I have to be honest here. I find it both funny and aggravating when folks like Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias complain about their health care woes. They are reminding the world that the U.S. could stand a lot of improvement and the right wing's "hip replacement! wait times, O NOES!" scare tactics are ridiculous, but it boggles the mind how out of touch even the liberal dudes are when it comes to the impossibility of navigating this health care system. They are incredibly privileged that their only worry is waiting a few weeks for their annual physical. They don't go without care that is necessary to their health, or face significant obstacles to obtaining it. And yet it is a surprise to them that their health care is not simply dropped in their laps with no effort on their parts.
Health is a struggle for me. A daily battle. A battle with myself, against my own body, and against the world that makes it all the more difficult for me to win that fight against my own medical demons. I don't get the privilege of seeing a doctor once a year -- I have had years where I did so, but it was because I was uninsured and only had the means to save up for one doctor's visit that year, and I suffered for it the other 364 days and change, let me tell you.
Anyway, all this is to say that I'm going to make a point of including my own struggles on this blog. Not that many people will read it, but maybe some people will, and will get the idea that for the sick, health care is not an ideal, it's not academic, it's not a principle, it's not politics, it's a full time job. It's something we have to face every day if we want to face the day at all.
So with all that, here's my latest tale, stolen from my journal, about my fight with my health care provider to provide me my health care.
Let me note before this, that I have been routinely denied prescriptions since moving here PA and becoming eligible for insurance (finally); this doctor's office has been impossible to deal with, and my insurance just as much so. I've been doctor hopping my entire life, trying to find someone who is knowledgeable and respectful. I've had two doctors in my lifetime who have given that to me -- maybe three, now that I think about it (two of them gynecologists). Trust me, I have seen multitudinous more doctors than that throughout my life. It is tiring. It is aggravating. It is exhausting and painful. It really is the second shift for the sick, fighting the health care system just to get barely adequate care. I just feel like the more people who realize this, maybe the more people who will help fight to make it better.
***
Last Wednesday was the day I trekked out to McMurray for what was to be (I hope, anyway) my last ever visit to this fuckwit doctor's office. The drive itself was aggravating -- McMurray Road, a two-lane road that was quite a pleasant drive all told, is being completely repaved (Peters Township has way too much disposable income), and the workers decided to handle the traffic in the most idiotic way possible (I've seen it handled well, and this was not one of those times): let traffic back up for over a mile one way while letting one side through, then switch off. I was stuck in place, unmoving, for over 15 minutes, less than a mile away from the doctor's office at that point.
I actually called in at that point to let the front desk know I'd be a little late, and the woman was actually nice to me. It's the first time I've ever had someone at that office speak to me pleasantly, ever. Go figure.
Anyway, I got called back, sat down, and lectured on painkiller use for ten minutes by the physician's assistant.
I am, apparently, supposed to be seen before every refill. Every refill. That's every months, folks, conceivably for the rest of my life. I'm only twenty one years old. That's a lot of doctor's visits.
I made (as you'd expect) disapproving noises as she continued to talk right over me.
"We strongly frown on long term narcotic use. They're usually meant for short term..."
"I know that."
"And we don't use it for fibromyalgia. We recommend anti-inflammatories --"
"Anti-inflammatories DO NOT WORK on fibromyalgia. It is a neurological condition, a disorder of the central nervous system that amplifies pain. If you have osteoporosis and fibromyalgia, then anti-inflammatories will work because osteoporosis causes inflammation, but the only thing fibromyalgia will do is amplify that pain."
"..." [sort of stunned, doesn't know what to say]
"..."
"... [sigh] Yeah, so..."
... and she continued lecturing right over me, not listening to a word I had to say.
I was informed multiple times, just in case I wasn't already aware, that a lot of people abuse painkillers and they have to be careful. I would say "I know that" and before I could say anything else she'd keep on lecturing me in that condescending tone of voice.
I told her that two months ago, I was told I would only need to be seen every six months to continue getting my refills. (Indeed, it had been six months since I'd seen the doctor for that purpose at the time.) She said "I don't know who told you that," and that their policy was every refill.
My suspicion is that they flagged me as a potential abuser, and she was just bullshitting me. Obviously that is not their policy or else I would not have been getting my refills relatively unimpeded every month up until now. Perhaps their policy changed, but wouldn't she have said as much instead of just insisting that it is, and always has been, their policy?
So, yes. I am never going back there again. I had already decided as much when this whole fiasco began, and switched PCPs with my insurance the day I found out about all this. I have an appointment two weeks from now.
But when she pulled out the "anti-inflammatories" thing, that just sealed the deal right there. It has been at least ten years since the concept of fibromyalgia as an autoimmune, rheumatic, inflammatory disease fell out of credibility (though lamentably not popularity). TEN years. Central sensitization has been the leading theory for quite some time now. I've been up on this research since early high school. Granted, I know doctors are very busy people and they can't keep up with every single development in the field of medicine, but this is still unforgivable in my mind. I should not know more than my own doctor about my condition -- what's the point in seeing her, then? It would be understandable, perhaps, if it were year-old research. But research that has been widely circulated and accepted for over ten years?
Fuck that.
