WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
I got this title from a support site for intersex disorders, of which my adrenal disorder is one - the newly-emerging term for it is "disorders of sexual development or DSD. And it is the perfect question to focus on for those of us struggling with medically-based (rather than behavior-based) weight problems: got doc?
As of this week, we live in a new world in America. We have finally made the first major step in history toward a truly fair access to health care and equitable insurance for health care in the United States: ever. Reagan proclaimed the advent of Medicare to be "The end of democracy as we know it"- but democracy is live and well and working on behalf of you and me and the 34 million people who are now insurable and can get access to health care. The next big challenge is for those of us who now have access to health care - to find a health care provider who will help us.
This is NOT as easy as it sounds, and despite the horrible problems I have had throughout my life when I have had medical problems of a serious nature, with misleading, misdiagnosis, insensitivity, prejudice and downright condemnation by doctors, I have discovered that I have had to learn as much as doctors do about tests, about test ranges, about what constitutes normal, and how to lobby for treatment when I KNOW I need it.
And I just may have saved my own life by so doing.
I went to see a local doctor for primary care - which means my new health plan will not provide me with insurance if I don't use their 90-day generics dispensing pharmacy for all medications requiring more than 3 refills. So I needed all new prescriptions. And when I did I asked the doctor to check my B-12 level (which was flat last time it was checked) and my complete thyroid factors.
He phoned with results: he thinks I'm prediabetic because he tested my glucose randomly, and when you eat something with sugar in it before a test for glucose your glucose is going to be high - WOW WHAT A REVELATION! I have normal glucose, it's been tested again and again and again because doctors keep thinking - she's obese, she's got to be DIABETIC! And this is what's wrong with doctors nowadays. I'm not obese, first of all, I'm big. I'm big because I have an androgen disorder that went untreated for 50 years. So we got that sorted. It doesn't keep any and all doctors from having that "She's obese, she's got diabetes"presumption. And he told me that even though my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) test was out of range (yes, that means TOO DAMN HIGH) , my free T-4 and thyroxine were within range. Just BARELY. When I got my test results on paper, after my 22-year old wet-behind-the-ears doc said ÝOUR THYROID IS FINE!"quite flatly, and by the way I need to get tested again for diabetes... I sent the results to my new endocrinologist.
His response? You better come in, you may need more medication.
I have spent the past 20 years of my life trying to get what I KNOW is a hypothyroid condition, diagnosed and treated. 20 years of exhaustion. 20 years of not being able to lose the 28.2% fat I have on me (which is within normal range but a lot fatter than I want to be.) If I get thyroid medication, I might have a fighting chance of becoming athletic again once my knee recovers from the last hyaluronan injection that I got last Wednesday. Despite remaining pain, I walked to the post office yesterday, half a mile to, half a mile back. I won't say it felt good. But psychologically it made me feel like I've got a fighting chance to recover from my accident and be active again one day.
But to do that, I needed a doctor.
A part of me still finds it outrageous that your average doctor-in-the street will ignore abnormal test results because they don't understand them and it isn't their specialty, and leap to standard conclusions and assumptions, DESPITE DOCUMENTED MEDICAL RESULTS.
So if you have left your doctor's office unsatisfied with an answer, if you have symptoms you don't feel have been addressed, if you went to someone who said "Your thyroid is FINE!"even though you ran down a checklist or a survey that shows you have some, many, or most of the symptoms of a low-functioning thyroid... if your doctor ignores your concerns about things that trouble you daily and weekly...
you need to find a doctor who will address these things.
I have been a relatively passive consumer of minimal health care for decades. I pay a lot for medication, I pay a lot for my insurance, I pay a lot for specialst co-pays. I deserve expert help, and I deserve more than 30 seconds of assumptions and leaping to conclusions. And it is with considerable aggression that I am now pushing for and demanding treatment that I know I need, but have never before obtained.
How about you?