I suffered chronic headaches for years after I broke my maxilla. All exams and imaging were negative. Physical therapy helped, but the problem would always come back. This is when I decided to stop visiting MDs (neurologists, psychiatrists, traumatologists). I also tried alternative therapies (i.e. acupuncture), but the effect lasted hours or days at most.
I completely relate to you about trying to find any possible solution. In my case, not finding solutions added layers of frustration and other negative emotions to the problem that didn't help.
I started looking at the psychological aspects of pain after a HN post with this article [1]. That triggered a lot of reading in psychology, and I also started practicing yoga and meditation. This path led me to many discoveries about myself, since it taught me to pay attention to my mind and body in a different way. Being able to recognize triggers was crucial to find a solution. I can say that I never have headaches now.
Feel free to shoot me an email if you're interested in more references and or other details of my experience.
Do you engage in regular exercise that stretches and strengthens your hands, wrists, and forearms?
That seems like a nice outline of the symptoms, but can we get a diagnosis?
:P
'The average GP earns an average salary of £90,000, but doctors can earn more by linking up surgeries, making record earnings by managing tens of thousands of patients. Figures revealed more than 200 ‘Super GPs’ in the NHS earned more than £200,000 a year in 2015/16. Four were on salaries between £400,000 and £450,000 while 11 were paid between £300,000 and £350,000 a year.'
'Britain’s highest earning GP paid at least £700,000 a year'
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-britain-highest-paid-gp-...
I understand there are those for whom criticism of the NHS is sacrilege, but the current situation doesn't look much like sustainable socialised medicine to me.
Ridiculous comment. I'm embarrassed for you. Remember to say that to all the great doctors that are constantly saving lives, inventing new treatments, and being ridiculed by their own community when trying to introduce change.
Not directly but you relay on the system that can diagnose and treat you cheapest and, since manhours is always most expensive item, fastest.
But when the expert has nothing to say, yet mocks my questions and even just my reporting of what is happening to me, as he very eagerly waits for me to leave so he can get paid... Then there's not much more I can do than read on the Internet.
Some throw in a veiled insult by suggesting I should be sent to a psych ward for my "panic attacks." You might say it's not an insult, but I accepted the psychiatric evaluation once - and then a whole team of psychiatrists determined after 2 weeks that I was genuinely sick with stomach issues, and called that doctor up and asked him what the hell he was doing sending me to them when I had real physiological issues.
The truth is, most patients will accept the doctor's advice if the doctor can give an answer, any answer that's genuine. "We checked out the inflammation and we don't know why it's there, we'll keep working on it." <--- GREAT. Even the most "annoying" and inquisitive patients will accept this answer. The problem occurs when the doctor thinks him/herself too good to work with the patients by giving answers like this.
My point was more generally about how doctors are a lot like the car mechanics of people. So when none of the usual things show up as wrong, they just assume your electronics are shot (for humans, "you're crazy") and move on.
She had legit signs of heart disease. Got told repeatedly it was diet. Went out to work and, hard core as she was, powered through a heart attack.
Damage was terminal. She lived a few more years.
Hard core again, she got tired of being zapped back to life, asked them to turn it off. I had to intervene and force it.
She lived another blissful month.
Through the whole thing, it was, "woman, you know nothing" right and left. I basically became full time patient advocate, and wish I was in that role earlier.
I understand, I didn't think that you were. I agree with the point you made that maybe doctors who are trying to work might be impeded by a patient who disagrees. But I think that is a much smaller problem since the doctor can quickly be vindicated when the treatment he or she advises works, or the disagreeing patient leaves.
but in the United States, often times they won't accept it and instead will give the physician a low survey score, which ties directly to their financial reimbursement.
This is a big problem.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/04/the-probl...
They should have been apologizing. Instead they stuck with a cycle of insanity. If the even fairly common imagine how many diagnoses are missed; imagine how many new and important discoveries delayed. Because of overblown egos and lack of empathy?
I think that varies from country to country.
Then again you probably are not approached daily by dozens of humans with their meatware problems and human attitudes.
If you understand doctors to be salaried pattern recognizers and procedures applicators in various stages of burnout and adjust your expectations accordingly then you will rarely be disappointed.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor but I met a few as a patient and patient's family member.
Do you get it constantly every day? Do you get people telling you that you should rewrite your app in Android because they heard about it once? Do you get someone telling you that you should move from your amazon servers to the cloud? Do you get someone asking why you don't move your TV service to phones and not a tv box?
If it was THEIR app, they would ask about different hosting providers - and I would explain why or why not because it's my job.
I have experienced the same, and it is ugly.
There are many constructive ways to have discussions like that. Mocking, suggesting, psych are not among them.
There's that aggression again.
No, I'm upset about paying someone who mocked me and decided not to do any work because I was too pathetic for someone of his/her status.
I am an expert in my field. Many people I work with suggest things that I know to be wrong. I have NEVER mocked or acted vengeful. If they choose to continue with their ideas that I disagree with, that's their right. Is it really that hard to be respectful?
In every event that I've related in my posts, it was the doctor who was unwilling to give the most basic level of respect.