elke
11-14-2007, 07:53 PM
I'm going through a hard time right now and could use a little support. More specifically, how do you go about forgiving your doctors after they told you for years that you were not sick and that your symptoms were psychosomatic?
You see, I started feeling ill after my first year in medical school. It started subtle with some balance problems and increasing headaches and then eventually morphed into profound fatigue that left me thinking I would need a motorized wheelchair. By the time I reached my clinical years- the most crucial in medical school in terms of making or breaking your career- I was so ill that I kept failing my surgery rotation, which is a gruelling 80-hour a week experience where you have to get up at 4 am to go round on your patients and spend long hours in the operating room. The school had me repeat it 3 times and had me repeat parts of it I had passed. I recall spending almost all day holding a retractor and then they still failed me, while I was suffering from profound migraines and fatigue and balance problems. Surgery's supposed to be a 2 month rotation, and I did 6 months, which made me even sicker. Medical school is supposed to be 4 years. I took an extra year on purpose but then it took 7 years all together to finish.
In the mean time, while I was going through this, the doctors at the student health center said that since all my labs and studies were normal, there was nothing wrong. I saw numerous neurologists at my school, who accused me of making up my symptoms and fast reflexes, etc because I was a medical student. They wrote in my chart that my symptoms were from emotional issues. There was only one neurologist out in the community who believed me and even wanted to try steroids, but without a diagnosis, I was reluctant to take them. She thought maybe I had a hereditary ataxia, demyelinating disease, autoimmune disease, but could not tell me what it was I had. So the primary doctors in the student health center all poo-pooed her notes and her assessment that I was ill, since all my labs were normal. They kept referring me to counseling. And the counselor thought it was funny that I thought I had a neurological disease.
In the mean time, as I mentioned above, I kept having a hard time in school. I faced a lot of what I think was discrimination. The psychiatry attendings all asked me how much paxil I was on and wrote down that I looked "anxious and depressed" on my evaluations when in fact, I felt unsteady on my feet and profoundly fatigued. To make things worse, after I kept failing the more difficult rotations, the student progress committee recommended that I see one of the school's shrinks for my "depression"- even when I told them I was being worked up for MS, etc. As school progressed, my symptoms got worse and I even had to use a cane during my last year of school. At least after I started using the cane the residents and attending stopped laughing at me, but some still told me I was "too slow". I still feel hurt by all the eye-rolling and snickering. I have trouble trusting people now.
Well, after I graduated medical school, despite feeling run down by what had happened, I decided to trust my gut, not listen to the numerous doctors who told me I had a psychosomatic condition and I aggressively pursued a diagnosis which included seeing two of the kindest neurologists at my school, one of which was a movement disorder specialist.
As it turns out, in April I was told I have a rare disease called Hashimoto's Encephalopathy. It is treatable with steroids if caught early enough, but I'm beginning to realize that I am having relapses even after my steroid pulse.
My disease is a weird one- a rare complication of Autoimmune Thyroiditis. Most doctors have never heard of it. It is only now beginning to be included in the neurology textbooks. It's diagnosed by testing thyroid antibodies, even if the TSH is normal. Doctors do not typically check thyroid antibodies unless your thyroid hormones are abnormal. Despite numerous complaints of hypothyroid symptoms over the years, my hormone levels always tested normal. In fact, they were checked over six times while I was a student. In the mean time, I had gone in complaining of elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, hair loss, dry skin, low blood pressure, coldness, etc etc. All symptoms of low thyroid. I was told that since my TSH was normal, my thyroid was okay. I have since learned that it is full of tiny nodules from the autoimmune destruction.
I'm afraid that my experience has left me very bitter. I went into my profession with very good intentions, and now I am left feeling that, while there are some very good doctors out there who care, most are insensitive jerks who are very difficult to work with. Part of this stems from what happened to me personally as a patient and a student, and the other part comes after observing doctors being arrogant to their patients and each other when I did my rotations. I was made fun of for "caring too much" numerous times. I was told that I would need to be faster and less kind to the patients.
If anyone has any words to cheer me up, I sure could use them right now. I know I'm supposed to cheer myself up, but am having a hard time with it. There's only so much my family can understand about my illness, and they do not know how much of a struggle it is from day to day, or the depth of the humiliation I suffered as a medical student with an undiagnosed neurological condition.
You see, I started feeling ill after my first year in medical school. It started subtle with some balance problems and increasing headaches and then eventually morphed into profound fatigue that left me thinking I would need a motorized wheelchair. By the time I reached my clinical years- the most crucial in medical school in terms of making or breaking your career- I was so ill that I kept failing my surgery rotation, which is a gruelling 80-hour a week experience where you have to get up at 4 am to go round on your patients and spend long hours in the operating room. The school had me repeat it 3 times and had me repeat parts of it I had passed. I recall spending almost all day holding a retractor and then they still failed me, while I was suffering from profound migraines and fatigue and balance problems. Surgery's supposed to be a 2 month rotation, and I did 6 months, which made me even sicker. Medical school is supposed to be 4 years. I took an extra year on purpose but then it took 7 years all together to finish.
In the mean time, while I was going through this, the doctors at the student health center said that since all my labs and studies were normal, there was nothing wrong. I saw numerous neurologists at my school, who accused me of making up my symptoms and fast reflexes, etc because I was a medical student. They wrote in my chart that my symptoms were from emotional issues. There was only one neurologist out in the community who believed me and even wanted to try steroids, but without a diagnosis, I was reluctant to take them. She thought maybe I had a hereditary ataxia, demyelinating disease, autoimmune disease, but could not tell me what it was I had. So the primary doctors in the student health center all poo-pooed her notes and her assessment that I was ill, since all my labs were normal. They kept referring me to counseling. And the counselor thought it was funny that I thought I had a neurological disease.
In the mean time, as I mentioned above, I kept having a hard time in school. I faced a lot of what I think was discrimination. The psychiatry attendings all asked me how much paxil I was on and wrote down that I looked "anxious and depressed" on my evaluations when in fact, I felt unsteady on my feet and profoundly fatigued. To make things worse, after I kept failing the more difficult rotations, the student progress committee recommended that I see one of the school's shrinks for my "depression"- even when I told them I was being worked up for MS, etc. As school progressed, my symptoms got worse and I even had to use a cane during my last year of school. At least after I started using the cane the residents and attending stopped laughing at me, but some still told me I was "too slow". I still feel hurt by all the eye-rolling and snickering. I have trouble trusting people now.
Well, after I graduated medical school, despite feeling run down by what had happened, I decided to trust my gut, not listen to the numerous doctors who told me I had a psychosomatic condition and I aggressively pursued a diagnosis which included seeing two of the kindest neurologists at my school, one of which was a movement disorder specialist.
As it turns out, in April I was told I have a rare disease called Hashimoto's Encephalopathy. It is treatable with steroids if caught early enough, but I'm beginning to realize that I am having relapses even after my steroid pulse.
My disease is a weird one- a rare complication of Autoimmune Thyroiditis. Most doctors have never heard of it. It is only now beginning to be included in the neurology textbooks. It's diagnosed by testing thyroid antibodies, even if the TSH is normal. Doctors do not typically check thyroid antibodies unless your thyroid hormones are abnormal. Despite numerous complaints of hypothyroid symptoms over the years, my hormone levels always tested normal. In fact, they were checked over six times while I was a student. In the mean time, I had gone in complaining of elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, hair loss, dry skin, low blood pressure, coldness, etc etc. All symptoms of low thyroid. I was told that since my TSH was normal, my thyroid was okay. I have since learned that it is full of tiny nodules from the autoimmune destruction.
I'm afraid that my experience has left me very bitter. I went into my profession with very good intentions, and now I am left feeling that, while there are some very good doctors out there who care, most are insensitive jerks who are very difficult to work with. Part of this stems from what happened to me personally as a patient and a student, and the other part comes after observing doctors being arrogant to their patients and each other when I did my rotations. I was made fun of for "caring too much" numerous times. I was told that I would need to be faster and less kind to the patients.
If anyone has any words to cheer me up, I sure could use them right now. I know I'm supposed to cheer myself up, but am having a hard time with it. There's only so much my family can understand about my illness, and they do not know how much of a struggle it is from day to day, or the depth of the humiliation I suffered as a medical student with an undiagnosed neurological condition.