I Need To Vent Somewhere!

[ptkds]

Ok, I just have to vent somewhere, and you guys are great listeners!

Over 3 weeks ago, my 11 yr old dd hurt her wrist. I took her in to our doctors office where we saw a PA. They did a couple of xrays and said it was sprained. So we go get a special brace and try to move on. My dd keeps saying it hurt really bad, the brace wasn't helping, and she was crying nearly every night from pain. So I call the pedi's office and tell them how much pain she is in. They say to give her pain pills, and she will feel better in a few days. A few days later, she is still in horrible pain. So I take her into the actual pedi. He does some xrays and still claims it is just a sprain and to keep giving her some pain meds. He said if it wasn't feeling better in a week, he will order some physical therapy. I am thinking that she can't even move it, how in the world would she make it through physical therapy!? I call back and request an MRI. They told me they will not order an MRI because "it isn't warranted". Sunday night, she lost her balance while squatting in the floor and tried to catch herself with her bad hand and hurt her finger, which made her wrist hurt alot worse. So I took her into the ER worried that she did even more damage or something. They did a bunch of xrays and said it was just sprained, sprains hurt, she needs to move it (he even implied that it still hurt because we had it in a brace ) and to give her some pain meds. I stressed to the last 2 "medical professionals" that the pain meds didn't touch the pain in her wrist. They didn't even listen. A sprained wrist shouldn't be so painful and SWOLLEN after 3+ weeks.

So yesterday I called and requested an immediate referral to an orthopedic. We got up there a few hours later to see the ortho, and he did a special series of xrays. He still didnt see a fracture, but he said that in a child her age, cartlidge surrounds some of the small bones and that can easily hide a fracture. So he immediately put a cast on it. It felt like someone FINALLY listened to what we were telling them.

It ticks me and dh off so much that the other "medical proffesionals" just kept blowing us off. When her wrist was still hurting and still swollen, that should have sent off alarm bells in thier minds. My poor dd shouldn't have been kept in pain for so long.

Oh yeah, and they prescribed her some antibiotics because of an ongong staph infection. She was having some chest pain after takiing the med, and just felt horrible all over. So I called the pedi's office and told them what was going on. They just blowed me off about it and said it was a normal side effect! I refuse to give my dd some med that has such "normal" side effects. She couldn't even go to school because of the way she felt.

Why can't these medical proffesionals ever listen to the patients? They act like they know everything and we are just lying or don't really know what is going on with our own bodies. It just ticks me off.

Sorry it got so long! I think I am done venting for now!

[Mother of Jibril]

Good vent! I can use some venting too...

I've already had two incidents like this with my son and he's only nine months old!!!

The first time he had "colic," which turned out to be a severe intolerance to casein. He was clearly in pain (crying for hours), projectile vomiting, and having dark green diarrhea. The nurses kept telling me it was "normal," just a "phase" his body was going through. When he started having streaks of blood in his diapers, that was the last straw! At first they tried to tell me I "probably ate something red" (HA... I think I'd remember that)... but when I took the diaper in they tested it for blood. The pediatrician suggested he was "straining" during #2. Really? At six weeks old?? With diarrhea??!? I found some information on the Internet about casein intolerance and took all dairy products out of my diet. He started improving within a few days and was back to normal within six weeks. If I have even a tiny bit of casein he gets terrible eczema across his cheeks.

The second time he was five months old. He started running a high fever (as high as 104 degrees). They told me to give him Tylenol and cool baths. The next day he was vomiting and refusing to eat. On the third day I took him to a pediatrician (a different one) who ran some tests and suggested he probably had a UTI that had become a systemic infection. That night he started making some very strange eye movements (like a seizure, except the rest of his body wasn't seizing), so we took him to the ER. And that's when we found out he had MENINGITIS. That's why they tell you to inform your doctor if your baby has a high temperature!!!! We were in the hospital for three days so they could pump him full of antibiotics in case it was bacterial meningitis.

I still think doctors are useful for some things. If you get the right person they can be a godsend. But... they can also be completely useless. I'm sorry your daughter had so many useless ones.

[Cinnamon]

Wow, that's terrible. I just found out that stress fractures don't show up on x-rays. My 15-year-old fell down the stairs last week and we had the same sort of situation. The x-rays didn't show anything, so we assumed all was well. But day after day he didn't get any better. Then we took him somewhere else and they said that stress fractures don't show on xrays. They told us to give it another week and if it wasn't better to come back.

And meningitis, oh my gosh! What if it was the bacterial type! Thank God you finally got some good care.

[Fiddle-Faddle]

ptkds, that's HORRIBLE. (and Mother of Jibril, too!)

I would suggest that you revise your rant, print it out, and send it to EVERY doctor who examined your child, plus a copy to the insurance company.

You could also ask your local paper's health writer if they'd like to do a story on this. Imagine--giving a child pain pills instead of finding out what's really wrong---GGRRRRRR!!!!!! If the health writer doesn't want to do a story, write it yourself and send it as a letter to the editor.

Heck, you could even contact an attorney about malpractice! Normally, I am against that sort of practice, but I'm starting to think that for some doctors, it's the only way to get them to LISTEN.

I had a pediatrician tell me that my 7-week-old baby had suddenly turned yellow because his father was Japanese (it didn't occur to him that my husband does NOT have yellow skin). I fussed and fussed until he agreed to let me come in, and he STILL thought it was nothing--but he thought he detected a very tiny heart murmur and was sending us to a pediatric cardiologist "just to be safe."

The cardiologist examined him and said, "the reason your son is yellow is because his liver is enlarged--because he's in congestive heart failure."

And let's not forget the orthopedist who misread my X-rays for hip displasia when I was an infant, and said that I'd never walk and would need to be institutionalized....

Sorry, didn't mean to take away from your rant, I'm just so angry on your behalf, it brings back memories of idiot doctors.

[curlyfries]

Reminds me of when my DD was helping her daddy make chocolate chip cookies. She got a stomach ache and passed out. The doctor said it was normal for girls to get cramps.

..........She was only SIX YEARS OLD!

[Lisa]

Sorry, there are too many shared experiences with doctors.

[home-based-mom]

Yup. I can SO relate! We went from doctor to doctor when my daughter was 9 months old because she had such a terrible cough and was gasping for air. But she was chubby and looked healthy and they kept brushing me off as a new first time mom. Turns out she had whooping cough, even though she was up to date on her vaccinations. Apparently none of them knew that as many as 15% of vaccinated people will get it anyway, just not as severely as they would have had they not been vaccinated. She infected who knows how many people and I had to take time off of work because it is still a "quarantine" disease.

It would be nice if more medical professionals gave others credit for having a bit of intelligence.

[JNBunnie1]

Me next!

So I was in and out of the doctor's office for months with EVERY SINGLE classic Celiac symptom except the rash. Eventually he sends me to a GI for a scope to make sure I'm not doing too much damage to my colon and the GI tells me, 'Eat more fiber.'

[Juliebove]

Yep. Drs. kept telling me there was nothing wrong with me but they couldn't explain the chronic infections I was having. Then finally when I simply could not walk (diabetic neuropathy), the ER said, "You have diabetes. See your Dr."

Daughter has had wrist injuries and for the most recent one, they said they would assume a break until they could tell otherwise. She had previously broken it.

Another time she had broken finger. Her Dr. said he didn't think there was anything wrong with it but to see the Ortho just in case. He couldn't get her in for two weeks and by then it was pretty much healed.