Wales v England!

[Pibs]

Hello I live in England just over the border from Wales and I am registered with a Welsh GP (tried the local English surgery but it was massive and very impersonal). Surgery has been great except with my hypo where the care has been abysmal (and I don't use that term lightly). Complete denial and lack of interest. I am now pursuing things via private testing and a nutritionist but am curious as to whether anyone else has come across a similar situation and if Welsh NHS treats thyroid differently or GP's are more constrained? My sister in law in Norfolk gets vitamins on prescription and access to a thyroid clinic!

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Pibs

I live in north-west Wales and the doctors at my surgery are TSH obsessed, and interested in nothing else thyroid-wise. I saw a pig of an endo at one of the hospitals in our health authority area - Betsi Cadwallader UHB - who was also TSH obsessed and didn't care if he turned me into a zombie, just wanted my TSH in range. I would never subject myself to the horror of another consultation with an endo.

Thyroid clinics have never been mentioned to me in the 24 years I have lived here (nor were they mentioned when I lived in the West Midlands).

My experience has been that they're not interested and I've had to help myself.

I'm sure there are some decent doctors who are caring and more interested, just not where I live.

[Pibs in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thanks it's obviously very patchy and a lottery as to who you see! Private (which I can afford luckily) is yielding much better results for me and investigating the initial causes which seems much more logical and productive

[trelemorele in reply to Pibs]

I'm in Dorset.

Average GPs IQ here is of a single amoeba.

They'll prescribe antidepressants and/or paracetamol for any type of alignment you'll have. I.e pneumonia, menopause, thyroid, breast cancer, bleeding etc. They also like to use decongestants if the other two didn't work.

They refuse referrals and are paid additionally to do so.

Blood tests prove extremely difficult for them to decipher, somewhere on the level of breaking code to enigma machine.

If they fancy they'll take you off medication you are prescribed for chronic life long condition just like that, will ignore clued up consultant recommendation but will get very passionate when recommending another, equally stupid to them doctor.

So no - where I am in England - you won't get health fixing, life saving treatment from resident quacks.

[Warrior75 in reply to trelemorele]

I’m in Dorset and I was taken off levothyroxine because my heart was thumping hard ,that’s what happens to me when I’m low I’m on more now but still the fight continues

[Zephyrbear]

I live in Powys and am with a local GP surgery where, thankfully, they accept that I probably know more about my thyroid than they do... My endo, however, is over the border in England and whilst my old endo (sadly now retired) was an amazing man whose speciality really was the thyroid, the new twit that's replaced him hasn't got a clue! He even ordered a diabetic treatment monitoring test for my next appointment... I am not, nor ever have been, diabetic! So I think it's all a case of swings and roundabouts... There's good and bad everywhere and borders don't really make a difference. Thankfully, my GP surgery is quite happy to let me continue on my T3!