Bad experiences with medical professionals

[HoodedCrow]

I’m not a doctor. People have difficulty with my veins. I drink water, and do subtle warm up exercises. You are easier if you are not cold or dehydrated. 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I don't have any terrible experiences with a particular professional, but in recent years I've hated having to give blood for analyses, even though my doctor always insists it to be done as part of my checkup.

My veins in the elbow areas just aren't that large or maybe they're twisted. So the lab techs always play the guessing game, like it's Russian roulette but backwards, where each missed poke is bad. I'm not afraid of needles but it's incredibly irritating, even stressful at times. Whenever I see a young tech I silently groan because it takes an experienced one to get the blood going. I once got poked 4 times until they got it, and I've had a few bruises occasionally as a result. Once they had to do it on the back of the hand because they couldn't get it otherwise.

I asked several times if there is a way to scan my circulatory system to see if they can map my veins in the arms and maybe that could help get it easier, but got no answer or just shrugs.

I don’t know if this will help or not. My mom had very small veins as well (no, they don’t get twisted!) and when she faced ill health as a senior suffered with way too many pokes. Eventually we just told the nurse, look, she has small veins, you need to call in someone who is very good at inserting needles. And some people are incredibly skilled and she never got repeatedly poked again.

Eta: funnily enough I’m in hospital getting blood work done, a full panel of things I never get done, 10 vials! She was supper good and super fast, and yes, just as HoodedCrow said, she confirmed that being hydrated will help with your veins.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Fragile Bird

[Spockydog]

2 hours ago, Gorn said:

Root canal therapy without any anesthesia, when I was maybe 10-12. This was in post-war Bosnia, when everyone was dirt-poor and hospitals only had the basics, which did not include any anesthetics for this procedure. I don't blame the dentist, she did the best she could considering the situation.

Took me a long time to overcome the trauma and start visiting dentists after that.

Yeah, that's fucking horrific. 

[Corvinus85]

58 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I don’t know if this will help or not. My mom had very small veins as well (no, they don’t get twisted!) and when she faced ill health as a senior suffered with way too many pokes. Eventually we just told the nurse, look, she has small veins, you need to call in someone who is very good at inserting needles. And some people are incredibly skilled and she never got repeatedly poked again.

Eta: funnily enough I’m in hospital getting blood work done, a full panel of things I never get done, 10 vials! She was supper good and super fast, and yes, just as HoodedCrow said, she confirmed that being hydrated will help with your veins.

From my experience it's still hit and miss regardless of how prepared I am. There were times when I went stuffed with food, not knowing I was going to get blood work, and it worked like a charm, while other times I fasted and drank plenty of water and the blood refused to come out. I think the lab techs at my doctor's clinic know me well enough by now and they may have a note about me in their system. But I always worry when I see a new face.

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, Gorn said:

Root canal therapy without any anesthesia, when I was maybe 10-12. This was in post-war Bosnia, when everyone was dirt-poor and hospitals only had the basics, which did not include any anesthetics for this procedure. I don't blame the dentist, she did the best she could considering the situation.

Took me a long time to overcome the trauma and start visiting dentists after that.

I fully empathize with such a dentist experience.

[DireWolfSpirit]

My opinion,

you go to the doctor to get sick. Wanna stay healthy avoid them like the plague.

The same is true for your car and the dealership.

[dog-days]

I've been really lucky. I was brought up in a middle class household in the UK with a good local health service - friendly GPs, reasonably friendly dentists (well, they weren't psychopaths), and the specialist nurses I've met have always been lovely. I think it's one of the reasons I quite enjoy giving blood - no prior trauma to get in the way. 

I'm sure I'm going to run into a real horror eventually. I feel like you're all due a hundred years of perfect healthcare to try and make up for the nastiness. 

[Madame deVenoge]

1 hour ago, HoodedCrow said:

I’m not a doctor. People have difficulty with my veins. I drink water, and do subtle warm up exercises. You are easier if you are not cold or dehydrated. 

That, and I tell them - yes, straight out tell them - that they might want to consider using the “butterfly”.

With needle sticks not related to blood draws but to IV antibiotics, had hospital nurses resort to the leg veins. “If we only knew you’d be here with us for so long we would have done a PICC line” one said. FUCK NO. 

[Madame deVenoge]

2 minutes ago, dog-days said:

I've been really lucky. I was brought up in a middle class household in the UK with a good local health service - friendly GPs, reasonably friendly dentists (well, they weren't psychopaths), and the specialist nurses I've met have always been lovely. I think it's one of the reasons I quite enjoy giving blood - no prior trauma to get in the way. 

I'm sure I'm going to run into a real horror eventually. I feel like you're all due a hundred years of perfect healthcare to try and make up for the nastiness. 

I’m in the US and have a concierge doctor. 

It’s the occasional specialist referral that causes my hackles.

I love my dentist, my endodontist, periodontist, and TMJ surgeon.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Chataya de Fleury

[IheartIheartTesla]

I dont have a bad experience with medical professionals, but only one that was supremely annoying to me. On one of my routine visits, a young intern (student?) asked me about my diet, and as part of it said I drink diet coke/pepsi once in a while. She then proceeded to inform me that I should cut down on that (I am diabetic) since it contains high fructose corn syrup.

Still annoys me to this day. Particularly since I had read studies about how diet drinks did not necessarily lower your blood sugar or your weight since your body is essentially fooled into consuming sugary stuff elsewhere (paraphrasing). So there was a nuanced discussion to be had...but this wasnt it, and I was shocked how a student in the medical profession could get such a basic fact wrong.

[mcbigski]

10 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I don't have any terrible experiences with a particular professional, but in recent years I've hated having to give blood for analyses, even though my doctor always insists it to be done as part of my checkup.

My veins in the elbow areas just aren't that large or maybe they're twisted. So the lab techs always play the guessing game, like it's Russian roulette but backwards, where each missed poke is bad. I'm not afraid of needles but it's incredibly irritating, even stressful at times.

I haven't had entirely awful experiences with medical people.  Probably because I'm tall and white and somewhat but not entirely handsome.  

I do feel like an annual blood check up in an otherwise healthy person is probably more about generating activity for the clinic than about catching an issue in time to use small interventions rather than expensive later surgeries.  I am rather less trusting in authorities than I was ten years ago.  

If we're talking my worst medical thing ever, colonoscopy wasn't as bad as wisdom teeth out.  which still wasn't much.  Most painful thing was probably getting both of my in grown big toe nails cut back at once.  Local only.  I wasn't grossed out much about seeing the doc cutting my toes open, but our dog ate out at least half of the socks with the resulting toe juice.  Ace was still a good doggie dont get me wrong.

[DMC]

After reading this thread, yeesh!  I don't have any horror stories that compare - it'd be hard to considering I haven't been to a doctor in a really long time, but y'all certainly aren't encouraging me to finally go in for a check up.

Only anecdote I can think of to share is when I was in high school I had to get biweekly allergy shots.  They were fine, for the most part, but one thing that was annoying is sometimes the shots would hit the muscle and I'd have trouble moving my arm for the next 24 hours.  Remember on at least a handful of occasions I couldn't participate in basketball practice later that day. 

I don't really blame the people giving me the shots - I was skinny as fuck and considering the length of the needles I don't see how they wouldn't hit my muscle.  But it was weird that sometimes it wouldn't bother me at all and sometimes it did.  I suppose that could be because some people were better at administering the shots than others.  Anyway, main reason I'm sharing this is I've never really talked to anyone that got routine allergy shots and if they had this problem.  So wondering if there are?

Other than that....oh, I guess one thing that really sucked was right around when I was finishing up the allergy shots, so about senior year of HS, I had what I guess I'll call a nose biopsy where they stuck a camera up there to try to determine whether or not I should get surgery for my deviated septum.  I ended up deciding against it, but I always thought it was pretty funny that my nose looked so bad even my doctors encouraged me to get a nose job.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Last may I fell 15 feet off a riverbank while hiking and landed on my face.  Luckily did not break my neck, but had a bunch of facial lacerations around my mouth that required 30+ stitches.  The hospital refused to prescribe antibiotics despite the fact I had to wait 6+ hours after the accident before receiving care, they barely cleaned the wounds, even after begging for antibiotics I had to go without.

If you don't believe me I have pictures of the wounds post-sutures, they didn't even wipe the blood out of my face and beard.

  A week later I had a 103 fever and all the stitches were infected.  Finally got a scrip from my regular doctor (accident happened a few hours from home), but within a few days of pills running out infection was back.  Ended up doing 4 courses of antibiotics.  Took about 2.5 months to get the infection 'under control'.

I have permanent scarring on my face (luckily way to hide behind a short beard) but have had lingering infections in my mouth and dental issues ever since.  

On top of that, I've had severe acne all over my back and scalp since the accident.  Worried it's MRSA or something but my doctor says it's not worth pursuing and will clear up on its own.  It's only getting worse every day.  There is a cyst the size of a pingpong ball on my back that they finally referred me to a dermatologist, can't help but think that it's directly related to the shoddy and irregular antibiotic treatment I was given.  If it wasn't for the massive cyst my primary care doctor wouldn't have given a shot about the acne/ skin infection.

Also, it's almost impossible in my county to get an antibiotic prescription for Lyme, despite being a county with insanely high Lyme rates.  A friend of mine died from a seizure from chronic Lyme last year.  I now have a black market doxycycline source I use when I have a deer tick attached to me.

Up until two years ago I hadn't had insurance during my adult life.  That was even worse, you end up paying $800 to get looked at and given a prescription for 800mg ibuprofen (like I can't just eat 4 Advil) and then go back 3 days later when your stitches get infected or your neck is still sprained and it's another $800 visit plus paying out of pocket for whatever antibiotics.  

Don't even get me started on how your eyes and teeth aren't part of your body in the US.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Larry of the Lake

[Larry of the Lawn]

15 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

How far away were you? Are we talking spin-bowler wicket-keeper, or fast-bowler wicket-keeper?

Surely these bizarre word combinations refer to different types of zombies?

Is "keeper" some new lingo for "zombie"?

Edited February 3, 2022 by Larry of the Lake

[Raja]

19 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I asked several times if there is a way to scan my circulatory system to see if they can map my veins in the arms and maybe that could help get it easier, but got no answer or just shrugs.

I'm sorry you've been poked numerous times for bloods.

We can map veins in infants/ children, and that sometimes helps.

In adults, we usually go for ultrasound guided bloods/ cannulas if they are particularly difficult to bleed. Unfortunately, almost no nurses are ultrasound trained and not that many doctors will be trained with that unless you're in the Emergency Department ( or have an anesthetist nearby!) , and even then not all the doctors in the ED will be ultrasound trained ( for example, I work in ED but I'm not U/S trained yet), which is why people generally just keep trying until they get it. As you rightly say, some people are just a lot better than others. Cannulas are probably my favourite thing to do and I get a lot of satisfaction in getting them right.

The last option is getting blood from arteries, which generally only doctors are allowed to do. This is easier for us but can be quite painful for the patient which is why it's the last thing we go to.

16 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

That, and I tell them - yes, straight out tell them - that they might want to consider using the “butterfly”.

I only realized this year that butterlies are not the go to for some practitioners. People that are slightly older have been taught to use the older needles but most of the younger docs learned on butterflies so they are our go to!

7 hours ago, Larry of the Lake said:

  I now have a black market doxycycline source I use when I have a deer tick attached to me.

Up until two years ago I hadn't had insurance during my adult life.  That was even worse, you end up paying $800 to get looked at and given a prescription for 800mg ibuprofen (like I can't just eat 4 Advil) and then go back 3 days later when your stitches get infected or your neck is still sprained and it's another $800 visit plus paying out of pocket for whatever antibiotics. 

This shit sounds terrible, I'm sorry

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Raja

[BigFatCoward]

Isn't it nice how everyone understands that a few bad apples are no way representative of the medical community in general. That's a nice concept. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

13 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Isn't it nice how everyone understands that a few bad apples are no way representative of the medical community in general. That's a nice concept. 

Not all medical professionals are bastards? :p

[BigFatCoward]

2 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Not all medical professionals are bastards? :p

Brutal  

Edited February 3, 2022 by BigFatCoward

[A wilding]

Not going to criticise the NHS because some relatively minor first and second hand bad experiences with them were clearly down to them being overstretched and under resourced. But happy to have a crack at private medics, probably my best story is:

An uncle (call him John) had a temporary urinary catheter inserted after an operation some years back. Elderly and a bit muddled, he found it inconvenient and uncomfortable and arranged to see a private doctor about it. This resulted in him going to a private hospital and having the catheter removed. They kept him under observation for an hour or so and then sent him home at 5pm because the private hospital was only open during working hours. Apparently it had not occurred to them that the catheter was there for a reason. So at about midnight Uncle John phoned 999 with a literally bursting bladder and was rushed to NHS A&E to have another catheter put in. Thankfully there was no long term damage, but it could have been very unpleasant.

[Spockydog]

wrong thread

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Spockydog