Share Your Worst Doctor Experience and Let It All Out!

Oh, with my general practioner again. I currently have patellofemoral pain syndrome, but before that happened, I'd occasionally walk wrong or too fast and get the same pain. I told my GP, and he prescribed me 800mg tablets of ibuprofen after feeling the knee when I hadn't done it that day and said I'd be fine. Months later, I fall and the issue is constant instead of just repeated, so he referred me to a specialist. And now I keep wondering if I wouldn't be this bad off if he had sent me to a specialist in the first place. I still don't know what has been wrong for years, I only know what's wrong with the knee right now.

Ooooh you asked for it! Ok, about 3 years ago I was working as a barista at a well know coffee chain, and I woke up one morning with a sore throat. I didn't think much of it, since that comes and goes when I talk a lot, so I went to work. About an hour in, my voice dissapeared and my manager sent me home since I couldn't talk and had a cough. I took a few days off, but I was only allowed three sick days without a doctor's note, so I went to our PCP. Now, our insurance was from my husband's Amazon job, so our nurse practitioner was underneath the thumb of Amazon expectations. I went, barely able to whisper, and she said I didn't have a fever (my norm is 97, and I was 99.6 or so). So she refused to write a note. She said I had allergies, and prescribed zyrtec. I had little white spots in the back of my throat, but she said they were "tonsil stones", and totally normal. I asked to be tested for strep throat, and she said I didn't have anything. I went back to work, despite not being able to speak, and my manager sent me home again. The next morning, I got up and my throat ached, and I had a fever of 102. But I'd used up all my sick days, and my manager would get in trouble if he gave me another. I was half way to work when I started balling my eyes out, and I took myself to the ER, where they took another strep test, but didn't tell me the results. They gave me a note for my manager and sent me home. I went back to PCP, again not able to talk. She said she still thought it was "post nasal drip". I insisted that something was wrong, so she referred me to an ultrasound place to check my throat for cancer. A week passed, and I was finally starting to feel a bit better. I went to the ultrasound place, and before the tech started, she looked at the records from the ER and said "wait, you had a positive strep test. Are you sure you want to do this?" I rolled my eyes and went home. So, not only did my PCP not take me seriously, she ignored and/or outright lied to my face when I asked if I had strep throat.

It was my first appointment with the doctor for context. I was switching from a pediatrician to a general practioner. My mom was trying to help me get the words out because she knows me and could tell what I was trying to say. He yelled at my mother for it. Then called me a "god fearing woman" in front of her. I was agnostic at the time. I'm now polytheistic.

It's not the worst I guess but left the strongest impression. I was 16 and dealing with pelvic pain, even off my period, and before I'd had sex. I kept running into this one nurse at the gyno office. She'd tell me I wasn't in pain during exams, that I was being too sensitive, "that's not pain, it's pressure". When I finally got an internal ultrasound and some procedure with a vaginal camera, I get this same lady. She's really rough and inpatient, I'm in a lot of pain, and when it's over she looks up from between my legs and says, "Well I don't see anything." As though I'd tricked her into skewering me with this enormous ultrasound device and peeking into my vagina, all for fun.

i still can’t believe this happened. i was visiting my sisters in Nashville & all of a sudden started projectile vomiting. i’m talking PROJECTILE. like the exorcist x5. and it was green because we had just had pesto zucchini noodles 🙃 can’t make this up. ANYWAY. i puke for a good 6 straight HOURS. i puke all my food, water & then bile in my stomach up and i feel incredibly weak and i’m delirious. i can’t even keep down sips of water and i know in my gut whatever is happening is not the flu or food poisoning. then i realize i’ve been puking up blood & don’t know for how long. my sisters rush me to the ER. i have multiple seizures, more projectile bloody vomit & am barely conscious. it takes them all night to get me stable enough to stop puking/seizing and in the morning the male Dr. comes in and announces that I “probably just have a UTI”. my urine culture didn’t grow anything but that’s probably it. my jaw was on the floor. turns out my gallbladder had failed and i had a dead organ inside me making me sick. it took another 3 months before the doctors figured it out and by that point i had to have emergency surgery 🙃🙃

a doctor prescribed me a medication that was strictly NOT for patients who had a traumatic brain injury recently. i was home from college because of a concussion. the medication made me s*icidal and almost do it. i’m lucky i researched it myself

Went to the ER with severe abdominal pain, was told I was just stressed and needed a vacation. Went to a different ER the next day and wound up having emergency gallbladder surgery. Had the worst case of the flu in my life. Was pregnant and severely dehydrated. Had to be carried to the ER by my brother. Never got to see a doctor. Nurse just told me they were busy and to go home, there was nothing they could do for the flu. I miscarried 2 days later.

Went to a doctor for mental health and physical health issues. Regarding my physical: I was just told I could take more ibuprofen when my stomach hurt. Regarding mental, “just breathe”.

went to get blood drawn for accutane treatment. i told the nurse that i was probably going to seize as i do almost every time i get blood drawn. she said “oh no, you’ll be fine.” i said i should probably lie down instead of sitting up. anyways, i ended up seizing. and she looked like a dumb ass

Oh and there was the impatient psych doc that wanted me to try ECT even though that’s more of a last resort thing. I was no where near having gone through all the medications available.

I haven’t had to many bad experiences with doctors but I feel like both my rheumatologists I’ve had could’ve handled my case better. 1) I saw her twice when I was like 14 (maybe 15), she did not do bloodwork either time, said I had fibro and hypermobile joints, sent me to physical therapy, and stopped seeing me after the second visit cause I was doing better (barely) but I’d returned to school in person so I must’ve been loads better. 2) did actually do blood work, but didn’t investigate a result I felt should’ve been investigated (still has not been rechecked or investigated) confirmed my diagnosis, saw me like 3 times, never gave me anything for my pain not even a referral to a pain doctor, sent me to pt again, assumed it helped without paying attention to my pain levels. Put me on as needed basis. I have not gone back in years.

one time i was inpatient for mental health struggles and i was tired, but they wouldn't let me go to my room to sleep. so i fell asleep on the floor only to be woken up by my psychiatrist, who said "you're never going to get better if you keep acting like this" bro acting like what?? 😥 i was just trying to sleep LOL

i was 16 and had been in the hospital for a week, was feeling healthy for the first time in months and at that point they were just monitoring me for a few more days (no plans to do anything else, they even took out my IV thing which they never do until I leave). I was having horrible anxiety because they kept saying “oh you can leave soon” but wouldn’t tell me anything so I sobbed to a doctor asking to leave since they were literally not doing anything and he yelled at me and told me if i left I would die (i was nowhere close) and essentially told me I was dumb for not listening to them, etc. my mom reported him tho!

This was my first time going to a different doctor, and let’s just say they thought I was faking my pots bc I couldn’t remember the name of my many, many medications lmao

i have a couple chronic illnesses main one being lyme disease and the only specialist in my area was absolutely terrible to me. she would call me a brat when i didn’t want to do her ozone therapy thing (i didn’t want to because i had a very bad panic attack and ended up fainting the time that i did do it) and would tell me i’m selfish when i (very politely) declined coming in to her office every day after school to do some weird electro therapy thing that had never worked in the past. and many other things that that. she would actually yell at me and call me names. not to mention she charged $1000 per appointment which she insisted we schedule every other week. (don’t worry i got medical grants from essays i worte about my condition to pay for it) but at one point she told me that i was extremely disrespectful and needed behavioral therapy. she was not a psychiatrist, she was a lyme disease specialist. so she put me into weekly behavioral therapy to “fix my attitude” luckily the therapist i went to completely understand my situation and did not side with my doctor. and ironically this whole situation with my doctor actually ended up saving my life because when i had become actively suicidal, i had the therapist my doctor made me go to, to admit me into an impatient psychiatric hospital. (no i do not see this doctor anymore, i drive to the next nearest specialist who it 5 hours away every 2 months. he is amazing and respectful and very worth the drive to get away from my old specialist)

When I was super depressed and had bad anxiety a doctor I had seen for 20+ years gave up on me and refused to even talk to me. I had to change offices, doctors, insurance and they still do not have my meds right.

I was 23/24 years old when I started having CFS symptoms for the first time. I went to the Dr 3 or 4 times telling her something was wrong, I'm too young to have this little energy. She said that everyone gets tired, it's part of growing up and that I probably just have anxiety. She prescribed me something that made me feel worse. I'm another visit I asked about birth control for the first time and I was on it for 6 days and felt like a I was literally crazy. I was angry at and about everything. I found myself an ob and she said that no one prescribes that particular birth control anymore unless you've already been on it for a long time. It's absolutely outrageous what she put me through.

I had the worst experience with a dentist. She was always kind to me until I transitioned. After I started testosterone, she would purposely hurt me, not fill in teeth correctly, and treat cavities by saying “come next visit” and Id schedule another visit to have them fixed but be stuck in this cycle. It was horrible and I found out it was purposeful when I asked my mom to sit in the back with me and that was the nicest visit I had. Every question I asked was full of malice.