sick and tired of being sick and tired

Trinity

Mods sorry if this is not appropriate.

Not looking for medical advice, just looking to vent i suppose cos i am cracking up!! And wondering if anyone has ever felt a doctor wasnt taking you seriously.

I picked up a viral infection 2 months ago and its not gone away. My ears are driving me mad.

I keep going back but she just keeps saying there is fluid on them and theres nothing they can do. Not in a lot of pain just a bit on occassion but they are blocked and i am feeling off balance with is bringing on major anxiety and panic attacks particularly while driving. Finding it hard to function when i feel this way.

I am exhausted. Waking up everyday my head is so heavy i can hardly lift it off the pillow and i cant see properly for ages. Am up since 8am and still havent left the house to go about my daily business while waiting for this to pass.

I have been to the doctor several times and am going back tomorrow cos i am at breaking point with this.

Have missed lots of time off work. Went to 2 different chemists to buy over the counter stuff and spoke to the pharmacists and both were surprised the doctor left me in this state. They told me to go to the eye/ear hospital but its not really an emergency.

I dont know what i am going to do if she still cant help me tomorrow, i cant force her to give me something or refer me on. She knows i am an anxious person anyway and i wonder if maybe thats why she is not taking me seriously. Has anyone had any experience of dealing with doctors??

She is a lovely woman and has lots of time for her patients but i dont want to keep feeling this way. As i am sure most of you know i have a kid and a dog to look after as well as a job to hold down.

Living on sudafed and using ear drops, started a tonic also to pick me up. Sorry i am not sure why i am writing this here as i know its not a medical board and i know you cant advice me but i am cracking up seriously and it feels good just to get it off my chest!!

Ickle Magoo

Tell your Dr how frustrated you are getting & ask that s/he gives you a reasonable time-scale to see improvement....

And hope you feel better soon xxxx

Trinity

Awh thanks, i think when i go in i will just break down. I know there are so many people seriously ill and i hate taking up her time but i just want to get back to normal.

Thanks Ickle.

CathyMoran

Hey, you are seriously ill if it is making you feel so bad. Get your doctor to refer you to someone else, you could have a serious illness. I just got the name of a consultant and told mine to refer me.

In the interim, book yourself a massage, if nothing else you deserve it as you are stressed out being ill.

Trinity

Cathy i particularly appreciate you taking the time to reply. I have read about your situation and yet again i am at a loss for the right words to say which is why i didnt feel i could reply to your threads. All i can say is that you appear to have an extremely strong and optimistic attitude and i am sure that is half the battle. And i am thinking of you at this time.

I've just managed to get an appointment with the doctor for this afternoon. Just those few encouraging words have made a lot of difference and i appreciate the replies.

Thanks guys

CathyMoran

Let us know how you get on. Thanks for your kind words.

DublinWriter

At the risk of some mod closing this thread down because I'm offering you medical advice, I suggest that your GP refer you to an ENT specialist ASAP as you seem to be suffering from a severe form of a condition known as 'Glue-Ear'.

metrovelvet

Trinity1 wrote:

And wondering if anyone has ever felt a doctor wasnt taking you seriously.

Has anyone had any experience of dealing with doctors??

Yeah plenty. And although this is not a medical forum, blah blah blah, often patients who have been forced to take responsibility for their own health due to the bad and often lazy attitudes of doctors are a wealth of information to other people and imo have every right to debate the authority of a GP.

I would refuse to pay her until she takes you seriously. Unfortunately what doesnt get said isnt heard, and you may have to stomp your feet to get some real attention. Rememeber YOU ARE PAYING HER. She is there to serve you. And if she doesnt, get a new doctor.

You absolutely should go to an eye/ear/throat hospital where they have specialists who can diagnose and treat you. For all you know this could be the beginning of something else. You dont know that it isnt an emergency.

CathyMoran

I agree. I could rant for hours over having to tell the GP that I needed a referal to a gastroenterologist...while my case was extreme I am still incredibly annoyed with my GP. If you are having problems with your ear you need a specialist in that area.

How did you get on?

Ishindar

when u go and seek profesional advise and pay for it you should get what u are paying for, u clearly are not. like all professions there are good and bad doctors. U have a bad doctor. A good doctor does not send u home with a smile and take your money. A good doctor will investigate your condition thoroughly and if they cant move the investigation along they will refer u too someone who will.
u should try a new doctor and if u are not satisfied try another until u find one that does their job well and u will be better for it.

Victor

If you feel this compromised, then accept you are genuinely sick and that, while not an 'emergency', you should go to the local ENT hospital.

DublinWriter

Victor wrote:

If you feel this compromised, then accept you are genuinely sick and that, while not an 'emergency', you should go to the local ENT hospital.

ENT specialist hospitals, such as the Eye and Ear, don't have an A&E unit, you need to have a GP referral first.

Compare and contrast with the situtation abroad. When I worked in Belgium a few years ago I had a bad infection, culminating in me waking up to find blood on my pillow the day I was due to fly home. I go directly down to the local ENT hospital, and within one hour I'm seen by two ENT specialists and an audiologist over a period of two hours of assesments.

Because I didn't have any medical insurance, the visit cost me the grand total of €37.

We shamefully are a third-world country when it comes to healthcare.

Victor

Sorry, I'm merely responding to this bit.

Went to 2 different chemists to buy over the counter stuff and spoke to the pharmacists and both were surprised the doctor left me in this state. They told me to go to the eye/ear hospital but its not really an emergency.

Of course one will need to follow the hospital's procedures.

galah

OP, if you feel that your GP is not helping, change GPs! No matter how nice the doctor is - if she's not helping you (or you feel she's not helping), change doctors!

Best of luck, hope you get better soon!

metrovelvet

DublinWriter wrote:

ENT specialist hospitals, such as the Eye and Ear, don't have an A&E unit, you need to have a GP referral first.

Maybe officially, but I had an experience where I had walked past a construction site on a sunday and a piece of grit got stuck in my eye, bruising my cornea and I walked straight into the eye and ear and was seen immediately.

Marksie

Trinity1 wrote:

Awh thanks, i think when i go in i will just break down. I know there are so many people seriously ill and i hate taking up her time but i just want to get back to normal.

Thanks Ickle.

Trinity, if you dont go you will only make yourself progressively worse and you will bedcome one of those seriously ill people. If breaking down is what happens then it may make the doc realise how much this is effecting you so dont be afraid of expressing that.
all the best

MojoMaker

Echo everything said above. Ask your GP for a referral to the Adelaide and get seen by a specialist. Having the whole thing drag out is only causing you stress and its knock-on effects in general life can be extremely debilitating, as you are finding right now I suspect.

Trinity

Thanks everyone for the replies. It was in fact a different doctor filling in.

She took a long time to explain the tubes in the ears etc and how they work. She took a good look in my ears and said there was still no sign of infection and as she can only see so far into my ear and taking my symptoms into account, she had to conclude that they were blocked as she couldnt see any further than that.

She also acknowledged that this can drive you mad and assured me she had seen plenty of people in the same boat and once they 'pop' as it were things return to normal and they forget they even had this problem??

SHe gave me the name of an over the counter product she was sure would work and also wrote a prescription for an antibiotic only to be taken if the other stuff didnt work.

I think i have managed to get the anxiety under control. I lost a few pounds as i wasnt eating but my appetitie is back now and thats a relief so if i tell myself its just a case of blocked ears i can go about things logically instead of letting my imagination take over.

I honestly appreciate the replies and thanks to the mods also for not locking it.

Black Swan

Have you been seeing just a GP? If so, maybe an ear specialist maybe more helpful?

DublinWriter

Blue_Lagoon wrote:

Have you been seeing just a GP? If so, maybe an ear specialist maybe more helpful?

I'd agree, there's no way of knowing by examination if there is infection Eustation Tube, the tube that connects your ear to your throat and that opens and closes to regulate ear-pressure. My problem was that an initial throat infection spread to my inner ear via the Eustation tube and caused permanent ear damage.

I now have a build up of fluid in that ear and I'll probably need to have a Gromit fitted in order to drain it.

b3t4

OP, if you are not happy with what your doctor says to you GO TO A DIFFERENT DOCTOR. Luckily in your case the different doctor happened to be filling in.

If my mother had never changed doctors for my sister who knows what state my sister would be in now. For 10yrs my mother brought us to doctor after doctor for my sister. I spent more times in a GP and A&E waiting room than I'd care to remember. Finally in the 10th year she found a doctor who actually listened (these are very rare) and did not throw more antibiotics at the situation.

My sister was referred to a specialist and my sister was diagnoised with a disease of the bone which had gotten so bad that she had developed a limp. My sister then spent two weeks in hospital and she has been fine ever since.

Op, please change your doctor if you aren't happy. You'd be amazed at how wrong some of them can be.

A.