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Thursday, March 12, 2015

Seeking A Diagnosis


This might get long...I might break it up into two posts...

It's been almost two months since my last post. Since then not much has really been accomplished.

The specialist I was seeing at the time has greatly annoyed me, and I doubt I will be seeing him ever again.

The first time I saw him he seemed honestly concerned and I really liked that about him. He ordered a fresh ultrasound and I went for that right away.

A week later I went back to discuss the results of the ultrasound. There was a 8-9 cm cyst on my right ovary. Oddly most of my pain had been on the left side. We therefore agree that the pain is most likely not a result of the cyst. He prescribes me a low estrogen hormone birth control pill. Lolo, to hopefully help shrink the cyst and make my menstruation cycles more manageable. However, he decides we should monitor the cyst for two months to see what it does and go from there.

Say what? Again I say...we agree the pain is most likely not from the cyst. So why is it we decided to do nothing at all and just monitor the cyst and pretty much halt all other tests until then? I wasn't very happy about that, but I was in pain, pretty high on pain killers, and I agreed and left the office.


I went back a week later and begged for something more. The pain wasn't getting any better, in fact it was worse. The Naproxen wasn't doing anything at all and I couldn't function at work on Tylenol 3s and Percocets. He decides I should now take Toradol and take it 3 times a day whether I am in pain or not to keep it in my system. He then sends me for a CA 125 blood test. As I am leaving he tells me if the pain is still bad or anything else comes up I can call him and come back any time.

A few days later I am still in agony and things are worse. I am pretty sure I am having a bad reaction to the Toradol. I call his office to speak to him and find out my CA 125 came back and it was clear. Well this is fabulous news at least! Then I go on to say I am still in pain and that things are worse. He tells me that there is nothing else he can do for me until the second ultrasound is done. I am floored. This is very different from how I expected him to respond. I tell him I am having issues with breathing and cheat pains, most likely from the pain killers HE PRESCRIBE ME and he then tells me it's not his issue and I should call my family doctor. I am flabbergasted. I call my family doctor and she tells me to come in.

The family doctor immediately takes me off the Toradol (thank goodness) and gives me a prescription for Tylenol 3. I ask about any kind of middle pain killer that works but still allows me to function at work, but she can't think of any. We agree that specialist #1 as I now refer to him as is not a good fit for me and she personally refers me to her specialist of choice, a woman who works in the same building. I am relieved. I prefer a female anyhow.

The next day I get a call from specialist #2. She can see me the middle of May.

MAY??? That's almost 3 months away at this point! Are you kidding me? I politely ask to be placed on a cancellation list, hang up, and ball my eyes out.

The next day I am talking to a client of mine and she tells me about her specialist and how much she loves her. She speaks to her on my behalf and the specialist gives my client the name of a walk in clinic who has a doctor on staff that will refer me directly to her. I can't believe my good luck. I visit the walk in clinic the next day and just as easy as that he gives me the referral. I fax it to the specialist and she calls me the next day to book an appointment with her the very next week! Hold crap I cannot believe my luck!

The day of my appointment I am nervous and trying not to get my hopes up. The wait is long. I am sitting in the waiting room more than an hour past my scheduled appointment time. I am disappointed. Specialist #3 finally comes into the room and immediately apologizes for the delay but says she wanted to make sure she read my entire file history before she talked with me, and it was a large file. I am too shocked to say anything. I can't believe she took the time to be honest. Specialist #1 was actually reading every report for the first time as he sat in front of me, and was obviously very disorganized. She immediately takes me off some more medications she doesn't feel I need, and might actually be doing more damage then good (metformin) but also wants me to stop taking the harder pain killers and swap to stacking over the counter Advil and Tylenol. We talk about the possibilities of endometriosis and the treatment for this (more on this in my next post). She immediately tells me she is going to schedule me for a pelvic MRI (FINALLY!!!) and review my new ultrasound reports when they come in (I had just had the new updated one done that morning for Specialist #1). I will be going back next week to review the results of the ultrasound to see if (a) the cyst shrank and (b) if anything new is presenting itself. She also wants me to have a PAP because I have been so worried about abnormal pain etc. for so long that I haven't taken care of the "normal" procedures for quite some time.

Hopefully I will have some more news after next week's appointment. I also have another related post about the whole endometriosis and treatment subject.

So far, so (mostly) fabulous with specialist #3!
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