You’re sick all the time with a chronic
illness but your doctor doesn’t believe you. He’s run every test, checked and
rechecked your medical records, and seen you dozens of times in the office. It
doesn’t seem to matter how verbal you are, how much information you bring or how
much “evidence” you pile up. He’s thoroughly convinced you’re insane. The
problem is, you’re making it worse.
You might be thinking I’m another skeptic
writing an article about how chronic pain and illness doesn’t exist. Just the
opposite. From the time I was born to the time I was 22 years old, I was sick
every day of my life. I had persistent and rather disgusting digestive issues,
candida overgrowth, muscle pain, mental health symptoms, and bruises that
wouldn’t go away.
I went to dozens of doctors during that
time-period only to be met with cynicism and the belief that I just wanted
attention. Could you be reinforcing his belief that you’re not really sick but
mentally unwell?
Most Medical Doctors Treat Symptoms and Prescribe Drugs
Before I go into what you might be doing to
ensure your doctor is never going to believe what you say, let me start by
saying this: Most medical doctors are trained from their early days of medical
school to treat symptoms by prescribing drugs.
Hopeful healers start out believing that
they’re getting into the medical system to help people. Within a year, they’re
burnt out and crushed by a system that is more interested in keeping patients
addicted to drugs than actually making them better.
That isn’t to say all medical doctors are like
that but a large majority of them are. So when the drug doesn’t work and the
symptoms keep coming back, the doctor isn’t sure what to do next. He’s spent years
in school learning how to stop symptoms with the right combination of drugs. When
the patient is still sick, it must be in her head.
That’s not fair to you. You didn’t ask for
your doctor to be educated and trained in this narrow-minded way. But because
he is, there are a few things you could be doing to worsen his opinion of you.
Angry, Hysterical Patients Reaffirm the Hypochondriac Diagnosis
Some doctors are so overconfident that they’re
right and you’re wrong, they can get downright abusive. When you’re already
living with chronic pain, it can take nothing to get you to burst into tears or
yell at the doctor who is staring at you smugly from across the room. This only
makes things worse.
If a doctor is already convinced your chronic
illness is in your head and you start ranting, raving or sobbing, you’re only
confirming his belief you have a mental health problem. You have every right to
be hurt and angry. Unfortunately, if you show it in this way, he’s going to
have an even harder time taking you seriously.
The best way to approach a cynical doctor is
calmly and rationally. Tell him exactly what kind of symptoms you’re
experiencing, where they are, and how long they’ve been going on. The next time
he sends you for blood work, ask him to test for food allergies, vitamin
deficiencies, and parasitic or bacterial infection. Standard blood work often
misses what could be revealing information about your health.
He may think this request a bit strange but if
you remain calm and tell him you just want to rule anything out that might have
been missed, he’ll likely agree and send you for the extra tests. If he won’t,
ask if he can refer you to someone who will. If that still doesn’t work, it
might be time to find a new doctor.
Patients with Chronic Illness Ask for Too Many Drugs
Patients stuck in the “sick care system” of
modern America
As anyone suffering from chronic illness will
tell you, eventually finding a cure isn’t always what you think about. It’s how
to get through the next day or even the next minute without terrible pain.
Doctors who prescribe narcotic or steroid medications for their chronic pain
patients may inadvertently turn them into addicts who need more drugs to get
the same effect.
See, it’s really not fair. You’re in pain.
Your doctor puts you on a highly-addictive substance and you feel relief. Then,
just after a short time on these drugs, he tells you he can’t continue to
prescribe them. The pain comes back, more unbearable than ever, and you ask for
something, anything to stop it.
Meanwhile, he’s still telling you he doesn’t really
know what’s going on with you and won’t give you any tools to really heal.
Out of desperation, you may go to another
doctor out of town to get more drugs. This is what’s known as ‘doctor shopping’
and it’s illegal. The trouble is, many chronic pain sufferers are unaware of
this and get arrested without knowing what they’ve done wrong. That isn’t to say
some don’t do it on purpose to get high but I honestly believe plenty of
genuinely sick people just want relief and don’t know what else to do.
The More Doctors You See, The More You Just Want Attention
When I was at the height of my determination
to figure out exactly what was wrong with me, I saw a new doctor every week. I
sometimes had 5 of them on the go at once. I was willing to put myself through
just about every test under the sun to find out why I was always so sick.
To me, seeing a lot of different doctors was
the only way I knew how to increase my likelihood that one of them would figure
out my problem. To the conventional medical community, however, this behavior
could come across as an attention-seeking cry for help.
This is just a viewpoint and shouldn’t
discourage you from continuing to get second, third, and even tenth opinions.
It’s just important to realize what it might look like and why it’s so
difficult to be taken seriously.
Looking Symptoms Up Online is a Double-Edged Sword
When your doctor doesn’t believe you, you look
up your symptoms online and become your own best health advocate. When you find
something that sounds like your symptoms, you print out the information and
hand it to your doctor.
This can give your doctor the idea that you
think he’s incompetent and make the doctor-patient relationship that much more
strained. A patient who looks up his or her symptoms online may also be referred
to as a ‘cyberchondriac’. Not only is the fact that you’re printing out health information
from the Internet making him feel stupid, it is also further reinforces his
belief that you have some kind of mental illness.
There’s nothing wrong with being your own
health advocate. As a matter of fact, you should. However, if you are going to
bring in information you’ve found online, make sure it’s from a website your
doctor would consider reputable.
Clinical, scientific studies written by
medical professionals will be much better-received than random articles from a
start-up blog.
Your Diet and Lifestyle are Making You Sick
There isn’t a doctor in the world that can
help you if you’re not willing to understand the role you play in your own
chronic health problems.
If you’re suffering from any type of chronic
illness, your diet and lifestyle play a critical role.
Here’s what I mean:
- Diet
A junk food diet filled with synthetic
additives and preservatives can do serious harm to your health. Your immune
system was designed to protect you from viruses, bacteria, and foreign
invaders. If you’re eating a diet filled with trans fats, aspartame, food dyes,
BHT, BHA, and other chemicals your body can’t process, your immune system will
have to work overtime to protect you. This can result in a malfunctioning
immune system, autoimmune disease, and chronic inflammation and pain.
That’s why if you suffer from any type of
autoimmune or chronic pain condition, you must clean up your diet. Slowly wean
off junk food (it’s a drug, you don’t want to give it up cold turkey) and
replace it with healthier fare. Organic vegetables, fruit, nuts, nut butters,
seeds, beans, meat, poultry, wild-caught fish, and healing fats like coconut
oil, olive oil, and butter give you the anti-inflammatory nutrition your body
needs to heal.
Food allergies and nutrient deficiencies are
two other common dietary causes of autoimmune disease and chronic pain. Gluten,
a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye is indigestible to 1 out of every 100
people. Cutting it from your diet for a period of 6-8 weeks to see if your symptoms
improve could change your life. Nutrient deficiencies can be treated by a
whole-food multivitamin, organic vegetable juicing, or both.
- Environment
Chronic illness is no doubt exacerbated by the
incredible array of chemicals in our everyday environment. Cleaning products,
cosmetics, air fresheners, fluoride toothpaste, and mercury from vaccines and
your water supply can cause low-grade allergic reactions that result in
autoimmune disease. The parabens, phthalates, formaldehyde, and bleach in your
everyday household products are endocrine-disrupting and immune system
destroying. The less synthetic chemicals in your environment, the better.
- Lifestyle
The amount of exercise you get (or don’t get),
the amount of alcohol you consume, whether or not you smoke, and the type of
drugs you’re taking all have a profound impact on your health. If there’s any
part of your lifestyle right now that you’re able to change to relieve your
chronic pain, you owe it to yourself to make those changes.
Not Every Doctor Thinks You’re a Hypochondriac
Not every doctor out there thinks you suffer
from a mental health problem just because you’re sick and they can’t figure out
what’s causing it. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of doctors whose first
order of business is to teach you dietary and lifestyle changes that could
reverse your chronic disease and eliminate your need for synthetic pain
management.
Most naturopathic and many osteopathic doctors
treat you like a whole person, not just a series of symptoms. Instead of
spending 45 minutes in a waiting room and 5 minutes with your doctor, you’ll
spend 45 minutes to an hour speaking with a more holistic-minded doctor.
They’ll assess your entire health history,
your diet, your lifestyle, your medications, your supplements, and even your
physical and emotional environment. You’ll likely be tested for food and
environmental allergies, issues often overlooked in the conventional mode of
healthcare.
My health was so poor by the time I stumbled
into a naturopath’s office eleven years ago I was at my wit’s end. The man took
one look at me and said that food was killing me. Turns out he was right. I
have celiac disease and ITP . Since discovering the connection between food, environment, and health,
I’ve made it my mission to inform others how much control they really have over
their health.
If you’re suffering from chronic illness, you
have other options besides continually trying to get the same doctor to believe
you. If your doctor thinks you’re crazy, changing your approach with him may
help but it will be difficult to turn things around if he refuses to be more
open-minded.
