Posted 10/26/2015 2:21 PM (GMT 0)
I was looking into testing for Lyme&co and came across them.
The thing that is different about them is they don't require an order from a doctor to do the test and you are the only one who gets the results so it is kept out of your medical record.
I was not considering it for Lyme. More likely it would be for something like heavy metal testing.
I am seeing an LLMD, but am so what distrustful of doctors right now. I just found out that the Rheumatologist I have been seeing has been trash talking about me in my medical records for the last year. His notes are basically snarky comments that make me look like a hypochondriac.
The notes from my last visit say "she came with multiple pages from the Internet and at this point she basically believes she knows everything there is to know about Lyme Disease." There's more. I brought that stuff in because his nurse told me he didn't know how to interpret the Igenex results. Actually, it was quite easy since my results say positive IGM for both CDC and Igenex. This from a doctor I have been seeing for 13 years, who has told me in the past that I would always know more about my disease than my doctor but I couldn't tell them that. I thought he was talking about other doctors not himself. In addition to that he has always encouraged me to do my own research. His notes also trash me for doing that.
I kind of feels like when the new kid in the neighborhood wants to be liked so he joins up with the bully.
In addition to that, he changed practices 2 years ago and the new practice uses electronic records. I found out that the records for every visit except the very first indicate that I no longer have fatigue, dry eyes, dry mouth, ear pain, sore throat, heart palpatations, diarrhea, abdominal pain, rashes, depression, sleep disturbance, bruising, weakness, dizziness, headaches, and sinus pressure.
All of this while the "impression" part of the record states fibromyalgia, insomnia, Xerostomia (dry mouth), Xerophthalmia (dry eyes), and depression.
I'm pretty sure that the list of things the record says I don't have is a template that is entered automatically and his lazy/incompetent nurse never bothered to go in and edit it. At the beginning, he brought his intake nurse/receptionist and his other nurse but they both left between my first and second visits. The practice is all about money. It's an Orthonpractice and they brought him in it was because when they needed a Rheumatology consult they wanted to keep it in house. The only record that is correct is the one entered by his old nurse.
His current nurse told me that when I needed a refill in a prescription I needed to let them know 10 days in advance. I also spent 10 minutes arguing with her at my last visit over what 8x30 is. She insisted it was 120 whereas I said it was 240. Her rationale was that the prescription I was talking about was for 120 tablets. Yes it was she multiplied wrong and wrote the script for 120, 15 days worth instead of 30 days worth.
They won't give me paper scripts except for controlled substances and she wrote those scripts wrong. I had to bring them in to get them destroyed and new ones written. It has taken her more than a week to respond to a request to refill from the pharmacy. The last time I had blood work it took her two weeks to post the results and it would have been longer if I hadn't contacted her to find out where the results were. She posted them then said "everything is fine, they were all negative so nothing to worry about." Unfortunately, the doctor ordered the test because I was having joint pain that was new. A negative result doesn't make my pain go away.
So in order to get my script, return the bad scripts and talk to him about the results and where do we go from here I had to make an appointment and come in sooner than my normal every three months (because he writes narcotic scripts for me I have to go in more than is necessary to protect his license). During the visit he said "just because the results are negative doesn't mean there is nothing there." Then trash talked me in my record to make look like I had the tests because I was looking for attention. He ordered the tests because I reported new pain.
He also put in my record that I insisted on the Lyme test (which I did) even though there was nothing in my very large chart to indicate Lyme and it had never been considered before. He also states that even if there was a positive result it would been valid because repeating the test would show older infections.
Several things wrong with that. Yes, there was no bullseye rash or reported tick bite. Even though we know you can get Lyme without either of those, there still wouldn't have been anything in my chart because my infection goes back 35 years and his records only cover 13 years. It was not considered before because no one thought of it. If it was never considered before, why does he think I was tested before? I never told him that and actually said I had never been tested because no one thought about it. In addition, I tested positive for an active infection.
I think part of this is that his nose is out of joint because it was my eye doctor who suggested Lyme and he sent me to her.
So since I'm ranting, he sent me to a pain management doc in the same practice. She wrote down her impression as "low back pain" and when i told my husband that he said "you've never complained about low back pain." I haven't ever complained about low back pain and now it's all over my chart. I also told her but my records were never corrected. She was only interested in looking at my latest, most prominent pain symptoms. She did MRIs, X-rays and the EMG test (shear torture). She found nothing and admitted I had Fibromyalgia (apparently a dirty word) reluctantly. She did want to put me on a two week course of Prednisone because she thought it might be something systemic. LOL. No kidding.
When I had my next appointment with my Rheum he interrogated me about the pain doc since he was new to the practice he didn't know the other doctors. He wanted to know if she had tried to talk me out of the narcotics. I said no and he said good. Then he wrote in my record "discussed weaning her off of narcotics" making it sound like we were going to wean me off of the narcotics. Do I did eventually go on Prednisone and had complete symptom relief, but not right away because I was going to see an Allergist about the possibility of mastocytosis (MCAD) and I told her that. However, in my record she wrote that it was for maxilla something. That condition causes your cheeks to puff out. Not the same thing.
The other doctor I saw when I feel and tore a tendon in my hand also butchered my record. He felt it necessary to put into my record "she does not work per say" not sure what this is supposed to mean, but it looks like he thinks I'm able to work even though I can't and don't am on disability. He also neglected to mention that I had an allergic reaction to a cream he gave me for the pain in my hand.
As if all this wasn't bad enough, I just got the form from SocSec Disability asking if I was working and had my condition changed. So my records make it look like I'm all better and only seeing him because I want narcotics. I need narcotics to control my pain but I am not addicted to them. Every now and then, I take a break from the narcotics and just spend a week or two in bed in excruciating pain so that I won't build up a Torrence to them.
I am also stuck with this doctor and the practice. I can't go somewhere else because any doctor that writes for pain meds will want to know why I left that practice. I can't say because the doc I was seeing trash talked about me.
This is such a betrayal.
Kim