Dealing with Medical Trauma: Seeking Understanding

I’m suffer from chronic Fibromyalgia, I have to take medicine every, to help with the pain so I can move “ I got a doctor ones that told me, if I continue taking medicine every like I do , I will Drop dead any minute! She makes me feel like Crap 😥

Yes! My psychiatrist who was prescribing me anti depressants and anti-anxiety meds for panic attacks just stopped his practice and I was unable to get my anti-anxiety meds for a week or so when I found a primary doctor near my college. When I started taking them again, I had to go to the ER bc I was having tics to which has NEVER happened To me before

Yes it’s sometimes super challenging to get a doctor that wants to help with chronic pain. I have been dealing with it for the past 6 years and it’s a result of 3 unsuccessful spine surgeries and breast cancer treatments. However, I often feel like there’s many assumptions made by medical professionals when they read my medical history. So, I get treated like crap cause they see my diabetes, & that I’m overweight and make assumptions, based on what they read in chart. So I have learned to be my assertive and advocate for myself constantly. It sucks to have to be in such pain, even medical professionals can’t fully get it. Unless they themselves have experienced it. I won’t let them be rude or openly make statements regarding to how I manage my health . Also I’m quick to let them know what I need and what my body is telling me. I think I just have always be on it or I won’t get any help. Finding a doc that is willing to really help is tough and I have changed docs many times in this past 6 years. Finally, I am working with a doc that I think is actually gonna help me. Believe me it’s been a long time coming. From all this medical hell I now have major depressive disorder! And Anxiety. So managing my health care is a full time job. 💕

Yes I broke my ankle when I was 6 and the doctors didn't believe I was actually in pain, so they refused to do further imaging. It took moving across the country and 2 years before a doctor finally listened and ordered the testing. I ended up needing surgery and because it was broken for 2 years, it did permanent damage that I still deal with to this day.

i remember one time in therapy at a psych ward i was in a session and she asked how do you like school. I told her i felt like blowing it up. And she called my insurance company who called the cops who broke hippa. And charged me with terroristic threatening. I had to go to court and everything. The cops asked for my records which they cant do cause of hippa and my mom being my legal guardian so they broke alot of things.

Yes. Mostly because of of appointment issues. They gave me the wrong time and date countless times and blamed it on me. The worst part is that my previous doctor office if you missed an appointment they refused to see you and wouldn't let you reschedule unless you came in person. Now I have a panic attack if I'm even two minutes late even though my current doctor is pretty forgiving

Feel free to message me if you need to talk with someone whose been there

Yes

Yes. I had a friend of mine advise me to repeat “this is not personal” and it helps with my anxiety in medical situations because I feel hypersensitive and feel like I need to be on guard and protect myself because of past issues. When I’m not well, I feel so vulnerable to the point where I’ve avoided seeking medical help because of it. But repeating “it’s not personal” only helps until something goes really wrong again. I get really bad anxiety and sometimes panic attacks in medical situations which is not helpful for me when I’m in the middle of trying to get help and I shutdown (defensive response). I usually try to get someone to go with me for moral support when I’m not doing well and go over a game plan before so they can support me and kind of cover if I need a min but not interfere with getting help. Major trust issues but at this point I feel like that’s warranted and just need to keep it in check and make sure I do my research and am in a place to advocate for myself and try to plan enough prep and recovery time around appointments.

YES! I've had an extremely rare type of epilepsy (petit-mal, not very noticeable except for me, affects me daily 4-6 tines) since I was 2 and I wasn't diagnosed until I had a life-threatening seziure when I was 15. I was told I was faking it or that I'd grow out of it so it didn't matter and I should just deal with it, if it was even real at all. Wasn't faking it, and it got 10× worse as I grew up. A separate incident was when I had eye surgery at the age of 4. The anesthesiologist must've been new or something because I saw the needle coming straight at my eye before I was out.

YES doctors kept telling me that everything wrong with me was all caused by anxiety, which caused me to even doubt myself. now i'm always terrified to go to the doctor even when i'm really sick. you are not alone.

Yep literally got discharged from the hospital never seeing an actual doctor despite having arrived by ambo and put in the cardiac observation unit after ER got my stable to make sure my heart continued to behave. I also live with traumatic brain injury so I was struggling with all the stress and overstimuli and got referred to psych! The kicker? This woman reviewed the discharge ekg against an abnormal one from a separate syncope incident so I'm absolutely not good. Didn't even run Echo for comparison despite my old one already showing Lvef in the 40s, marking already reduced heart function. Thsts something we watch. At least I see my actual cardiologist tomorrow...

I’m kinda dealing with this now, I moved to a different state and my medical stuff is accident and they will not deal with them, so they treat me mean, like I don’t understand my Conditions my medication, I even had one doctor say that I was fine nothing wrong with me