Doctors are not gods

[Groggrim]

Hi, when I was a child my mother would take me to the doctor for every little thing; she was a worrier. I was taught that the doctor's word was law and we must listen and do what he said. I grew up with a fear of being taken to the doctor. Some of you know about the unfortunate debacle I am having with steroids after being put on Prednisolone unnecessarily last year by a GP registrar. Having now been transferred to the care of my endocrinologist I have come to realise that GPs do their best, but they know a little bit about a lot and don't always get things right. We trust them to make us better but do we expect too much of them? We have been with our GP surgery for 45 years, since I was expecting our eldest son, and things have definitely deteriorated with the service available over the years. They are not gods, nor magicians, and their workload is a heavy one. It's a sad indictment of the current situation that I no longer feel I can fully trust or rely on the GPs nowadays 😒

[piglette]

You seem to have the same fear of doctors that my father had. The only difference was that he was a doctor!! He failed to diagnose a broken arm once, the only thing was it was his arm!!

[Groggrim in reply to piglette]

Oh dear 😒

[Charlie1boy]

Sorry to hear you feel like that. Certainly, we have an excellent Practice where we live, and the care and attention has been, and still is, as good as ever.

With such a large number of doctors, you are bound to get some less good ones.

[SnazzyD]

Very true. My historic encounters with doctors still give me the chills and did a lot of damage medically but I think that was more about them as people rather than their lack of knowledge. A fragile ego is less likely to be humble, listen and admit to their own gaps in knowledge. The system in which they work may also be intolerant of this.

Just to wave the flag for your GP here, it does sound like the prescribing of Pred was the correct approach in that your pains were resolved. What wasn’t so good was the breakneck speed of reduction that did indeed cause breakthrough pain which may have made the Pred look ineffective. So something inflammatory is/was going on. You may need more Pred yet. Your likely adrenal gland suppression symptoms are sadly, part of the process to recovery at lower doses for many. The Endocrinologist will be focused on that so it may be up to you to be vigilant for your condition possibly making itself known if it is still active. This will be the case especially if they put you on Hydrocortisone which is a weaker steroid aimed at challenging your adrenal axis a bit more. There are no definites in this game which makes it all the harder for doctors and patients alike 🙂. A nice human on the other side of the desk makes all the difference!

[PMRpro Ambassador]

I've said before - it wasn't really the diagnosis or the pred that has been the problem. Even the rheumy thinks there is an element of PMR there. The problem was the mess made afterwards.

[Groggrim in reply to PMRpro]

I know, but I have Prof Saravanan on the case now 🙂 after three days on his reducing plan I already feel a bit more stable in spite of a stressful day yesterday.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Groggrim]

How is he going about it? I just had a meeting that included an endocrinologist - we are looking at what can be optimised and one is the overlap between disciplines and how many doctors have a tunnel view about their side of the problem so hearing approaches that work is valuable to us,

[Groggrim in reply to PMRpro]

Hello. He has given me a reduction of half a mg (6/5 on alternate days) over the next month and I have a F2F appointment with him on 4th April. He has looked after me for my autoimmune hypothyroidism since 2006 and I trust him.

[Excelsior80]

interesting ..... but just wondering, if you still think you probably do have pmr, why was the pred unneccessary? I'm sorry you have had such a hard time, I started very like you, same reduction plan I think, but been so much easier for me ....so far.... could all go pear shaped any minute i know 🙂 what do you think the GP should have done and didn't? Was it mainly poor communication?

[Groggrim in reply to Excelsior80]

Hello, no, the problem for me was three different GPs all with different ideas of how to approach it. Once I found this forum things made more sense but I was still being reviewed by a different GP each time.

[Excelsior80]

annoying, me too, different doctor every time .... but they've been ok so far and from this forum I do feel condident to question them if not happy ... another new one next week ....