29.
“In my 20s, I was having horrible and increasing abdominal pain. I was bounced from primary care to OB-GYN and repeatedly told I wasn’t in as much pain as I claimed. I was labeled as ‘drug seeking,’ and it was very obvious that the providers thought I was exaggerating for effect. A OB-GYN put me on hormonal birth control for a period of six months for suspected endometriosis. Insurance wouldn’t pay for confirming surgery without that step first. The whole six months I knew I was declining.”
“I went back to the doctor multiple times. I was told to resume normal activities to help with the pain (running and working out), that I needed to reduce stress, and that I was making it out to be worse than it was. I tried exercising a few times, thinking maybe they were right and it was all in my head, but couldn’t shake the feeling that I might collapse and die on a run. I was just existing — going to work and coming home. At the six-month mark I was desperate, constant increasing pain, barley able to stand up, and I was going to bed thinking I would die in my sleep, knowing my body was shutting down. I demanded exploratory surgery through the OB-GYN doctor’s office. They went in assuming they would confirm endometriosis and discovered that my appendix had been rotting inside my body for months. It was roughly 12 cm long (ridiculously huge for an appendix), septic, inflamed, and pushing into other organs and could have burst at any time in the last six months. A separate surgeon was brought in to remove it. It would have been life threatening if it had burst while on a run ‘because it was all in my head.’ When I returned to my primary care and explained what they had found, her response was, ‘Well chronic appendicitis is very rare. It’s such a low percentage of appendicitis cases.” No apology, no compassion for my extended and unnecessary pain, no concerns that she had acted with assumptions and had been gaslighting me for half a year. I changed doctors immediately and never went back that practice. I now deal with pretty severe medical PTSD based on how I was treated by this physician that I had trusted to take care of my health.”
—Anonymous
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/pablovaldivia/toxic-doctors