So I live in a major metropolitan area with my choice of 9 hospitals to visit. I always choose the one furthest away as it has a big new beautiful ER and new inpatient tower consisting of all private rooms.
I find the staff to be fantastic and I have spent 7 weeks in total since November at this facility. I get great patient care. This hospital does not know I have fibro.
Last night I had major pain and went to a hospital closer to home. I mentioned fibro as an existing condition at the triage. From the moment I said this I was treated differently. They went from being very concerned and "We will get you a bed right away" to "There is a 3 hour wait, have a seat in the waiting room".
Three hours later I seen a doctor and had bloodwork. The Doctor says, "oh this is probably just your usual chronic pain and we don not treat chronic pain in the ER". Then when my results came back, the Doctor never examined me at all. He saws, it seems you have a severely inflamed bowel, but we can't really do anything here (hello, it's a hospital, have not eaten or slept for two days due to pain).
You should just take your meds at home and follow up with your specialist on Monday.
Anyone else get treated differently because of Fibro? Like your pain is not worth checking out or being taken seriously because you are ways in pain or drug seeking?
It is infuriating!
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FibroGoddess
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How can they treat people that way, I used to have this with a previous GP, now I receive fantastic care. All care providers should be aware of fibro, that day will come eventually. I hope you feel better soon. xx
Yes all the time, I've tried not telling them but with everything being electronic these days they have your GP's records in front of them aom we'll find out what's wrong to why didn't you tell us you had fibromyalgia, well I've hardly told you anything because of the pain, ~ you just assumed then sent home.
I am so genuinely sorry to read that and I must admit that I have not received poor treatment so far at a hospital but I think this is due to a couple of very serious medical conditions that I also suffer with? I want to sincerely wish you all the best of luck.
I have life threatening illnesses as well, I have spent about 16 weeks in hospital in isolation in the last year because of this. At any other hospital I get treated immediately. Not this one.
Totally get where you are coming from, these are just a few of my experiences:
Go to see GP as pain is getting worse, think my meds need changing, his response was "you should think yourself lucky if you lived in Victorian times you would not be able to get any pain medication" - really made me feel awful and like he thinks I'm a fraud!!
Go to see GP as in a lot of pain in my chest, she says it's probably your fibro playing up increase your morphine and rest for a couple of days. That night I was admitted to hospital with pneumonia!!!
I have given up going to the doctors or the hospital unless it's for a meds review as they always treat me badly and put everything down to my fibromyalgia.
Even ended up with a ruptured appendix because I wasn't taken seriously!
I would live GP's and ER staff to go on a training day for fibromyalgia and actually receive a few pain shocks to their body so they become more understanding!
How can we improve the attitude of the doctors to fibromyalgia sufferers???
I was told by my complex pain specialist told me to state clearly, "I have chronic pain, BUT THIS IS SOMETHING NEW AND NOT RELATED!" It works, except for Vancouver General Hospital, they don't care...
On a positive note when I first saw the pain specialist a couple of weeks ago he said it's important that we assess you properly and not sweep everything under the label of fibromyalgia! How refreshing! But sorry for your awful experience,
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