Venting My Frustration... and the Nightmare That Is DOCTORS!

So, I've been sick, fighting an invisible illness for eleven years now and let me tell you my experience in the last two months and the amazing capability of the health system (which is zero capability if you were wondering)...

Depression, Extreme Exhaustion, and Extreme Brain Fog are the three most debilitating symptoms I have been trying to deal with for over a decade. Last Sep I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's by an Endo that I despise (more on that later) and thought wow perhaps after all this time I will get somewhere. I was wrong.

My symptoms are basically destroying my life, controlling me and forcing me into complete detachment from the world and everyone around me because I can't function.

Two months ago I experienced Anedonia and Depersonalization for four nightmarish days, it would take way too long to explain what it felt like, but simply put, I was completely cut off from everything around me even myself. And don't get me wrong I tried to do things to correct it but even doing that, it felt wrong. I felt absolutely nothing, my hands felt foreign to me, I couldn't smile even to the things that even when I was crying my eyes out having a complete and utter breakdown, I could always smile to them, that being dogs. But I couldn't smile, couldn't laugh. It was horrid.

Then after that, I got a cold and thought nothing of it. Just coughing, sneezing, runny nose, but after two weeks it went away and was replaced by pulsating tinnitus in both my ears. It was driving me crazy so I went to my Family Doctor and she gave me antibiotics. A week later nothing improved and she sent me to an Ear Specialist. And I was left to wait. Last week saw him and he said basically that he can't help me so. Useless. 

At that time more symptoms began to take hold, my throat was tight and painful, it hurt to talk to eat everything. It had happened before so at first, I thought nothing of it, that it would come and go but no, it was far worse. One day I made sure to keep my phone by my side because I seriously thought that my airway was going to close. Three days after that it subsided into being painful but no longer afraid of anything serious happening. 

Soon after that, I experience pain, again this was new. Chest pain that radiated on the left side of my chest, shoulder, neck, and up the side of the head. Again phone right by my side just in case. But a day later it subsided into light pain on both sides of my chest. I no longer trusted my family doctor so I decided to try and find a new one, she ordered blood tests and a chest X-Ray and am waiting for the results. 

In the middle of this, I made the decision to look at the results of a past blood test that I had gotten a copy of and found that something was off about it and that I wasn't told. So I decided to go to my family doctor and get a copy of every blood test on file. And when I got the copies and went through them, I can not tell you how mind-numbingly furious I was. For the past four years, there have been abnormal readings in the same things over and over again. To say it simply she was lying to me, I always asked if my blood tests were fine and over and over again she said yes, which wasn't true. 

My thyroid levels were all over the place, several blood tests were abnormally high indicating that something may be wrong with my liver, and not only that but that A YEAR AGO!!!! She tested me for Sjogren's Syndrome and it came back as POSITIVE!!! SHE NEVER TOLD ME NOT ONCE IN THE FOUR YEARS THAT I HAVE KNOWN HER HAS SHE EVER TOLD ME SOMETHING WAS POSITIVE!!!

Before I saw that I was positive I never knew about Sjogren's Syndrome so I searched it up and oh my god. I've found something that fits everything I have been complaining about for four god damn years in a single weekend than this woman has ever done in FOUR YEARS!

So I went to my new Family Doctor and asked her if she could run some more tests because I was feeling off, like more off than I have ever felt before. And basically, she said she couldn't that Family Doctors have their limits and that I'd need to see a specialist. 

So count here, 2 completely useless family doctors. 1 useless Ear Specialist, 

So since then, I have been calling my Endo for about a month and a half once every week, except last week I started calling her every day, to get an appointment with her because as I said my feeling of being off was growing. Still, to this day I don't have an appointment booked, why because what the receptionist told me, that my doctor hasn't given her her vacation time to book off yet so I can't book an appointment till she does, which will take two weeks. 

Count here, 2 completely useless family doctors,1 useless Ear Specialist, 1 Endo who gives zero f--ks about my growing issues, 

So I went back to my Family doctor and said that I needed to see a new Endo because this "doctor" as she calls herself couldn't care less about me, luckily she listened and I was referred to another Endo but she's out of town till Monday and then I'm going call to see if I can make an appointment and I'd be lucky to get in to her in three months. 

Count here, 2 completely useless family doctors, 1 useless Ear Specialist, 1 Endo who gives zero f--ks about my growing issues, 1 Endo who may actually be able to help and actually care but three months to wait is terrifying right now. 

Also when I was at my family doctor I asked to see a Rheumatologist, because I had been in pain for over a month, and pain was one of my symptoms that was on the back burner for me, because it was never horrible and honestly my sister suffers from serious chronic pain so for myself to complain about mine was never going to happen easily. And I also wanted to see a Rheum because they can help treat Sjogren's Syndrome too. But today I got a call from them, saying that I don't fit the requirements for a referral so there not gonna see me. 

Count here, 2 completely useless family doctors,1 useless Ear Specialist, 1 Endo who gives zero f--ks about my growing issues, 1 Endo who may actually be able to help and actually care but three months to wait is terrifying right now, 1 Rheum who couldn't be bothered, 

So my last effort is to see my Psychologist, why because he is the only reason I ever made those two appointments with my useless and completely ignoring me Endo because they have some kind of work relationship at their hospital.

5 useless doctors, 1 that may be able to help and I'm reduced to asking my psychologist, begging to him, to help me.

And honestly I don't know if he can do anything for me but I have to try because in all this time I have gotten used to feeling mentally unwell and unstable, even physically unwell feeling tired and drained and such, but now I am seriously afraid that something is really really wrong with me. 

For the last three weeks, I have felt more physically unwell that I have in all of my life. My legs are the thing that is worrying me the most, they feel like they have thirty-pound weights attached to them, I consciously have to make the effort to put one foot in front of the other because if I don't I trip over myself or stagger into walls. Shots of pain and a tingling sensation are constantly running up and down them. And now I've noticed a similar experience with my hands and arms, they're just heavy and tingly. I feel that at any moment that I'm going to pass out, my brain fog is at an all-time high, it feels like my head is full of air, yet there is a constant pressure, a dull headache in my forehead. Constant pain in my lower back and neck, my throat feels like I've swollen a golf ball, I'm sleeping way too much because I am just way too eat, and I'm forcing myself to eat because if I don't I can go by without eating all day. I'm tired beyond belief, and I'm just afraid, but sadly I think it's gonna take something drastic before anyone pays me any attention. 

My belief is that I had Sjogren's Syndrome first and because it wasn't treated my Hyperthyroidism turned into Hashimoto's and because "cross my fingers" that I believe the meds I was on for Hashimotos was working correctly, Sjogren's Syndrom and all the symptoms of it has come out in full force. Because my god it fits perfectly, things that I thought weren't symptoms in my life like my heartburn, my stomach pain, leg pain at night, the rash-like marks on my arms and legs, my gallbladder issues, my dry mouth and eyes and my LIPS, my god it explains that. 

I just want to be better, that's all and right now, I've never felt more unwell and afraid because of it. And I don't know when this is gonna get better. Because if I'm right, and I really think I am the things that I'm dealing with, which so many I haven't mentioned, that if I don't get help soon, that the damage that has been done could be permanent. And that thought scares me more than death ever could. 

I thought once that I just don't know what to do, but now I know there's nothing I can do. Only specialist can help me and unfortunately, I don't think they care or believe me. I'm absolutely screwed is what I'm saying. So I just count down the days until my next doctors's appintment, that is my life right now. And I hate it more than I can ever say. 

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