• Lilith ( WaterLizard@beehaw.org ) 
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    3 years ago

    Fucking hell, I’ve literally had to do the same thing when I was experiencing chest pain and heart palpitations! My husband thought I was nuts for putting on makeup and donning “business wear” before he took me to our local urgent care, but I did so I wouldn’t be dismissed due to having anxiety on my records. I knew myself what I was feeling wasn’t anxiety, but if I looked in anyway or shape or form as an “anxious woman” I wouldn’t be taken seriously. I even had to specify we needed to go to the one location that was further away due to their closer location dismissing me for a different issue that was properly looked into at this preferred location.

    I was lucky to be listened to in that situation, got an EKG, and a referral out to a cardiologist; but that only happened because I had a younger doctor who wanted to rule out all possibilities. A few months previously I was dealing with numbness in one of my legs and the other urgent care I wanted to avoid literally sent me out the door after looking at me for 10 minutes and doing a leg stretch. The issue persisted and it wasn’t until I went to this same second location that someone actually ran some blood work on me and referred me for an ultrasound on my leg. It just shouldn’t be that hard to be properly treated when both of these experiences revealed issues that needed to be treated.

    • They let me walk around for 5 months with a broken vertebra pinching my nerves because they figured it was just tendonitis. They were completely baffled that PT was making things worse. I was finally able to get a referral because my dad came with me to an appointment (I was 28). The new doc ordered an MRI first thing and found the vertebra.

      • Maeve ( Maeve@kbin.social ) 
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        3 years ago

        Thankful you could afford MRI! I know someone who was ordered four, and could not afford them, also could not afford a gastroenterologist appointment. Of course, this is charted as noncompliance, so…

        • It was a work injury so thankfully I didn’t get the bill.

          Of course that would be seen as noncompliance, they were choosing to be poor/have crappy insurance. We women need to just stop being so hysterical and pull ourselves up by our boot straps. (So much /s).

          • Maeve ( Maeve@kbin.social ) 
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            3 years ago

            Oh wow! I’m so glad it wasn’t at your expense. Did work retaliate for you having to be treated at their insurance expense? It’s not uncommon where I live for people to be dissuaded by fear of unemployment. I wish I were being hyperbolic.

            It’s infuriating. We’re treated as if we are naughty children, seeking excuses to play hooky from first grade,.

    • Yep. When I was going through extreme tendonitis and also sciatic nerve pain, I made sure I ‘looked wealthy’ so I wouldn’t be accused of drug seeking when asking for pain meds. So dumb.