Do doctors take your illnesses seriously?

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For 10 months my best friend complained to 4 different doctors of chest pains, that were only relieved by taking nitro. All 4, independently of each other, blamed the pains on her RA, and completely pu-pu'd her concerns that she may be heading for yet another heart attack. Her cardiologist finally ran some tests to humor her and found, to his amazed horror, that the blood going through her heart was blocked on one side, and only 2% open on the other. A triple bypass later she's feeling much better, but we're trying to understand why doctors keep getting things so almost disastrously wrong.

This is not the first close call she's had, where the doc finally ran tests to humor her only to find she was right, and at death's door from the delay. Nor are these the first doctors to make this kind of mistake with her. Every time she was convinced there was a problem, there indeed was a real problem.

I've had such problems communicating with doctors, that I only resort the them when I know I need something that requires a prescription.

I have to wonder if perhaps the doctors are misreading Aspie body language and as a result, disregarding the symptoms reported?

_________________
If it don't come easy . . . .
. . . .hack it until it works right

Aspie score: 142/200 NT score: 64/200
AQ Score: 42
BAP: 109 aloof, 94 rigid and 85 pragmatic

this is inexcusable. folks with RA get more heart attacks than the general population does. those docs should have been on top of it. chest pain relieved by nitro is from the heart or esophageal spasms and never muskuloskeletal. is there an option to change docs?

Pfffftttthhhh.
Listen? What's that?

I have grown to dislike the doctors in the ER, or Outpatients as we usually call it up here, more and more all the time. Unless you are showing easily noticed signs of serious illness or are literally dying they treat you like a second-class citizen. A few years ago in the summer I woke up in with really bad pain in my chest that got worse with deep breaths, and pain in my lower back. I went to the bathroom and the next thing I know I'm on the floor. That had never happened to me before and it hasn't since *knock on wood*. Maybe it was just a really bad anxiety attack, and just getting up had made my blood pressure suddenly drop or something, although I read somewhere it usually goes up in people with anxiety. Anyway I felt pretty awful and in pain and it was the middle of the night and I'm all alone, so I called an ambulance. The paramedics kept telling me to take deep breaths but every time I did it really hurt. Now I'm in outpatients and eventually some guy looks at me and says it was probably something I ate. I told him about the fainting and that it never happened before and he said "EVERYONE faints, it happens all the time!", and he gives me antacid with numbing stuff in it. It numbed the pain but not my anger at how I had been treated like some whiny drama queen. I ended up waking my brother and asking him to drive me home because I had no ride or money for a cab. I actually filed a complaint later but no apology whatsoever. Another time after that my mother had to get her appendix out -on Good Friday- and she later told me that because she wasn't as sick as people with appendicitis usually are they almost sent her home at first, and when the did the surgery the appendix practically burst in the surgeon's hand! And when she asked for pain pills afterwards they accused her of being a prescription drug addict! My mother! Almost every other developed country outside of North America would not be like this. Ugh.

I have NO ability whatsoever to communicate effectively with doctors. Anything subjective I don't know how to talk about. (Pain for example.)

If I walked in missing an arm, they would probably try to tell me it was Anxiety. I have a medical condition that can cause deadly cardio problems and I've had two recent episodes of possible Arrythmia that my doctor doesn't want to investigate because "people in your age group don't often have those problems..."

I am afraid of doctors and probes.

None of my doctors know what autism is. When they realize I've been diagnosed with autism, they begin treating me as if I am a savant--which I'm not.

I'm not kidding. This is in America, by the way. Doctors who know as much about autism as the people who watch Dr. Phil do.

One time I went to the hospital because my neck was bothering me and I had an appointment at a clinic there. I ended up seeing a nurse practitioner who was the worst medical person I ever saw in my life.

The first time I went she didn't examine my neck or do any tests. The whole time I was there she kept going on and on about how I needed to be working or going to school. She asked me how I got there and when I told her by cab she said "you should have walked because you have nothing better to do". I lived about a 45 minute walk from the hospital and it was raining. She asked me if I had a mental illness in a snooty judgmental tone of voice.

My second visit went the same way except she looked at and touched my neck a little.

After that I gave up and just had to suffer and never knew what was wrong with my neck.

I don't know what she thought she was accomplishing by acting that way other than to drive me away from getting help. Maybe she thought I was looking for an excuse not to work or for drugs? I wasn't looking for either. If she thought she was going to shame me into normality that sure failed.

Why do people here find any little thing to associate with ASDs? You don't need a certain body language to be ill. I don't know about the USA but where I come from, the health service is useless, unless you are rich enough to go private.

You need to get second opinion if you don't trust the doctor becaue doctors do misdiagnose.

My friend's cousin became blind in one eye because the doctor underestimated the seriousness of her eye problem. It turned out to be some parasite that was eating her eye. If the doctor had done something earlier, it wouldn't have gotten that bad.

My friend's aunt had a hearing problem, but a few doctors dismissed it as something minor. The fourth doctor she saw took it more seriously and found out that she had brain cancer. Luckily, it was detected early enough for her to recover. She really couldn't be convinced by her first three doctors and she was right.

I think many people with AS/autism do have very wrong body language from non-austistic perspective and it's quite possible that that interferes with the communication. Not just with doctors, but with anyone. That's just my opinion.