What Do You Think Of Doctors?

[Rebecca Petris]

Just like Liza Doolittle I listen very nicely then go out and do precisely as I want.

You crack me up farmgirl

Speaking of Liza... you might get a kick out of this.

[littlemermaid]

Heh heh, Rebecca ~ the twins (LM and sis) and I love that A Lot

[MaryVa61]

Kitty,

Boy, can I relate to your experience. It's a terrible feeling, emotionally, to be in severe pain and hear your ophth describing it as "mild discomfort" and even worse to get a copy of the records (for another doctor) and see over and over your visits have the notation "complaining of no pain" during the time that the pain was at it's worst and I was desperately begging for help. I'm dropping my ophth and going to start seeing my therapeutic optometrist (handles my eyeglass rx) for my Glaucoma now. He's easier to team with.

The ophth, though, had agreed to try Travatan-Z for my Glaucoma, when I repeatedly requested it or one of the other P-free Glaucoma drops. And it worked, without irritating my eyes like Xalatan had. Now he's very smug and pats himself on the back for helping me so much by putting me on those. He'd have never given them to me if I hadn't happened to ask right after he'd been given samples by a pharmaceutical sales rep!

I'm sorry you still have such an uncooperative doc.

Mary

[oopsiedaisy]

Personally I just don't think of doctors and treatment in those terms. I don't think of treatment as something a doctor did to me / for me. I am in charge of my own healthcare. I build relationships with doctors (that is, the ones that have the will & ability to be allies, not the useless uninterested ones of course), consult them when needed, listen to their advice and follow it or ignore it or argue with him/her about it as the case may be.

My articles "How to get better care from your doctor" and "how to find a better doctor" also encapsulate a lot of what I think about doctors for dry eye. Bottom line is, utilizing them is a lot of work. When you're motivated, you do it and it pays off.

100% agree with Rebecca.

[oopsiedaisy]

[...]

does my current doctor have a cure? No.
Does he offer a quick fix for relief? No.
Does he offer much more in the way of medical science than my former doctor? Not really.
But, what he does offer, is humanity, and that is tantamount to my ability to cope with this wretched disease.

Doctors and medicine are not a panacea for all that ills us; it's a tough pill to swallow when you are suffering, particularly a chronic condition. But there are good doctors, those who go the extra mile, understand the need to keep searching, and realize part of disease management is living a life outside of the condition. It is up to us to be good patients, to understand physicians may need to see us multiple times in order to try to understand our disease, to understand that science has not yet found a cure for many / most of us, to follow directions and work on our mental health (which can so easily crumble when we are facing a monster such as an incurable, chronic disease). It is up to us to find a doctor that works well with us. Doctors are human and most are not researchers. They do the best with what they have; some are more talented than others. They aren't magic and have only the tools that current science has given them to succeed.

A good doctor will be willing to consider multiple causes and will admit when he/she doesn't know the answer.

agree 100%

[farmgirl]

Hey Rebecca hilarious, personal opinion, I think Liza has been cooped up on that farm just a little to long, think she needs to get out and spread her wings a little if you know what I mean...F/G

[Rebecca Petris]

think she needs to get out and spread her wings a little if you know what I mean...F/G

Wellllll as a matter of fact... she's been playing Mrs. Squires (one of the Pick-a-Little ladies) in The Music Man in our local children's theater the last couple of weeks, her first time acting and it's been a total blast. Pardon all the off topic chatter, I'm just sooooo proud i could burst

[mgshutterbug]

Rebecca, Liza's performance was precious! Loved it! Particularly since my daughter and hubby have just built a chicken coop, not at all as lovely as yours though. For some reason, they built it like a small shed, tall enough to walk in, who knows why...and are using the wider mesh fencing which is no deterant to black snakes (or others types). Maybe Liza could make up a song about why small opening mesh (obviously I don't know what it's called!) is the way to go! I'd love to hear that song too!

re: the question of "what do you think of doctors", I whole-heartedly agree with you. We are ultimately responsible for our treatment. And as you've said so many times before, the doctor gets and education as well. They need to be open-minded to our questions, and to our refusal to participate in certain types of treatment. So far, I have been very pleasantly surprised with my new ophthalmologist. She so far has been very open to all my questions, and opinions. I also, must be open-minded to hearing what she has to say as well. It's a mutual respect thing. I'm not saying everything is la-la land, but I have been very impressed by her.

So what I would say to everyone, is to not give up. You never know when you will find someone you can work with. No doc is going to be perfect, and I am so sorry that I kept going to my first corneal specialist for 9 mos., ultimately resulting in my permanent loss of some central vision because he was too ignorant to listen to me. He kept saying there was nothing wrong, didn't refer me to retinal specialist for an evaluation. I didn't know enough (which I know is my responsibility) to get an appt with retinal specialist on my own, and to get a different corneal specialist. Please don't stay with doctors who don't respect you, don't listen to you.

[mgshutterbug]

How can we be careful enough when choosing/staying with doctors?

I am embarrassed to say I've made a rather large blunder. When I asked my retina specialist, whom I have utmost respect for, to recommend another doc for DED for me, he gave me the name of someone whom I assumed was a corneal specialist. She is not. She is knowledgeable in dry eye, but is an OD. I would never have trusted my eyes to an OD since I have so many difference disease processes going on at the same time. Her name tag said Dr. So-and-So, and I assumed she was an MD. Not so.

My bandage contact lens (BCL) popped out 2 days ago in the evening. It was Saturday, so I didn't call anyone, figured there was no one available at Wilmer on the w/e, and a holiday one at that. Anyhow, I kept my eye super lubricated the rest of the evening, put ointment in x2 that night. Woke up with an erosion, tremendous pain. I called Wilmer yesterday (Sunday) anyway, because I knew that though the erosion was not huge, the likelihood was great that I would further erode overnite/a.m. I could not see small things like typing, and everything was through a blurried haze. But I could see, unlike with the huge erosion I'd had across the entire pupil last year. Anyhow, there was a corneal specialist on call. So when he examined me, he was not at all happy that I'd been wearing BCL 24/7 x 5 wks at this point. He said there were significant risks since the cornea was hypoxic. Anyhow, he also said that I had microcysts across the cornea, and because of them, I should have debridement of the cornea. He said because of the microcysts I have, that alone will continue to cause erosions even if I wasn't prone to them. Which of course I am. He's the one who told me my doc was not an MD, was an OD.

I did some research with one eye open, re: microcysts, and found that they will form when wearing BCL 24/7 for as short as 2 weeks, because of corneal hypoxia. Great. So in trying to solve one problem, another has been created. Please, anyone who has had microcysts, please post.

So - as for doctors - I was happy too soon. Let the buyer beware...

[DCRdryeye]

Today, I decided to see a local opthalmologist to have Duraplugs inserted rather than travel 3 hours to the city as I've done before. Well, he didn't believe in the schirmers test, said it's useless. He just "looked" at my eyes and said they seem alright to him and that it's all in my mind. He advised that I need to see someone for anxiety.
He nearly fell off his chair when he heard I'd tried restasis, use scleral lenses and moisture chamber glasses.
Eventually he managed to put some green stain on my worst eye (never mind looking at the other!) and said it's not too bad.
I've never met such an arrogant doctor. He played judge and jury without having diagnosed my eyes properly. Other eye specialists have confirmed a very poor tear break up time and 1mm schirmers test.
He had never heard about Duraplugs before! he managed to place them in (3 duraplugs had to go in a large lower puncta and two in the upper, then one in the other eye). He had also lost three Duraplugs as they fell onto the floor! ... and I have not noticed any relief at all. In fact, I can feel one of the Duraplugs on my eyeball, he didn't push them in far enough. Whereas 2 months ago, a "Proffesor of Opthalmology" (in the city) who specializes in dry eye inserted the Duraplugs in my eyes, and I felt the moisture build up almost immediately....and it lasted. So be careful who inserts your plugs!!!!

[bunnyrabbit123]

Oh boy! What a day you had! I completley understand your desire to avoid the long journey into the city, but what made you continue with the appt when he was treating you so dismissively? How are the plugs now? If you are deriving benefit from them, maybe you'd want to consider cautery? I had lower ducts cauterized about a year and a half ago and plugs put in the uppers- no problems with that. I still felt the need to pursue IPl treatment as my dry eye has been pretty bad. Hope you're doing better today-

[DCRdryeye]

Thanks for the reply. It was the first time I've seen this particular opthalmologist and didn't know he was so arrogant. I won't return and will simply endure a trip to the city next time. I've avoided getting cautery since it's not reversible and want to avoid anything that's permanent since I've been so disabled by DCR surgery. Once scorned, twice shy!