Times My Doctor Didn’t Listen To My Pain
Sadly, I can identify with this. Often, when doctors make assumptions about you based on their own biases, they miss the glaringly obvious problems that actually do exist.
As a medical marijuana patient, I had my hereditary polycystic kidney disease dismissed and ignored by multiple doctors over a 2-3 year period while I was suffering through agonizing pain and had no idea why. I would go in and describe the pain I was experiencing. I would also explain that I don’t believe in taking pills, so I wanted to have tests done to show me what was wrong, rather than trying to mask it with an ibuprofen.
The doctors I saw chose to ignore what I was telling them about my pain, and 3 of them in the past 3 years have chosen to shout and yell at me because I was open and honest with them about having my medical marijuana card. Once that was written in my file, I never got honest, fair medical treatment from my local medical group again. One primary care provider told me that I am no better than a heroin user because I have my medical marijuana card. The last time I checked, there is no state that hands out medical heroin cards. And the fact that her incorrect opinions caused her to scream at me until I had a panic attack is just bizarre. The fact that she still billed my insurance company for the office visit when she refused to examine me, and I ran crying from the building without being helped in any way, is theft in my opinion. They would rather moralize and spout debunked government propaganda than listen to my very legitimate issues. But even if all they did was treat you rudely and call you names, they still want to get paid for the visit.
On top of numerous hereditary medical conditions that I suffer from, I have also suffered from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder since I experienced multiple forms of trauma as a child, including the dozens of times that my congenital heart defect almost killed me.
Because I suffer from CPTSD, my default responses to anxiety, fear, threats to my well being, etc, is usually to cry, and freeze or flee. I am prone to having severe panic attacks. Often when faced with mean, rude behavior from someone who is supposed to be helping me, my normal response is to feel anxious, afraid, and worried. I might get weepy even though I’m trying not to let them see me cry. Ultimately, if something threatens me, I tend to flee, retreat, and never go back again.
Doctors who don’t know what PTSD or CPTSD is, often mistake this for something else entirely. I have tried to explain that I have CPTSD and what that is and what it means, but I am misunderstood almost universally by so-called “professionals” who should really know better. How can you be in the medical profession and have NO idea what PTSD is, and also not know how to treat people who have it with a little bit of kindness and consideration? I always end up apologizing for my anxiety and then they misunderstand what I’m actually saying and offer me prescriptions for xanax, antidepressants, and other harmful drugs that I don’t want. I try to explain that I have PTSD and how it affects me. But the majority of the time, I just get blank stares and offers of pharmaceuticals instead of just a little bit of basic human consideration and kindness. Why don’t we teach medical professionals empathy?
I can’t even begin to describe how many times medical professionals have been rude, condescending, and dismissive to me, before I finally broke down and told my dermatologist what was wrong, and he told me what was wrong with me and told me what tests I needed to make my regular doctor give me. Thanks to my dermatologist being a lovely, decent, kind human being who has compassion and cares about his patients very much, I finally found out what was actually wrong with me. It took me more than 2 years of begging for help at various doctors offices and being ignored and told that I was no better than a heroin addict because I went through all of the steps necessary to get my medical marijuana card. Nothing I said or did mattered to them. In their minds, I am a drug addict, shooting up the marijuanas. I must only be there because I wanted pills, in their mind. It didn’t matter to them that I stated ahead of time I didn’t want medications or pills for pain or anything else for that matter – I simply wanted every test there was to figure out why I was experiencing crippling, life-changing pain in my kidneys and abdomen on a regular basis.
Because I have my medical marijuana card and made the mistake of being open and honest about it with a provider 4 years ago, they always assume that I am trying to get pills of some kind when I complain about pain. Never mind the fact that I won’t even take a tylenol for a headache because I’m afraid it will kill my liver… never mind that I haven’t had even a sip of alcohol in 4 years… never mind that I hate not being in control of myself and would never willingly give up my control by being less than 100% sober at all times… if you ever see me acting drunk, know that someone DEFINITELY drugged me and I need help!!!! Because after being married to a raging, violent alcoholic for 10 years, I literally hate alcohol, and everyone who smells like it. Despite all of this, in their minds, once you are honest with them about your medical marijuana use, you are now a “street drug addict” who is “addicted to marijuana” and therefore you must be a pill seeker even though they will ALSO at the same time belittle you for not accepting harmful, organ damaging prescriptions for depression, sleep aids, etc. I have had doctors refuse to order tests for me while insisting that I needed antidepressants. My problem was not in my head, it was in my body. But the biases and opinions of the medical “professionals” prevented them from being able to think critically and find the actual problem with me. They were unable to see past their own biases and as a result, they were unable to properly do their job. And I was the only one who had to suffer any kind of consequences for their biases, opinions and mistakes.
Whenever I try to tell these providers that I don’t know what any other drugs are like, or where to get them, or how to do them, and that I can’t stand alcohol either, they treat me like I am lying to them. One doctor actually performed a Blood Alcohol Level test on me without my permission after I stated that I don’t even drink alcohol. Why would I lie about something like that?! And of course the test is not free… he never even tested me for anything else!!! The incredible arrogance of some of these so-called professionals is unbelievable. Their bias towards marijuana, and the harsh attitude of the government towards it, causes those of us who are open and honest with our doctors about our medical marijuana use to be treated like we are less than human by unscrupulous medical providers. Once they have mislabeled us “marijuana addicts, no better than heroin addicts”, they feel they can treat us with condescension and disrespect.
In 2017 when I went in for a routine checkup, I had a provider tell me that because I had just turned 40, I need to have a mammogram each year from now on. I told her I had some concerns and questions about the amount of radiation that I would be exposed to if I did this each year. She turned to me with an angry look on her face and snapped at me: “Marijuana causes cancer, and you can’t cherry pick your cancer risks. If you smoke marijuana then you can’t worry about radiation from mammograms”. She was pretty rude to me, all because I had a legitimate concern.
I never bring up marijuana in my visits. It was written in my chart 4 years ago and now every single provider I see brings it up in some fashion or another, despite my constantly asking them not to. They are obsessed.
I went to see a specialist about my hereditary polycystic kidney disease, and she told me that marijuana causes fatty liver deposits. I asked, WAIT – are you saying that I also have fatty liver deposits? Or do I have cysts and lesions on my liver that are caused by my hereditary polycystic kidney disease, as was indicated on the abdominal cat scan from July? I also asked her to cite her source / study. She admitted that I do not have any fatty liver deposits, and she also failed to cite any studies proving her claim.
She then told me that I had no idea what was in my marijuana and what poisons it was grown with and how they would affect my liver. I corrected her. I know exactly what is in my marijuana. Alaska Organic Fish Fertilizer. Alaska MoreBloom. Neptune’s Harvest Organic Seaweed. Earth Juice Hi-Brix Molasses. I know every detail of how my medicine is grown. It is tested and is always negative for pests, mold, mildew, etc. I explained this to her and she snapped, “Organic doesn’t mean anything. So, you think you know better than I do?”
When it comes to how my organic medication is grown and knowing the official lab test results for my organic medication, I definitely do know better than her, but I tried to be kind and cautious about how I stated that. She was extremely rude, condescending, made assumptions about my life and personality that were totally incorrect, talked over me, she very rudely belittled me for having complex post traumatic stress disorder and for experiencing anxiety about the rude and awful way she was treating me… she kept interrupting me to tell me that I must have a miserable life if I am that anxious. She failed to understand that her rambly, narcissistic behavior was causing my anxiety. she also spent about 10 minutes fat shaming me for my current weight, despite the fact that I told her that I have lost 140lbs in the past 7 years and am still working on it. Her response to that was to tell me that she is 60 and has had 4 children and still weighs the same as she did in high school. It was a 6 hour round trip drive to see this specialist – the only one my insurance would approve – and she essentially fat shamed me for not losing weight fast enough and being as thin as she is, picked on me because she didn’t understand that Complex PTSD is not the same thing as depression and anxiety, and tried to convince me I needed a bunch of psychological drugs because her horrible behavior triggered my anxiety. She was the absolute worst! And the most expensive! Of course if she knew anything at all, she might know that my Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome makes it extremely difficult to lose any weight. The condition causes you to gain weight. But she assumed I was just lazy and not trying, despite the fact that I explained to her how hard I have worked over the past several years. I walk 5 miles a day. I eat healthy. My bloodwork is very good for someone with all of my health conditions. But to her, I was not a person. I was a fat marijuana addict, not deserving of any kind of respect or kindness. She dismissed my valid questions with derision. She did not give me any information about my condition or how it is actually affecting me. She didn’t even have a copy of my CAT Scan showing all of the lesions and cysts that I was there to specifically discuss with her! And she kept trying to tell me what my experience was, even though she knew nothing at all about me, my life, my personality… She was truly horrible!
How are we supposed to trust our healthcare providers, or even believe in their competency, when they act like moody, petulant children every time a patient asks questions that challenge their personal beliefs? When they are willfully ignorant about important issues in our society which affect their profession, and try to make the patient feel bad in order to deflect the patient’s legitimate questions while preserving their own biases, there is a huge problem.
Incidentally, after the specialist’s outburst, I went home and looked up studies about marijuana and liver disorders. I found studies showing that cannabis INVERSELY affects fatty liver disease. Since I don’t have fatty liver disease at all, that has nothing to do with me anyways. But if I did, I would want cannabis for it, according to the studies showing that it inversely affects the disease.
It’s disheartening, to say the least. How could a specialist not know the definition of “Inversely”? How could these providers make such strong, staunch statements about marijuana despite having no evidence to back them up? Show me the LEGITIMATE, unbiased study that says marijuana causes cancer, fatty liver disease, or other conditions, and I will read it with interest. But you can’t. When you can’t come up with proof, you throw a tantrum instead and try to make me feel like I am the bad one for asking at all. Several times now, I have been asked if I thought I knew better than the doctor. What kind of question is that? I have an IQ of 140 and was in the gifted program all through school… I have read thousands of books on every topic imaginable. I taught myself 8 programming languages. I am not less intelligent than you. Just more anxious, because I suffer from CPTSD. While I congratulate these people on their good luck and for enjoying charmed lives that have completely spared them from having any kinds of hereditary health conditions, or experiencing any kind of hardship or trauma or difficulties in life which were beyond their control… I also can’t understand why they have no empathy or compassion for those of us who have not been lucky enough to be born into the same kind of easy, charmed life that they fell into with no effort required on their part. Just because you are lucky, does not mean you DESERVE to be lucky. Nor does it magically make you better or smarter than everyone else on the planet. Entitlement does not look pretty on ANYONE. Your privilege is not universal.
The fact that my legitimate questions cause some providers to become angry and rude, just proves to me that those particular providers are, in fact, not competent. Because if they were, they would be able to calmly, politely and rationally present their points and evidence without having a childish temper tantrum about it. If you have valid points, you should be able to present them rationally to prove your case. If you do not have valid facts and data, then by all means, use the straw man argument that cannabis will kill me anyways, so I have no right to ask you any other questions that aren’t cannabis related… that attitude makes you dangerously ignorant at best. And a malignant liar at worst.
If doctors would put aside their personal biases, and instead look at each and every patient like a unique human being worthy of care and attention (in other words, if they did their job) then we wouldn’t need videos like this. 🙁
