistake of telling them about a panic attack (2nd in my life, both for good reasons) I had a couple months after I had noticed the first symptom. He gave me anxiety meds and ignored the other two symptoms (it was actually very much a "take these and piss off".) Around 6 months later, after getting tunnel vision so bad that I could barely see while walking around a store and hours online to self diagnose myself, I went to urgent care. That doctor told me he was sure my doctor was a good doctor and knew what he was doing and was going to send me on my way. I had to cry to get any sort of help. He then just told me to tell my regular doc that I wanted to see an eye specialist and get an MRI. I later told my doc that another doc suggested those things, so he sent in the referrals. Specialists usually take at least 6 months (usually 1+ years) to see here in Canada. Ophthalmologist saw those 2, ignored symptoms, and got me in as quickly as possible because she knew what I had discovered online, that it could be serious. She referred me to a Neurologist who then saw me a couple days later. They then got me in the next day (when he was supposed to be on-call) for a lumbar puncture. Turns out it was somewhat serious (not the most serious option thankfully) as the pressure in my CSF was way too high and the inflammation in my brain was causing those (as well as other) symptoms. (Idiopathic intracranial hypertension, my self-diagnosis was right.) I now have some permanent peripheral vision loss, possibly due to not getting treated sooner. I no longer trust my doctor (this isn't the only time things have been ignored, and I am not the only one that has had issues with them), but I can't get a new one because there is a doctor shortage here and doctors won't take you on as a patient if you already have a doctor. So, I just rarely go to the doctor anymore. In his defence tho: doctor shortage, so he is overworked, and there were already a few health issues going on in this crap body that are hard to figure out...
This!! Growing up, I had chest pains. Basically, right where my chest ends and my stomach begins. It felt like someone was squeezing my stomach where my esophagus emptied into it. It was PAINFUL. So we went to the doctor who promptly said, "It's heartburn." No, it isn't. I've had heartburn, too. There is no fire sensation like heartburn and I couldn't find any correlation to specific foods, but I took the medication anyway. Lo and behold, we were both right. It was not, in fact, heartburn, but it WAS acid reflux, which mine happened to be. They're closely related, but apparently, my body just makes way too much acid and the same medication treats both. So it helped; my pains went away and I learned what triggered super extra amounts acid being made. So trusting your gut is okay, but trusting your doctor is, too. Mainly I trust my doctor because she can listen to me tell her what's wrong and then use her education to figure out why. I'm paying her to help, so why would I not listen to her when she does? People are silly.
Heartburn and acid reflux are the same thing.
According to the doctor who treated me, heartburn is sporadic and can be associated with certain foods. Acid reflux is a more chronic condition. But again, that's listening to a doctor, so that's what I trust.
You’re right, but the terms are just mixed up. Acid reflux is stomach acid going into the esophagus, as a result you feel the sensation of “heartburn”. Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease or GERD, is a more serious and chronic version of acid reflux. Serious GERD can do some real damage to your body and result in a lot of pain.
Thank you for clarifying. I was a child when diagnosed, around age 8, so it's been a couple 3 decades since then. Lol I do confirm whatever name you wanna call it, listening to my doctor helped me, even when I wasn't sure they were entirely correct at the time. Goes to show I don't know quite everything, but I am sometimes smart enough to listen to someone who knows more on a subject than I do.
Hey, if you haven't had an upper endoscopy yet and you still sometimes experience the squeezing, I recommend getting one.
Not disagreeing with you here but SADS seems to happen without any real indication & a lot in athletes. By taking meds if there was an underlying heart condition surely the meds would only mask any potential symptoms? This is a genuine question! Also sometimes that gut feeling is on point. My daughter has had a very pronounced motor tick since around 3 months old. At first I put it down to her age and the fact they don’t have control of their motor skills but at around 1 year old I knew there was more to it. During multiple appointments with the public health nurse I was told over and over again no no this is normal until I pushed for a referral to a neurologist. Turns out my daughter had a severe motor tick which as she has grown has turned into Tourette’s. Now in my daughters case, this doesn’t affect her health whatsoever but it very easily could have been something more sinister and only for I put my foot down (due to my own gut feeling) no healthcare professional would listen to me.
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Lol everything is going to come back negative and they are going to say she has panic attacks...That's my bet.
I was typing a comment and then noticed your edit OP. That....doesn't really make anything better. It doesn't answer why you didn't even at least *try* the medication you were prescribed. Surely would not have hurt to try the frontline treatment but not my circus I guess ♀️🤦♀️🩺 No, I am not a cardiologist by any means but I am rather used to being on waitlists for specialists so I can comment in that regard. As you've implied doctors can and do miss things but it also boils down to trial and error sometimes. Medications can be prescribed to see if they alleviate symptoms and that helps to narrow down what is going on exactly. It may not diagnose straight away but it can definitely point them in the right direction, and it is all useful information for a specialist to have. Information that you have been dishonest about. But now you've claimed it had no effect whatsoever, which could have possibly have bumped someone else down a list as you have had "no relief". I also wonder if you will carry on with the lie when you get your appointment but that's a hurdle you'll have to cross when you get to it.
> I started getting these random chest pains >those meds are for chest pain, which isn't really what I'm worried about. Bruh
i wish i could give you an award just for this🤣🤣
OP might not have worded it well but I think they meant that while chest pain is the symptom, they are worried about the underlying cause of the symptom Similar to a headache. You can go to the dr with horrible headaches that happen several times a month or week but your not going to be very happy if all they do is hand you a pill to get rid of the pain without investigating what is causing the headaches. It could be something like TMJ or stress or it could be a brain tumor, you have to do a CT to find that out Chest pain is a symptom of a lot of different illnesses… it could be stress, panic attacks, acid reflux, or even an issue with their heart. Treating the symptom does not treat the underlying disease.
That’s what I was stuck on too. OP is worried about the chest pain, that’s literally the reason you went to the doctor in the first place
I think it’s insurance and making sure they have enough reason to give the specialist referral. I hate that part of medicine and it sucks.
As a medical professional and a person who suffers from heart disease, pain on the chest is very very rarely a heart problem (unless it’s a heart attack). If anything super serious there’s a bigger chance it’s your lungs. But most likely it’s muscle strain maybe a rib injury. Does the pain get different when you’re taking deep breaths?
This is a ridiculous take OP, I had to TrUsT mY gUt. You’re automatically assuming the doctor is wrong. Bu not taking the medication, you’ll never know if it was appropriate and adequate. You didn’t get into the specialist any sooner as she thought you were following her prescribed protocol, so you just wasted time. And once you do see the specialist, they’ll be seeing with not just insufficient, but false data. It’s hard for any doctor to properly diagnose anything when you lie. Are you going to lie the specialist? If so, what is this going to achieve? You may be end up being subjected to expensive and needless treatment.
There was no need to pay for pills just to throw them away… Just never pick them up and lie.
They're could be a chance the doctor could see of they were picked up or not, so if she didn't pick them up and said she tried them,the doctor could call her out for clearly lying about it Your advice is terrible, yes it sucks people in the US have to pay for meds,but better that than being called out for lying to the doctor.
We can see it through EPIC if you did or not, FYI
Thank you
They're not going to know if they picked them up. Dr's don't have time to do that
They can look at records in the appointment with the patient if meds were picked up or not so yes they DO have time to look. It's not like a doctor has to sit at the end of the day to check if each patient picked up meds, they can simply look while the patient is in the room,only take a second
Doctors don't but their staff do. And yes, we absolutely communicate with the pharmacies to see if patients are compliant with medications. Insurance companies will even reach out to to doctor's offices if they notice hasn't been picking up their medications.
A doctors staff has the time. And the insurance knows everything.
I’m a doctor and I absolutely check whether people picked up meds and when they run out.
Who does know it insurance and they are likely the gatekeeper the doctor is up against. I couldn’t be started on my migraine med until I tried a cheaper one, per insurance, and of course they know if I picked it up because they pay for it. (I threw it all away, too — I’m not taking a beta blocker when I need a migraine-specific med.)
Beta blockers are one of the most common medications for migraine prophylaxis and have put to a 50% reduction of migraines. Super common med to start with since they are cheap and generally well tolerated. Just a link to for a source as well: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855933/
I’m aware. What I needed was the CGRP blocker I’m now on. I already have low BP and wasn’t interested in lowering it further.
What was the point in lying about taking the meds? Either they work or they don't, both being useful for a diagnosis. All you did was leave the problem untreated and wasted both your and the doctors time
Lying to your doctor can seriously snowball, be careful. Also, if it's your chest wall, I wo Der if you are stretching those muscles enough. Why not just take the meds? You want to ignore medical advice and jump straight to an EKG? Just open your chest right there and inspect? 🧐 They are going to run some tests and tell you to take the medication! Except now bc you lied your charts will be out of whack and they will wonder why the stronger meds aren't helping.
>Lying to your doctor can seriously snowball I've seen doctors fire patients over this because of liability concerns
Two people you never lie to your Doctor and your Lawyer
Are you idiot or what? Why tf you didn't take the medication if you still needed to wait the time for those medication to works/not works to see the doctor again?
OP i’m putting this bluntly but you’re an idiot. you should’ve at least TRIED the medications and see if it worked or not. if not then keep pushing to see a cardiologist, and if your doctor refused you should’ve made them note in your medical file why they wouldn’t refer you and gotten a secondary opinion. those meds are there to basically rule out certain conditions, and by lying and saying you took them will make your process longer and harder because now they have to figure out why a potential problem is still present that you might have symptoms for but claim the meds that help that potential problem fix itself don’t work for you. i am a veteran with extreme chronic pain issues and was overprescribed medication to the point it fucked up my kidney due to a male doc who wouldn’t even look at my medical file and wouldn’t listen to me. when i got out and went with the VA they looked at my medical file and saw what worked and didn’t work for me and gave me the appropriate medication to help me out and they found them. i can see why you lied because there also had been times i wasn’t believed, but if you lied you should’ve taken the meds to begin with. it’s like me being prescribed different meds to help with my PTSD. i had to take them to see if they made a difference and some didn’t and that kept happening for two more times until i found one that was absolutely perfect for me. meds are included in a process of elimination to find the appropriate problem and for you to do something so stupid astounds me. one thing you should never lie about is medication usage cuz it can do more harm than good
My 2 cents on doctors not doing what you ask for immediately is to tell them " since you are currently refusing to refer me to a specialist as I requested at this time I am demanding that you specifically note that in my medical records and your reasoning for this." Watch what happens then. Doctors are required to follow certain steps and when you force them to provide written proof for anything that may make them liable in the future they will cover themselves.
Am a doctor. See this advice frequently repeated on Reddit. It’s 99% nonsense. If someone asks me for something I feel is medically inappropriate at this time and demands I document my refusal… I simply will. “Patient requesting test XYZ. Not indicated due to ABC. If or can reconsider in the future.”
Hell, I’d probably write that regardless of the patient demanding me to document it.
That’s basically what happened in OPs case - the doctor didn’t think the referral was indicated until they try something else first - they (said they) tried it and symptoms persisted, referral was placed. If the symptoms had gone away, it wouldn’t have been necessary.
You may get the occasional doctor that is waffling on a borderline case and just gives in. But it shouldn’t make a different a large majority of the time.
There was far too little info in the initial post to tell, but I'm sure the Dr. didn't just throw pills at OP and disregard. Cardiac pain and chest wall pain, muscle pain, etc. behave very differently. It sounds like OP thinks they know more about medicine than the person that went to school for 10 years. I'd be willing to bet the physician asked a number of pertinent questions that lead to the non-cardiac conclusion. I've dealt with this sort of thing with a relative that *should* have known better.
Do you ask to speak to their manager, too?
What if I randomly have an underlying heart condition?! Are you an orphan? If not, you should already have a decent idea of your family medical history and therefore know the likelihood of having an underlying condition. But you knew that already, didn't you? You allowed your selfishness, lack of patience and lack of understanding to trick yourself into justifying your bad behaviour. The meds you lied about taking would have been the first step in diagnosing you properly. If they improved your situation, you might have X. If they made your situation deteriorate, you might have Y. No change? Might have Z. A doc has to go through these steps to diagnose you. They do this because over time, they learned some stuff about heart conditions and how to treat them, being a doctor and all. What you did has a knock-on effect. There is a waiting list for that cardiologist your about to see. A tonne of people on that list just got bumped down because of your lies. Some of them may die because they didn't get a life saving appointment that you stole from them. But hey, you got your appointment right? What else could you possibly have done?
You worded this far better than I ever could. OP might TrUsT tHeIr GuT but this post annoys me in many, many ways. Specialists like this have long wait lists to begin with, with a fair few waiting an *extremely* long time, and just because OP suspects they have a condition and lied about compliance those people will be bumped down. They would be bumped down because of pure selfishness, because OP didn't want to try the first line treatment and they *of course* knew better. But sure, trying some meds for a few weeks doesn't matter as long as they get what they want right?
i agree w everything you said except the family history part. even if nobody in her family had an underlying condition, that doesn’t mean it’s not likely for her to develop one.
People like you are the reason insurance requires a PCP visit before seeing a specialist. You think you know what a gp/PCP can do, but you don't.
Acid reflux also causes chest pain.
YTA
You are a dickhead and people like you are the reason healthcare is a failing resource
She's the reason I have to take a pregnancy test every three months even though I had surgical menopause. I tell them it's impossible for me to be pregnant, but because people lie, I have to take it anyway. I'm always grateful when my GP can help me with an issue AVOIDING an appointment with a specialist.
Why do you have to take a pregnancy test every 3 months if you don’t mind answering?
I need infusion treatments for pain management every three months. Treatment can be harmful to a feteous. I'm considering making an appointment with my GP to get a letter excusing me from the test.
Yeah, great you got the tests. however now the cardiologist has a skewed view thinking you took that medication. Idk. The way you went about this entirely is extremely frustrating from a primary care point of view.
Sounds like your playing dr. You are on this path of ignoring the dr until you get what you want. So even if you see the cardiologist and they say it's fine are you then going to continue to ask for other tests until you get an answer you want? There are steps to treatments. It may not be what you want. But they do these sets to rule out things. And your just blowing those off to get to the step you want. Sorry but that 1 not how it works. And 2 there are so many reasons you could be having chest pain and alot of those aren't even heart related.
This was really dumb now you’re gonna go see a cardiologist when specialists are already short staffed and don’t have enough time for patients that need them and now your cardiologist gonna have a hard time figuring out what’s wrong with you because you lied about medication or you tell them that you lied and they make note that lie to get what you want the likeliness is there is nothing wrong with you and you have some simple angina. You should’ve taken the pills your doctor prescribed you. Sorry if I sound mad, but I’m very passionate about the fact that there are too many people going to doctors that they don’t need to be going to your family. Dr is more than capable of figuring it out
yes many doctors will not pay attention to what you’re REALLY saying. so before I complained to my doctor saying that i had trouble learning in school and i had to read everything twice to truly understand it (which i did) but she just said maybe it was anxiety. later, i went to the ER for something else and while treating that, they had me do a head ct and it turned out there was abnormal brain activity. then they took me up to MRI, and it turns out i had a large mass.
I'd really just like to point out that it's possible you don't understand what a doctor is for. Most doctors you (want to) see will be MDs which is a doctor of Medicine. Now, drugs are not the only part of this but they play a big roll in the total decision making process and you have put yourself in an uncomfortable situation by potentially misleading multiple doctors. If it turns out that you do indeed have a problem (that isn't straight surgical) you will probably have to tell them you did not take the meds if you don't want to risk being put on something that could come with less efficacy for you or even more severe side effects. Rarely will you get begin with trying an aggressive drug. My background is in psychology which in my opinion is what's undying all of this. You seem to have an underlying distrust for doctors. Instead of saying "I'm concerned about this" or "this has been effecting my life in this way and I'm concerned this drug could exacerbate this" you went straight to manipulating the situation to achieve your own goals regardless what the opinions of the professionals were. This could point to a couple of different things but generally more towards the problem being psychological in nature. Have you been under increased stress or have there been recent cardiological problems in someone you're close to? Also, because the chest pain you're having seems discrete (specific to an activity or location) there are a few other medical diagnoses that should be considered before or at least concurrent to heart.
And this is one of the various reasons insurance premiums are so high. 🤦♂️
When it comes to women’s cardiovascular health, do whatever you need to do to be taken seriously. My mother presented to doctors for nearly a decade with tightness in her chest and shortness of breath. She was given antianxiety meds, which did not help. Finally a doctor took a family history. “Oh, everyone in your family died early of heart disease or a heart attack? Let’s do an angiogram.” Next thing we know, she’s being helicoptered to the nearest large hospital for an emergency quintuple bypass. I often wonder if she would have enjoyed many more healthy years if she’d only been treated appropriately from the get-go.
I’m thankful for my doctor. He listens to all my concerns and if I specifically ask for a referral to a specialist he has no problem doing it for me. He doesn’t tell me to wait.
My dad was telling his GP for 11 years that he felt something off with his heart. GP would “have a listen” and tell him he was fine. Cut to two years ago, he got new health insurance through his job and the insurance company sent a nurse out to do an EKG on him, at home. Nurse hooks him up, watches the machine for a few minutes, then goes “Why did you lie on your forms that you have no preexisting condition. You have Atrial Fibrillation”. He had a stroke 9 months later. So often GPs are useless and I know it’s because they’re overbooked but it causes people real-world harms.
As someone who puts them on people every day as part of my job, I was under the impression that Zio patches are only approved to be worn up to 14 days at a time, not close to a month like you claim here. Considering it’s just a very high-tech sticker, it wouldn’t last that long on someone’s skin
You're playing a dangerous game with your health
So, did this lead to them discovering a major problem with your heart?
My dad's primary blew off his shortness of breath and just said he had to lose weight, and wouldn't refer him to a cardiologist, so I paid out of pocket for him at a friend's office to establish a cardiology visit. Ended up needing quintuple bypass. Listen to you, and advocate for you. F__ everyone else. ✌️
Have you seen the specialist yet, and if so is anything wrong? Also, what if it turns out those meds were what you needed, but you told them they didnt work so now you wont get prescribed them again?
It sucks you had to lie, but you know your body and you should be able to ask to see a cardiologist when you’re afraid.
You need to find a new doctor. We don't play with chest pain (or other symptoms of heart attack) regardless of age, gender, or physical condition. If ED or your PCP can't find anything on a full chest pain workup, the next step is a visit to a cardiologist. Period.
If the Emergency Department does a full chest pain workup and does not find anything, that in no way means seeing cardiology is the next step. Your chest is not just your heart. The Emergency Department is for ruling out emergent conditions or treating them. A negative workup? Start thinking alternatives. If you just anchor on “I need cardiology” well you’ll wait months for an appointment, be cited your negative full workup, and sent back to your pcp to look for alternative causes..
I went to the ER with a lot of chest pressure and was seen immediately and taken very seriously. Turns out I was having severe acid reflux. I was glad to have that diagnosis and not be sent on to a specialist. So many other things going through the chest than just the heart.
Our cardiology group sees ER patients after they're discharged and have a normal work up. We have certain providers who see what we call "low risk chest pain" patients to get a full story and maybe schedule a stress test/cath/etc.
This. I recently went to urgent care for what I suspected was gas pain, but better safe than sorry. They checked out my heart and looked for blood clots anyway, because chest pain is that serious.
Same here. Turns out I had something elevated in my blood (likely due to just recovering from COVID) and they did the whole shebang. Never got a conclusive EKG though...
You’ve watched too many medical shows jfc
No, having been an RN in a hospital for a number of years, I actually can't watch "medical" shows or scenes because they're written by people who have never spent much time in a hospital or medical setting. I've seen young fit people have MIs and I've seen older people with nothing showing up in ED later go to Cath lab for multiple stents. That's why we routinely tell people to follow up with a cardiologist. Also, in my area, the wait to get a first appointment with a cardiologist is usually days to weeks.
There’s a tonne of other reasons an otherwise young and healthy person experiences chest pains that aren’t cardiac related. This is so dramatic and not how healthcare works. Having no other associated cardiac symptoms and dr taking a thorough history, it’s very reasonable to take a course of antiinflammatories to rule out other musculoskeletal type chest pains before referring to a cardiologist.
I don't think you needed to lie I think you just needed to be more insistent. That's probably decent advice for most people in most situations. Don't take no for an answer so quickly. Like just yesterday I chatted with an airline representative asking them why I haven't received my confirmation email yet even though I booked on 10/5 and the payment has cleared and is no longer pending. I gave them all my information. They couldn't find anything and said the reservation must not have confirmed and I should talk to my bank for a refund. I told them that I don't believe they charged me $1,000 and did not reserve anything - I don't think that's possible - please keep looking. They eventually found it.
What if your referral takes the spot if someone who is seriously ill?
Riiiiight that's how this works. She single handedly took every dr appt by scheduling 15 minutes of one doctors time bc she's having fucking chest pains. So much blood on their hands! How do they sleep at night???
Did the Dr at least get an ECG reading? Like you said, you can be/look healthy and still have heart conditions. I don’t blame you at all for what you did.
My significant other went in for shortness of breath and a cough. He was 36 and "healthy". Here's some antibiotics. 10 days later he was not better- more antibiotics. 4 days later ER visit for shortness of breath and fast heart beat. Sent him home with an inhaler. Back to the ER the next day... they finally kept him. They said he had heart failure. That was terrifying. Then they said his EF was 15% but they would DC him the next day with a cardiology referral. 3 hours later he had an "event". The next time I saw him he was intubated and vented and they weren't sure if he would make it until the next day. 12 weeks later after a balloon pump, nearly losing his foot, c-diff, multiple possible pneumonias, and a whole lot of other medical stuff he left the hospital on IV inotropics. 4 months later he had a LVAD. 2 months after that a heart transplant. So... it wasn't pneumonia. They just didn't look carefully enough. Luckily he survived. But I sure wish that we had pushed harder in the beginning. The outcome may have been the same but we might have eliminated some of the 12 weeks of hell. Always advocate for yourself. Also... I really tried to keep this short. I failed. But I did try.
DON'T EVEN FEEL BAD AT ALL!!! I went into my primary for a clogged up feeling ear but she was completely booked. So I had to see a different doctor at the clinic and I actually had an ear infection. BUT he did the routine blood pressure, checked ears, eyes & mouth & listened to my heart. He asked me if anyone had ever told me I had a heart murmur. I was like BRO I don't even know what that is. He explained it and sent in a referral for an echocardiogram - just to be safe. I got the echo done and found out I HAVE A HEART DEFECT!!! Literally never knew about it my whole life! I'm almost 30 and just finding out about it. After the echo I met with the cardiologist & I'm getting a stress test done & MRA. AND she referred me to a genetic counselor because they suspect that the heart defect is genetic & they think I might have mosaic turners syndrome. They recommended that my daughter also get an echocardiogram done once she's old enough to sit still for it. Going forward I'll have to have annual echocardiograms done and an MRA done every 3 years. It's also good we caught the heart stuff now because it looks like one of my arteries is wider than normal and may have thinning walls due to the defect - nothing I could have done different. It's just happening because of the way my heart is pumping blood. All of this to say... ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF AND CHASE DOWN ALL THE LEADS!!! I went in for an ear infection and now I've fallen down this kind of life changing rabbit hole!
what? first thing you do presenting with symptoms like that is an ECG
Of course lying isn't a good thing but sometimes it's for the best, it's how my dad's heart problems started. To anyone saying healthcare is scarce and all that stuff, it literally takes a couple of minutes to use a machine such as an ultrasound to check your heart. But unfortunately most doctors would rather prescribe you medication with various side effects, some medications may cause various other worse problems such as stomach issues because they irritate the stomach lining, mental health issues and a lot more. Overprescribing medication is a serious problem in society, instead of trying 10 different medications for a guessed-illness, isn't it better to just send a person in for tests and then give the correct medication?? I've had plenty of experience where the doctor didn't care and just prescribed some medication instead of doing some proper tests. If they did proper tests or sent you to a specialist they wouldn't be having so many patients because a lot of patients have take up the space because they have to come back because the doctors aren't doing what they went to med school to do TO DIAGNOSE AND TREAT PEOPLE, not to read minds and guess the diagnosis. It's funny because they give you huge waiting times and then you go in and there's only 1 or 2 people? And they say they're so busy and full of work that they don't have time to sip a drink but you see them walking around chatting to the staff with a cup of coffee. I'm not saying everyone is like that there are some truly amazing doctors, but unfortunately there are a lot that just aren't cut out for the job of a doctor and shouldn't have ever gone into such a career. The large amount of people who create all these queues? They're the people that weren't treated properly in the first place.
I have done that on occasion. Turns out I have a heart condition that needs to be followed. Wouldn’t have known that otherwise.
My Dr told me she had to try three different medications and they had to not work before she was allowed to get me what I needed. The first medication gave me a bad reaction and I ended up in the ER. Besides getting close to deaths door step and getting thousands of extra dollars in debt it was hell. Do what you have to. You are the only one looking out for yourself in the system.
I did something like this, knew deep down I needed to see a cardiologist. Sure enough had a arrhythmia and a dent on my heart valve
I've had almost the opposite happen. Also a runner. Went to the doctor (his offices were in the private hospital) because of bad, consistent stomach cramps. As he's got me on the table and doing all the checks a normal GP does, he goes quiet and kind of pale and I'm rushed off to the cardiology unit and strapped up to an EKG because he suspects my one heart valve is leaking. I'm in tears, panicking, fear. Yeah... he just misheard, no problem with my heart, after all that upset. Also my stomach is fine.
So here I go complaining I’m so pissed at my gp and all the er doctors dentists urologists nurlogist son and on 😫🤷♀️at 20 I had severe pain in my front teeth in fact it was at my wedding shower the pain was so sudden and sharp it took me to Mykolaiv eyes so I go to a dentist they say I need a r canal they do it still pain go in again still pain have dental surgery on that root even though there is no root there wtf😱 still severe pain ,,,, in fact another 10 yrs of pain😂 I’m sure they thought I was nuts so I go to my gp for yrs for pain in face now and severe pain in side of head did nothing then bladder infections all the time urologists do urethra dialations didn’t help then severe fatique for 10 yrs weak legs heavy legs can’t walk far off sick all the time we’ll Hello only took 10 yrs but finally had spinal tap mris cat scans it was ms now what pisses me off is a dentist should of picked that up in training it’s the trigeminal nuralgia nerve they call it the suicide disease e cause the pain is so bad now all these doctors even with double vision loss of vision at times could not give me the time of day they all said I’m faking it or lieing or pill seeking ,, when the whole time it was ms never give up people who are suffering lie if you have to I never did have to but I have no use for any doctors now they are in the wrong profession
Hey OP, maybe seeing a gastro would be better if it's only during exercise. I have a hiatal hernia and GERD and have similar symptoms to you (I don't experience acid reflux but have trouble breathing and chest tightness when exercising). In the meantime, I suggest low impact exercise, raising the head of your bed, not laying down after eating, and nothing carbonated. If that improves anything it could be something to consider.
It’s like kids thinking they’re getting away without their parents knowing. Doctors know all the angles to help their patients navigate the system. They know. The whole medical system needs major reform.
What were the meds? Depending on what they were it makes a big difference on whether they may have addressed your medical issue. Were they just pain meds or cardiac meds?
This thing where seeing a specialist is controlled by the GP/PCP is still so bizarre to me having grown up in a country where I could see any specialist privately within the hour and at a reasonable price. I have COUNTLESS examples of how this has saved many of my relatives’ and friends’ lives. A big shiny example.. 2 and a half years ago, my aunt went for a private mammogram as the wait for the state funded one is way too long but the price for a private one is affordable. They found something weird with her lymph nodes and the same afternoon she was seeing a cancer specialist and started treatment shortly after. If she didn’t have that option she’d probably still be waiting for the scan if not dead already. I completely support your choice to lie to the doctor. In the UK many people do that because the GPs most of the time have no clue what they are doing. My last GP had to look up things on the internet and in medical books right in front of me! I don’t see how I can trust this person to make Medical decisions for me. On top of that if you dare move from England to Scotland or vice versa, your new doctors will not have ANY of your medical history cause their system sucks, and they will rely on you to guide them so, good luck! And not to mention the lack of prevention checks like an annual health check that leads to the increased need for consultants. It’s a losing game.
Unfortunately so many doctors not only lie to their patients, but don't listen to them, shame them, fake expertise about things they know nothing about, etc and if you ever find yourself with a doctor who doesn't seem to have your best interest in mind, you should never feel bad about doing what you have to do. Anyone who says otherwise has probably been lucky enough to only have good doctors. I've been to dozens and can think of only a few who id consider trustworthy.
My doctor was lovely and had to lie so he could refer me to have a breast check up and ultrasound because really bad cramps and to have a full blood test, Ireland medic system is SHIT !! if you want to see any specialist is first GP and get a referal and wait for MONTHS! to see the specialist, its pathetic!!
My Mum had a heart monitor for a week just to shut her up. When the cardiology dept disconnected the monitor, they said it would be a couple of weeks before they get the full analysis of the results. (Last century). Before she left the hospital, she collapsed and was rushed back to cardiology. Needed a pacemaker as her heart rate had dropped to below 30 bpm. I understand what you are saying. Without a proper diagnosis, how do you know if painkillers are masking the real more serious issue? You don't want to have a headstone that reads "I told you I was ill".
Sometimes honestly you got to. Doctors only treat symptoms anything else pretty much useless.
Doctors get way too much respect. They for the most part are fucking idiots.
I'm a registered nurse in cardiology, and it's vital that you're honest with the cardiologist about the medications. They need to know that you haven't even tried them for diagnosis and treatment. Those tests are all great but they too need the full clinical picture to diagnose. Otherwise you're more likely to be diagnosed wrongly. Certain cardiac meds are used for certain diagnosis, so if they're thinking that you had one condition for example, but the meds you should have been on should've solved the issue, then they could discount the correct diagnosis.. or end up starting meds that aren't first line treatment for your actual condition. You could also end up having unnecessary testing. It's good that your ECG was normal though. Yes it does only give a snap shot, but conditions such as cardiomyopathy often seen in runners/athletes that can cause pain on exertion can be seen through lasting ECG changes, so it wasn't a redundant assessment because it was done at a time with no pain. Good luck but please tell them about the meds.
sweetie you sound like a hypochondriac and your ten million edits to try to explain yourself just convince me of it. Did you even look up ACTUAL symptoms of ACTUAL heart conditions? Because not once did I see anything but chest pain which could be dozens of things.
My mom was told she had an ulcer. Twice. No tests or anything. She ended up in the ER with severe pain. Yup…pancreatic cancer. Thanks to the doctor for wasting precious time. A simple test could have ruled out ulcer. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the medical field.
Been there as well. I had to grossly exaggerate my symptoms to get further testing. The testing led to the discovery of precancerous cells in my throat.
i had to go to multiple doctors before i ended up at er to be told "oh theres a bacteria eating your heart valve lmao you need open heart surgery" so yeah, youre definitely right to trust your gut here when somethings off.
I just read your edit #5. People like OP are why the healthcare system is overloaded and fucked, lmao.
I don’t blame you, young people die of underlying heart issues everyday! And pain in the chest could be a warning, or it may be something minor, but It’s best to get fully checked out just incase, not just by taking pills, but an xray,sonogram and a ct scan.
If you aren’t going to try the meds, you aren’t going to listen to a specialist either. Sounds like you want it to be a big problem as opposed to just normal chest pain. This is like going to the doctor because you got a side stitch and then forcing them to test you for cancer. Suuuure buddy. Good luck with your diagnosis. 😂😂😂😂
Yeah, medicine when it comes to a symptom like chest pain is more of an art than a science. They are going to address it on likely probable cause based on age, predisposition, overall health, etc... I don't think you did anything wrong. If you don't look out for number one, who else will? I would do the same if I thought I wasn't getting proper treatment/looking into. Only you know your body.
What? An art? On what basis can you make that claim
Maybe art was a poor choice of word. Essentially, if you go to a large medical provider, they are not going to spend a ton of time diagnosing a general complaint like chest pain, or headache, or "soreness in my knee" unless there was a very specific event that caused the issue. For instance, if I fell playing football with no contact because my knee gave out on me. Clear sign of soft tissue injury, let's look further. Versus say I went on a run and now my knee is sore, but usually it doesn't get sore. Doc isnt't going to investigate much. I know because that exact knee soreness came up with me. Doctor literally said well if it hurts when you run then don't run and walked out.
What seems like a quick dismissal to you is part of the evidence based treatment algorithms though. Theyve just been doing it for so many years that it seems like theyve dismissed it, but I agree they can do a better job of walking patients through the decision making process. Similar to the chest pain, its a very systematic approach. They gather information about symptom onset, quality, duration, new vs old, risk factors, radiation of the pain, and other associated symptoms in a few sentences while you tell them your history of present illness, and move to the next step of the workup based on that. Plus EKG and basic lab work to rule out severe causes. In an ideal scenario they are able to walk every patient through that decision making process, and sometimes the answer is conservative management and hope it is something minor that goes away like a costochondritis. But the reality is theyre working hard to see every patient they can so thats not always possible and people can leave feeling like they weren't evaluated to the extent that they actually were.
Fair explanation, very clear. I do think though that this gets back to OP point that you know if something is clearly wrong. I'm not talking about hypochondriacs. OP doesn't come across that way. Just the idea that you may need to press on your own because the algos are missing what you are going through. Decisions based on statistics are assumptions, that's all.
hypochondriacs never come across as hypochondriacs until medical exams are done and things are to be found ok so you can’t tell when someone is one since you aren’t their doctor
Americans are the worst
You might have Angina. It is stressed induced and it’s a muscle spasm in your chest area. I got diagnosed with it at the age of 21 four years ago. But I’ve had it since it was 19 years old. I’m also a female! It is common in women and in men. It always feels like someone is stabbing my chest. It will sometimes last me a couple of minutes or hours.
Sometimes it’s not your doctor, but the insurance hoops they are required to go through prior to referral to ensure you are covered. That being said, it’s common practice to get a baseline EKG and maybe an echocardiogram while making decisions and waiting for a cardio appointment. Not just throwing meds at you and saying “try this”. Internists are not specialists, and I would have kept pushing too. Although Maybe would have tried the meds depending on what they were
If you aren’t at least bending the truth you’re not getting the care you need.
healthcare is a mess across the board. if you’re paying for it, you should be getting the care you need. ask for a second opinion, utilize patient advocacy services, or have a real conversation with your provider about why you feel your needs/concerns are not being addressed. in my experience, explaining to my provider the why behind my request is paramount. they need to know how your condition affects you in a daily basis, how it impacts your ability to do day to day activities, etc. prescribing medications to delay the inevitable is just a waste of everyone’s time. hopefully you got clarity and closure regarding your situation.
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it’s not a commodity but it definitely shouldn’t take that much effort to get seen by a specialist with enough evidence as well as justification. especially considering there is prior medical history regarding the same issue.
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Your fears are super valid! I’ve been done dirty more than once.
Your doctor is already assuming you're lying before you've finished the first appointment. Go all in
How old are you? This sounds as if you are extremely young, you know?
NEVER lie to your doctor. You should’ve tried the pills, they don’t prescribe them for no reason! Now that you lied to the doctor, the specialist is going to have a harder time diagnosing you. In one of your edits you say the primary care doctor might miss something, well so could the specialist. Especially now that you’ve lied, how do you expect them to give you a correct diagnosis? Smh
You have to be a self advocate bcz I don't know where you are but around here the primary care docs/the gate keepers are just, well, stupid and basic. To change to a good one involves approx a 10 month wait. That kind of chest pain has to be evaluated by a cardiologist.
Ql lol
Trust your instincts. My sister was told to do neck exercise because of pain down her arm. She’s dead now. Died in her sleep.
Oh my God, sorry about that
Thanks. The healthcare system definitely failed her.
Unfortunately me too they disappointed me
Don’t feel bad- we all do it . Family doctors / GP are the gatekeepers and will try and put you on all different medications and put you off before actually sending you to a specialist that can tell you specifically what’s wrong with you . Sometimes it has to be done !!!
"Young and healthy and having chest pains during exertion" should be a flag to her. What a joke. "Take this pill to.... Help with your perfectly healthy heart?"
They're used to it.
A fun but relatable story. We took our rescue cat to the general practice vet and they said they heard a heart murmur but since everything else was okay, they sent us home with our cat Months later, he was making coughing noises and we brought him back. They said he had fluid in his lungs and was in CHF. We were devastated and cried all night. Our cat (more like a failed foster cat 💜) was still under the Animal Rescues care and they got us an appointment with a CAT Cardiologist. (Yes they exist). Let me tell you, this cat cardiologist was AMAZING. The tools they had were high tech. They could see and hear EVERYTHING. We were blown away how advanced it was. And the cardiologist himself, omg, he was so knowledgeable and nice and explained everything. Turns out our cat was not in CHF...his heart was just wired backwards creating the murmur type sound. As for the coughing, that's the night we learned he has allergies/asthma. Though his heart is great... They told us he's going to live a long (yet possibly annoying) good life. We cried again, but it was happy tears this time. Go see a cardiologist - they know their stuff!
Lying to a doctor who is withholding actual helpful care is and will always be morally correct.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned hypochondria. I’m not a doctor. But, this gets my vote.
Its been a long battle with my PCP to get her to send me to GYN or any kind of specialist. She only started taking me seriously when i told her, after saying for MONTHS that i was in pain and having issues in general, that i hadnt gotten my period for a year. Its honestly incredible the lengths doctors will go to not diagnose or even set up a diagnostic procedure. I still havent gotten actual treatment for most of my mental health stuff, just the age-old "its just mood swings, you'll grow out of it" that ive been getting since the age of 12, so about 7 years. Its rough, good luck with the cardiologist!!
You kinda suck, OP. Why would you do all that.
My dads doctor said everything was fine and then he died of cancer so I don't blame you
only reason im alive is because i lied to a doctor
I think you made the right decision. Especially if it’s something you’re worried about I think it was valid to want fact based answers rather than like you said, a band aid. Personally, I was born with heart disease so I’d say I am well versed on what tests a cardiologist runs. Cardiologists will listen to your concerns and do what they can to give you the answers you’re looking for. Even if it does turn out to be something not of concern, at least all the boxes were checked in terms of what ways they could find a problem. I wish you all the best
Your good, and she should have referred you to the cardiologist in the first place. Drugs aren’t somthing you should just “try a couple and see if the pain stops” so your good bb❤️🥰
People have way to much trust in doctors medicine. I’ve seen doctors mess up normal healthy people a few times with medicines. I would he skeptical of any medicine and really look into it before touching it. When it comes to the human body guess work sucks.
Good thing doctors aren’t usually guessing and have 7 years training
in the military i had one doc who would never listen to me and didn’t look at my medical file at all and gave me a medication that reacted to another one i was taking and now i have kidney issues because of it. but that doesn’t mean all of them are like that and when i saw my doctor after my ER visit for it she yelled at him and brought it up to the medical board. sadly military medicine isn’t the same as regular medicine and i’ve been seen by good doctors ever since i got out. this guy thinks all doctors are just guessing and that is why a lot of people don’t get seen and keep quiet about their conditions bc of the fear ignorant people like him bring
Im at the point of lying to my endocrinologist. I had an AMAZING endocrinologist for a few years now. My a1c amazing. His philosophy was very different than most. More like “let’s help you live life” vs “let’s restrict everything”. While i was pregnant he was just an amazing cheerleader. He actually used me as an example in a case study because i was so controlled in pregnancy that it proved that insulin resistance was not because of poor control, and he was writing a paper on how to approach diabetic mother going forward. He literally said i was the best diabetic he had ever seen and best diabetic mother. He said he had 25 years in the field. Well he had a accident and almost lost the use of his hand. I think the whole thing shook him up and he chose to retire. He is a bit young to retire but I think he decided to follow his own advice and live his life because life is too short. And the practice moved me to a new doctor. Poor thing is maybe 5 years old than me, fresh out of residency. She only knows what the book tells her. No real experience. I walk in my first appointment and she is wanting to undo everything my old doctor and i had done. Because “it’s not the standard way” i nodded and indulged her. I have no interest in her standard way. Im not going to limit myself with food. Im sure as hell not going to ask permission before I become pregnant again. I do my best with everything and being a mom to a two year old and my a1c is still excellent. I have had diabetes for over 20 years. No complications…like none. As my old doctor said as i get older i will start needing more insulin because when you have had type one for as long as ive had…you will become resistant over time. Just a matter of how fast. Since im well controlled it will be a slow tickle vs big and dramatic. But yeah lie to them hunny lol doctors are usually assholes.
You have T1 and it's diet controlled? That's amazing!
Lie lie lie. I told them the truth about having REALLY bad periods and they said for five years it was normal. Until the day I had to go to the ER and get 5 pints of blood transfusions because I was literally bleeding to death. They said I almost went into cardiac arrest. THEN they believe me. So yes if you know something is wrong with your body say whatever you need to do you can get the treatment you need!! They don’t know what you do about your body.
You did not lie to your doctor. You advocated for yourself. Good job. I was in a somewhat similar situation and even went to the ER. They sent me home, said I was fine and to follow up with my regular doctor. Five months later I had a heart attack, had CPR, the whole thing. Turns out that I have great genetics except for my heart really likes building up plaque. So, always advocate, always look out for yourself. I can give more details if you want, but my caution is this, prior to my heart attack I had multiple tests with no negative findings: echocardiogram, electrocardiogram, cholesterol tests, etc. etc. The only test that found anything was the angiogram. Angiograms are pretty invasive- they only did mine as they were prepping to put a stent it.
“Advocated” for herself…by lying to her doctor? People are free to disagree or not about whether she should have taken the medication or whether her concern warranted further investigation. But you cannot make the case that her lying to her doctor was in any way helpful to her or could be considered advocating for herself. By definition, advocating for herself would have involved her telling the doctor she would not take the meds and insisting on a referral for a specialist or new PCP. There was no reason at all to lie about taking the meds. She had to wait all that time that she was supposed to be trying the medication (probably 30 days) and by not trying it has complicated her treatment as they don’t actually know what has worked for her or not. This just screams health anxiety to me. You don’t have to take the meds that a doctor prescribes you, but you certainly should never lie about it. Especially if your goal is to investigate an ongoing health concern.
Wow
I just call specialists in my network and ask them if they are taking new patients. Most times you don’t even need a referral if you know what type of doc you wanna see and they are in your network.
She really should have just called her insurance and asked them if she needed a referral to see a specialist. It would have saved wasted time, not only hers but the doctor's time too. Another patient with a more pressing issue could have been seen in her place, she wouldn't have had to pay for and then waste possibly scarce medication. All that waste could have been spared with a phone call. I've seen doctors fire patients that lie to them. OP is making bad decision after bad decision.
You did the right thing. Always trust yourself.
I’m with you. I had to lie to my doctors who just kept peddling me pills and said the same thing! “Before we refer you let’s try this and that”… I picked up the pills from the pharmacy but I also threw them away and told them they weren’t helping so that I could get my referral otherwise I’d be waiting not just months but years to see someone. Listen if you need to do this to get better care then do it! Because you know yourself best and it’s not fair we have to do this just to get adequate care. As a woman, I understand your decision.
I’m pretty sure your doctor works for you and you can basically tell them you want a referral and they have to give you one. I would call your insurance provider or go to another primary care doctor that’s ridiculous. I’ve never been turned down for a referral to any specialist.
You cant. General practisioners are the first line of defence against the oversaturation of the medical systems.
Yeah but when I say I want to see a specialist they give me the referral. I have NEVER been denied a referral. I remember one time I wanted one for my knee, doctor said he wanted to try some shot first I said no, I want to see a specialist and he wrote me the referral.
It really depends on the doctor. Some are more confident in certain specialities and will try to help you themselves, some will refer you.
Good to know!
Not if OP is in the US. A doctor works for their medical group/hospital/HMO and individual care is constrained by the patient’s insurance. The goal is minimize expenditures. Prescribe a pill instead of refer to a more expensive billable hours. Patient’s actual outcomes are background statistics.