Was this medical exam appropriate?
Posted , 2 users are following.
I couldn't find a better category for this so I am posting this here.
My doctor said he thought maybe my headaches were caused by neck problems. Without asking he stood up and went beside me to the back and and lifted my long hair off my back and onto my shoulder. (My back was now exposed since I was wearing a low-back shirt.) He used his fingertips to massage my upper back on bare skin. He didn't say anything or explain what he was doing and did this for maybe 30 seconds. I felt pretty uncomfortable and thought it was weird.
Then he moved his fingers to my neck and touched a couple of spots and asked if they were sore. He also said I have good posture.
Is this a legitimate exam? It almost felt like a massage, and it was awkward for it to feel this way and to not know what he was doing or why. Was it weird that he didn't explain what he was doing? Do you think he was being inappropriate?
0 likes, 3 replies
kathy00684 Jennifer1982b
Posted
It sounds like he was trying to see if you had knots in muscles in your upper back and neck. Sometimes pain can in the neck area can be caused by knots in the stomach. I am not sure if your headaches involve your neck however, so if you didn't mention that your headaches affected your neck, this does sound odd.
If your headaches were going into your neck, he may have been trying to find spots that would feel sore or tender in those areas that he was messaging.
I was trained in "myofascial release" for shoulder, arm and hand pain and would press and message areas in the back to see if the could feel the part of the arm, shoulder or hand would tingle, or if it would cause worse pain. I would take my fingers and thoroughly feel areas of the back and shoulder to feel for bands of muscles or knots. Maybe that is what he was doing.
My patients would know why and what I was doing. Sorry that he made you feel uncomfortable and if he was looking for a myofascial trigger point, he really should have explained that to you. I would have never just checked for this without explaining what and why!
Jennifer1982b kathy00684
Posted
Thank you for weighing in. Do you have any sense of whether this exam was appropriate for a GP for looking for the cause of headaches?
I am not planning to get him in trouble or anything but it did seem a bit odd to me...
kathy00684 Jennifer1982b
Posted
Hi Jennifer1982b,
I just reread what I had written before...YIKES! The sentence about knots in the stomach was totally wrong...not sure what happened to me as I wrote that!
What I wanted to say is that knots in the neck or upper back can cause headaches.
If he was checking for knots in muscles, it would be in his scope to do this. He would have sent you to a physical therapist trained in that technique if he found muscle bands or knots in that area so they can be smoothed out.
As far as was it inappropriate, I don't know since he did not explain what he was doing. Sometimes Doctors forget to say what they are looking for...but it made you uncomfortable.
If you still feel uncomfortable, I would just go to a different doctor. He may have been doing something legitimate, but he did not explain it to you...and you are left feeling violated.
And NEVER be afraid to ask a doctor, "What are you looking for?" or "what are you checking for". Being prepared for asking in the future so this doesn't happen again to you.
We won't really know if he was doing good or creepy since he didn't tell you what he was doing.
Again, very sorry this happened to you. : (