I haven’t written much here lately about how things have been going as far as getting to Vanderbilt Autonomic Clinic, because I was under the impression that it was just a matter of time and having my current GP fill … Continue reading →
Ken McKim, the husband of a woman with Crohn’s disease likens fatigue to if a healthy person went around chronically sleep deprived (but at least in their case they can sleep extra and improve their situation), whereas with fatigue we can’t.
He proposes that healthy people do an experiment for one week in which they stay up all night except for 4 hours and the next day do all their normal activities, then when they go to bed set their alarm to go off every hour and stay up for 10 minutes each time they turn it off before going back to sleep.
He says that by the end of such an experiment one should have more empathy as to what those of us with fatigue go through. It occurred to me that this would be a good experiment for all medical students because even with all their cramming for exams they probably still don’t get the full effect of what it’s like to have a chronic illness.
I woke up this morning and took a shower, and felt alert just long enough to eat some breakfast, but as soon as that was over my energy drained away again. I again felt exhausted and have been finding it hard not to drift off to sleep without warning in the middle of swhatever I’m doing. I go from being exhausted but awake to suddenly finding that I’ve drifted off (only after I’ve done so and wake up).
Back when I was seeing the sleep medicine specialist at Emory I was supposed to have a daytime sleep study to rule out Narcolepsy but in order to do that you had to sleep 6 hours first and at the time I couldn’t do it because of the myoclonus keeping me from falling asleep and then once I did, people were tinkering with equipment in my room waking me up because of the noise and light coming in the door.
Nevertheless I can make a pretty educated guess that the fatigue caused by my chronic illness has alot to do with these sleep cycle abnormalities, particularly the central nervous system problems I have which affect the autonomic nervous system. In order for the brain to function correctly it first must have enough energy. The nighttime sleep studies I had did yield some important information in that my sleep/wake cycle is royally messed up showing Delta waves at the beginning (even before falling asleep) when they are only supposed to be showing up in the last sleep stage.
This was also documented in just about every EEG I’ve ever had since second grade when I was first brought to a neurologist because of near fainting spells. Some research has proposed that there may be a mitochondrial component to the severe fatigue suffered by people with chronic illnesses.
PubMed has numerous papers that have been published on the subject and in recent years there have been more and more scientists interested in this angle. The papers shown under the search Mitochondrial Component to Fatigue will bring up papers you can look through and print out those you feel pertinent to give to your doctor. It is not uncommon for doctors to try to dismiss research as being from “junk science journals” etc., but the papers linked in PubMed are considered fully legitimate professional medical journal articles from all over the world.
Don’t accept a doctor’s sweeping generalization that because studies were published in foreign journals outside the United States (or outside your country if you live elsewhere) that they are not legitimate sources. There are many fine and well designed and documented studies that come out of places like the Netherlands, Australia, and even Asian countries or India. You’d be surprised where some of the most cutting edge research comes from.
Also, don’t be afraid to write some of the investigators listed on these research teams. They often provide an email address in order to give the public an oppourtunity to communicate with them and ask questions. By doing so you just might find out about important studies that are accepting participants that would benefit people with your condition and these scientists might even have suggestions that your doctor can try to treat your condition more effectively right now!
If your doctor is offended by this and unwilling to discuss these new approaches with you, chances are you have the wrong doctor.
Remember that if you have severe fatigue you only have so much energy to work with in a day and a truly good doctor will understand this and respect and appreciate the fact that you put in the time to take an active role in your healthcare and bring him this written material. If he/she truly has your best interest at heart he/she will then genuinely look into these options for diagnosis and/or treatment and will take the legwork from there.
Way too often we as patients end up doing their jobs for them because of their stubborness and inflated ego, because they have too much false pride to admit when they need to consult professionals who know more than they do.
This is when the relationship becomes more about their needs than yours and if after trying to present them with this information they reject it out of hand more than a few times, it is likely that they ultimately won’t give you the care you need and deserve.
It should never be OK with a doctor to allow you to suffer any more than absolutely necessary and if there are still options left not to use them.
I had to learn that after I nearly wore myself out because I found myself working harder than my GP at Emory. At first when things weren’t getting completed and questions weren’t answered I thought maybe it just slipped his mind because of his patient load or the time got away from him, but I am very conscienscous about following up and at some point had to face the fact that my doctor was not the benevolent and altruistic person I thought he was and that chances are no amount of education was going to change that.
Any doctor that takes patient reports out of the equation might as well just turn in his medical license right now because he’s no longer acting in the patient’s best interest, he is treating his patient as an inanimate object.
For a chronically ill highly educated patient (which most of us become after so many years) it is imperative to have a doctor who bottom line accepts that this is the patients’ body and that with their being a competent adult over the age of 18 only the patient has the right to make the ultimate decision in treatment. A doctor can only advise based on his training. He cannot be inside your body to prove what your body is experiencing and how it affects you, nor how much suffering you can stand. Objective testing is only a tool and physicians have to realize that it can’t always detect everything beyond a shadow of a doubt. It has its limitations, and the clinical presentation is equally, if not more important in assessing what’s going on medically.
Prolonged fatigue is one of those symptoms that science does not have the knowledge to fully quantify, nevertheless it is very real and cannot be dismissed as psychological, or irrelevant information. To do so is very dangerous, because fatigue is a very good indicator that something is in fact seriously wrong in the body.
Healthy patients do not have this level of fatigue, and the distinction between fatigue and depression, for instance, is that patients with fatigue want to do things, they wish they could, but just don’t have the stamina. People who are depressed generally lose interest in hobbies and things they liked to do previously.
I can attest to this distinction, as I have interests that have continued throughout my illness and I remain enthusiastic and interested in them. It bothers me when I can only watch them in videos and not partcipate because of my level of illness. I am fatigued yet I’m anything but apathetic. I love life and look at each day as an adventure!
An example is this; I absolutely love snakes and have two Ball Pythons. Many of the people I’m involved with online surrounding this interest travel to reptile shows where they can pick out snakes and supplies and caging for them in-person and meet up. I would really love to do that, but seeing as there are only two a year a distance away outside Atlanta, (in Cobb County) I have problems getting there with handicap transportation, and it tacks at least 2 more hours onto my day including a transfer to another county service if I were to book the trip. (Not to mention it costs double fare).
Then if I were to stay a decent number of hours to be able to see everything, I would be sicker by the time I returned home. If I went in somebody’s car I could leave when I became too exhausted, but on public transit you can’t do that. (A time is prearranged to return and if you need to leave earlier they will not accommodate you no matter how ill you are).
I would love to go to the big reptile show at Tinley Park (in Illinois) but not only am I not able to afford the travel and hotel for several days, the travel itself would be too taxing for me right now.
Another example; I really love art and have been trying to come up with other forms of art I can make that don’t require so much fine motor dexterity and although I’ve found some that are easier for my hands when I actually began doing these projects I found them to be incredibly exhausting and take me much longer than they should. I actually sweat with the effort it requires, and either really pay for it in the several days that follow or have to stop before I get it done. This is very frustrating because my motivation is still there but I can’t complete the task or at the times I do I do it with great negative consequences.
My best guess in treating fatigue would be to use compounds that directly address a mitochondrial disconnect, so if any of you reading this find new developments in this area of science please feel free to post them here in the comments, as it might really help others suffering with the same barriers. Please post sources if you can.
Somehow the patient community must get these ideas across to doctors in clinical practice so that rather than disengaging from us when our illness is prolonged they look at it as something worth working on. Even if a cure is not close by, there can be a sense of accomplishment for both patient and doctor by adopting an investigative approach and trying things even if just based on theory.
Sooner or later improvement will likely happen with that type of perseverence. That is better than doing nothing, regarding the patient as hopeless and a “treatment failure”, and just tuning them out. That should never be the response to a complicated case. Just like pain, the continuing fatigue a patient experiences is a signal from the body that the doctor’s job is not complete.
Medicaid’s website disaster put many things behind schedule and just as I had feared one of them was my trip to Vanderbilt. Although my current GP did fill out the necessary paperwork this time it was Medicaid that dropped the … Continue reading →
Just like my refrigerator which has finally gone caput after intermittantly working and not, my body has persisted in giving signals which cannot be overlooked forever. Finally, finally there has been a break in the case! I received a call … Continue reading →
All too often the mistreatment of patients with disabilities/medical conditions/chronic illness is regarded by society as a lesser offense (or not an offense at all) and its survivors’ resulting trauma not acknowledged by the general public, including those agencies whose … Continue reading →
It was no big surprise when I received the long, white envelope with the Georgia Composite Medical Board logo on it that the outcome was a bust. Georgia’s track record for disciplining doctors for infractions is especially bad compared to … Continue reading →
Tuesday November 8th’s 2016 political upset was a wake-up call to all of us in the chronic illness community that we have our work cut out for us when it comes to our quest for respect, equal representation, and full inclusion (which includes having our medical needs met in a timely manner).
The worst of it is not just the opinions espoused by Donald Trump, but that these same bigotted opinions appear with such frequency among average citizens in modern society, and that they can and do drive the making of public policy; AKA…the rules that govern our real lives!
Despite that many are uncomfortable discussing and even thinking about politics, the reality is that where the rubber meets the road policy gets made with or without our input.
The challenge in the face of such a punishing blow as we saw earlier this week is to stay engaged and not give up the good fight for what we know is right. Better that policy be created with our input than without, and under our watchful eye than in the secrecy of smoky back rooms.
Ari Ne’amen, the President of Autistic Self-advocacy Network, calls the election of Donald Trump “a disaster” and predicts that if Trump actually follows through with the things he has stated he plans to do once in office the risk for people with disabilities is serious and very real.
We already know that one of Donald Trump’s big goals is to “repeal Obama-care” the Affordable Care Act. Along with this is the Medicaid expansion for people whose income is too low to qualify for the Affordable Care Act Insurance Market, large numbers of working poor who otherwise are cheated out of health insurance benefits by greedy big corporations who employ them often at starvation wages, cut their hours, and pull other ploys to avoid providing them any long-term job stability and financial security just to pay the top brass more. He has even stated that he’d like to do away with a minimum wage altogether! (Clearly he’s not looking out for the American worker’s best interest, but instead the interests of big corporations).
We already know that Donald Trump is unsympathetic/unempathetic to the plights of undocumented immigrants who have often had to flee deadly drug cartels and other terrorists on an emergency basis to come to the US for safe refuge.
His comments regarding Latinos are especially heinous referring to them in such derrogatory terms as killers and rapists , casting aspersions upon the Mexican Government as if to imply that infiltrating our country with unsavory characters were their intent!
He kicked a New York Times reporter of Latino descent out of an Iowa news conference and had him forcibly removed, and he has made derrogatory remarks about former candidate Jeb Bush implying that he was unfairly biased for Spanish speaking people because his wife was Latino. Most distubing of all anti-Latino comments was his response when confronted with a situation in which a Hispanic man was beaten in his own home by Trump supporters; stating that his supporters were “passionate”.
No, I’m sorry to break it to His Highness, but THAT’s not merely “passionate”. THAT is a HATE CRIME! “Passionate” is peaceful protest, or a civil debate of the issues.
His blithe response and gross minimization regarding this act of discrimination, hatred and violence is dangerous in that it has the effect of normalizing something that should never be socially acceptable in a civil society! It tells others out there who do not want to control their anger and who believe the rules and laws don’t apply to them that violence is OK as long as you are doing it in the name of a belief (however instrinsically immoral it may be). The now President Elect almost seemed to gloat over the fact that such violence could be passively incited in his name.
We must ask ourselves; if he’d turn his head to this sort of hate crime how many other civil rights issues will he turn his head to as President?
And it’s not only immigrants he disrespects. It’s women, too. I think most of us have seen at least a few off-color comments he’s made on the news or on Twitter, coverage of his intention to reduce a woman’s right to free choice and other equal rights issues for women such as opposing equal pay in the workplace, but you may not have been aware of this very graphic video which caught blatently sexist and denigrating comments he made about/against women here .
Notice here that Trump dismisses the severity of his salacious remarks and fails to take responsability for his clearly treating women as though they were objects to be conquered for his own narcissistic gratification. He only apologizes that anyone “was offended,” not that he did it. Sound familiar??? It’s the same sort of non-apology Emory Healthcare issued in their letters which stated “sorry you aren’t satisfied.”
And speaking of big corporations; Trump has on numerous occasions stated his intention if elected to roll back regulation on big corporations, so it is likely that what happened to me is not the last time this atrocity will happen to an innocent patient, and the offending healthcare corporations will get away with it. If anything our country is in need of more regulation of big corporations; not less!
They’re already running rough-shod over us individuals and the fox is charged with guarding the henhouse leaving big gaps in justice for those with little power in our society. Funding has already been cut to state and local programs such as Legal Aid, and to federal programs charged with going to bat for people who find themselves discriminated against and stuck out in the cold.
As I have outlined in earlier posts; people with Autism/Aspergers and other little-known and poorly understood conditions that frankly doctors and healthcare systems would rather pretend don’t exist than to treat receive short shrift when it comes to services. They are considered costly and time-intensive and therefore a bother to such corporations, so there is much pressure to down-grade the level of care to individuals with such conditions, and if that doesn’t fly they are dumped summarily with very little public outcry resulting and next to no real advocate.
Considering that the numbers of people with many of these (as corporate healthcare sees them) “nuisance” conditions are rapidly becoming the majority and (it goes with out saying) these are a formidable voting block. This is what we must impress upon the masses and upon Congress in our efforts to educate and consciousness-raise.
While our kind may still be considered less crucial/less important and our views less influential in forming our country’s priorities, we are a rapidly growing segment of the population and one day soon we will be a demographic that politicians wish to court.
Trump seems to have a penchant for insulting people with disabilities employed by the media. I guess deep down (well not so deep really, LOL) he doesn’t believe that people with disabilities can be strong contributing professionals of news agencies.
During an NBC News interview he slammed a columnist, Charles Krauthammer, who is paralyzed from the waist down specifically using his disability as the butt of his mean joke; “Then I get called by a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants, I get called names? Give me a break.” It wasn’t enough for him to insult the man’s stance on the war in Iraq and other topics, and to call him “underrated,” but to attack his having a disability and his needing help for that disability is beyond the pale.
If anyone has any doubt that a Trump Presidency is harmful to the interests of the ill and disabled you have only to watch this clip in which he mocks in one of his speeches the spasticity in a reporter’s hands, Serge Kovaleski who has arthrogryposis, a joint condition.
He later goes on to accuse him of “grandstanding about his disability.” Further, he questions “his level of intelligence”, painting him as a nobody that is too unimportant for Trump to remember. Nice attempt at gaslighting, Trump, but a big fail; the sarcastic impression shown in the above video speaks for itself.
Pretty appalling, huh! You might expect this kind of juvenile banter from a prepubescent hamming it up and trying to garner some street cred with his friends/peers by picking on those he views as easy targets, but not from the (now) leader of the free world (soon to be alot less free than before if we don’t stay on task in standing our collective ground steeled against the inevitable attempts to cut corners on those he deems not viable enough).
Trump’s assault on disabled people isn’t even limited to his liberal detractors.
Even veterans with disabilities have been subjects of his particular type of abuse, including John McCain about whom he openly stated that he didn’t understand why people considered him a war hero after being captured and held for years in a prisoner-of-war camp, forced to endure horrendous and permanently crippling torture. Trump’s audacious comment that he “prefers soldiers who were not captured” is another telling remark of honking disrespect and lack of empathy which gives a clear indication of his values, and motivations.
It strongly hints at his predatory and orwellian view of the haves versus the have-nots; the viewing of the underdog as somehow less viable, therefore less deserving than his more advantaged counterpart. His singling out of various groups to be badly regarded thus badly treated is another version of the concept of Untermenschen; a term coined in Nazi Germany during WW II; (translated: Under Man, or sub-human) made new again.
Michelle Obama stated it very accurately in a speech made earlier illustrating why Donald Trump is wrong for America.
She says; “Maybe it’s easy for him to mock people with disabilities because he’s unable to see their strength and their contributions.”
That, my people, is the root of discrimination; the inability to see a certain demographic’s value and the inability to view them as bringing something important to the table.
This man clearly lacks the maturity and seasoned professionalism (not to mention the experience) required for the job of President of the United States of America, and much more than merely annoying, his rhetoric is dangerous to those who due to medical conditions require accommodations in order to have as much quality-of-life as possible. In politics, as in life, one might be able to con (or buy) one’s way into a job, but doing the job day in and day out is a whole other kettle of fish!
It’s appalling that anyone would want somebody like this to be President, and just as appalling to hear some of the excuses being generated for his prejudices and blatant disrespect for those who are less advantaged than he. (Note that he is constantly telling us how wealthy he is. And how does that at all qualify him to run the country which includes mostly people who are not wealthy and whose lives in no way resemble his?)
Maybe in time those who voted for him will see that this was a big mistake and that in the end this is not a man who represents their values, and maybe they will move for a reversal. (I hear that Michael Moore predicts he won’t last the 4 years). Only time will tell, but those of us who’ve known this all along must continue to shine a light on the humanity that is lacking and the restoration of which is so badly needed, and keep working to improve things for people with disabilities/the chronically ill.
For those who are interested in an update on me; I will get one up soon. For a number of reasons I have found it hard to write over the past month. I had a spoon left tonight and just felt that this topic was screaming to be put down on paper given the timeliness of the election, as its ramifications affects all of us.
If a doctor forced you to decide whether to keep your arm or your leg which would you choose? This is a ridiculous scenario, but figuritively speaking, chronically ill patients are expected to do that on a regular basis, sacrificing one thing they need in order to have another they need just as much.
I found this out first-hand when I began receiving services through SOURCE, a Medicaid waiver program that provides personal assistant services to people with disabilities who need help at home. When I first began with them I was told that I had to utilize a primary care doctor off a list they provided but that I could also keep any other doctors I wanted to keep.
The primary care doctor I had chosen when Emory sent me the certified letter kicking me out was somebody affiliated with Piedmont Hospital and although I wasn’t sure whether she was going to be able to help me get the necessary referrals to out of town specialists a staff person from her office called last week to say that she was in fact working on a referral to Vanderbilt and just to give her some time to get it facilitated.
She was unable (because Piedmont doesn’t accept direct Medicaid payment) and unwilling (because she didn’t want to be inundated with Medicaid Patient referrals) to sign up to get on the SOURCE list but I had been told by the SOURCE caseworker that I could have one doctor through their list and also keep her if I chose.
Today I went to the appointment with the SOURCE doctor I’d picked out (whom I will call Dr. HA). Dr. HA had wavy brown shoulder-length hair and was a little taller than I was; maybe about 5 ft 4 or 5.5 and of medium build.
She seemed nice but I could see fairly quickly that there were going to be numerous problems.
First, she wanted the records from Emory. This was a non-starter right off the bat and it seemed there was no way to make it out of this minefield unscathed. She told me that she had privileges at Emory Midtown (where Dr. H, my Pulmonologist works) as well as at Piedmont, and (strike 2) that “Emory’s good.” Uhhhh…Not so much, I thought.
I told her I’d been going there for 13 years and that it used to be but this past year something has changed, but she wouldn’t leave it at that. This turned into a game of 20 questions. She wanted to know what the political stuff was and on, and on. I reluctantly told her that there are numerous inaccuracies in my medical record and that two very important consults out of town had been sabotaged at the last minute, so I was not comfortable signing a blanket release for that medical record to any doctor, but that I would give her the objective information from test results, vital signs, etc.
“I won’t judge” she said Dr. HA in her thick Russian accent. “I can just go in and pull it since I am affilliated with them.” She then said she would also like the information on my chronically elevated liver enzymes.
“No, the clinical notes are awful. I’d rather you not. I would rather just close the book on it and not re-open any of that. I don’t want this stuff passed on from doctor to doctor.”
“If you don’t want me to look I won’t look” continued Dr. HA.
I’d heard this song and dance before and no longer trusted it. Signing such a release would have given her the legal right to access the electronic record as a whole and it was too big a risk. “I can give you the objective stuff. I have some of it with me and the data on my liver enzymes I can get for you if you need those”, I responded.
This doctor utilizes students from the Carribean and often 3 or 4 heads are better than one, and could ultimately be helpful but these were not residents but medical students so they were not as far along in their training as I’d originally thought. They all looked of West Indian descent with dark straight hair and dark skin.
One woman typed my medical history while another checked my vital signs and… checked my reflexes (ick). This more irritated me than scared me this time. I resisted the urge to throw that hammer across the room, LOL. As usual I had spasticity/hyperreflexia in my legs. She did not check the reflexes in my arms; just strength.
When it came up as to whether I wanted her to be my primary care doctor I explained that yes, for Source, and that Dr. P was already working on referring me to Vanderbilt and that I didn’t want to further delay that. This was a sticking point with her and she also seemed overwhelmed with the referrals I needed. She asked why Emory couldn’t just have me seen in their Movement Disorder clinic at which point I had to further explain that the Chief Medical Officer had kicked me out and then she wanted to know why, yada, yada…and I said that besides, I had never been referred there even before all that happened and that that was a big part of my problem; that the proper referrals to specialty clinics had not been acted upon when they should have been and with all the politicization of my case it would not really be in my best interest to go to their Movement Disorder clinic now even if I had not been barred from going as it is doubtful that I would get a fair and unbiased evaluation.
I went on to explain that I have rescheduled the one at UF Movement Disorder Clinic for January but that I need a doctor to sign off on the necessary forms for my oxygen concentrator to be carried on the plane and the one for the non-profit to cover my travel expenses.
“Really you need to have a neurologist to do all those things” said Dr. HA. “I feel it would be better for me to have back-up in case there ever was a neurological problem I don’t know how to handle.”
“I had two; one in Sleep Medicine who treated my Myoclonus and one in General Neurology” (giving her their names), “but Administration came in and forbid them to keep seeing me. I trusted them because they were going to support me through this process, but I had a really bad experience with a male neurologist and after that I don’t know if I can go to another one here in Atlanta. I looked and there was nobody of the ones available that I was that impressed with, besides, that male neurologist in the Emergency room was out-and-out abusive. I just really am hesitant after that.”
“Did you report it?” she asked?
“Yes.”
“Well I know one at Piedmont who’s good…Dr. _____” (I will call this one Dr. HAA to avoid a mix-up as there are lots of these doctors who’s names start with H), I’d heard of him and can’t remember what his reviews said, but still…he’s a male neurologist. The thought of going through this embarrassing explanation as to what happened at Emory with yet one more Atlanta doctor, much less a male neurologist, was more than I could stand.
The primary care doctor, Dr. HA had me describe my Myoclonus, then looked up something on her phone. “Tramadol could lower your seizure threshold”, she said glancing over at me.
“I know, but the neurologists I was seeing didn’t think my Myoclonus was seizure-related, they thought it was due to the underlying disease-process, so I don’t think that is an issue. Besides, I’d already tested going off it for a few weeks and it made no difference in my Myoclonus at all. It’s much better on the 1000 Mgs of Keppra than it used to be before I was on it. I used to be up all night with it until 7 AM.”
The two students stared ahead making slightly uncomfortable faces at her apparent lack of clinical knowledge regarding the several different etiologies of Myoclonus. I noted it as well.
“Dr. P is in the process of setting up the referral to Vanderbilt. I’ve waited 7 months for treatment already and I really don’t want to delay it any longer. The neurologist may or may not even do that.”
“Let me speak with your caseworker” replied Dr. HA. “I don’t know why she told you to keep both of us. That doesn’t sound quite right for me to be for Source and she wouldn’t sign up but she will get paid to see you too when I went through the paperwork to get on their list.”
I handed her the caseworker’s business card and she dialed the number. “Ms. N? This is Dr. HA”, she introduced herself. “Yes, I’m here with Ms. Carlington in the office. She has told me that she was told she could see a doctor through SOURCE and also this one that she’s already established with who is not with SOURCE. I don’t think that’s right that she sees her and also me. Why did you tell her that? I don’t really appreciate it.”
Both me and the two female students in the room looked at one another awkwardly.
She put the caseworker on speaker. “I just figured she could do everything dealing with the neurological referrals” said the caseworker, “since she was already working on the referral. We really just need a doctor on record and since she was unable to get on the list I told the client to just pick one on the list for our purposes in addition.” And then speaking to me “Ms. Carlington, I guess you’ll just have to take this one on faith so that you don’t lose the home help. I don’t know what else to tell you if she won’t do it along with Dr. P.”
My heart sank “I’m beginning to think this is becoming more trouble than it’s worth. She wants me to see a new neurologist for the referral rather than her to do it if I switch to her. I don’t know any neurologist I trust and who knows if the new one would even give the referral. This could go on forever and I might never get to Vanderbilt at this rate.”I told her I just didn’t know what to do at this point, as I have had to change way too many doctors in a short period of time.
Dr. HA thanked her for speaking with her. I started to ask the caseworker if she’d be in the office when I got home so I could call her later, but she’d already gotten off the phone.
Dr. HA wrote me a refill of my Tradadol (but just 1 month’s worth) and told me that she’d give me a month to decide what I wanted to do, that she wouldn’t bother making copies of my records I’d brought with me until she knew I was coming back, then I followed her and the students back out into the hallway.
I need the referral to Vanderbilt but I also need the personal assistant. It’s not an either or situation. I need both equally. This is a real double-bind, but it seems if I get rid of Dr. P she won’t be too thrilled after she’s gone to the trouble of working on the referral to Vanderbilt, and she’s a sure thing and will save me time if she does it.
This newer primary care doctor is a question mark at best, and whether a new neurologist she recommends will follow through with the referral (if I can even get up the guts to see a local neurologist) is a total crapshoot since she doesn’t want to do it herself. It also makes me uneasy that she’s invloved with Emory on any level. Somehow in all these people’s self-interest I, the patient got left behind.
So many don’t understand the magnitude of my loss. I had two good female neurologists and they were ripped away from me when I needed them most. This is killing me. I need time to grieve. All this not being seen or heard and being required to fit into other people’s boxes I don’t fit just makes my heart ache and all I want to do is withdraw from everyone. Step out on faith? I can’t; not again for the umpteenth time. I need to eat what I like, keep to my routines, pace myself and not make too many changes too quickly. For me that’s a necessity; not a luxury.
Good charting is a skill that can be learned, but when the basic ethical principles involved are not adhered to it can actually do patients more harmed than good. As they say “The pen is mightier than the sword” and that is so true!
Charting on a patient carries power, but with that comes responsibility to carry out this activity with grace and selflessness, never forgetting that you are commenting on aspects of that person’s life and this very act can influence how the patient is treated by others who read it. One must resist the urge to “think out loud” in a patient’s medical record where such conjecture might not be in the patient’s best interest and thus hinder their care.
Doctors, if you are using a patient’s medical record to further your personal agenda or hypothesis in conflict with the patient (or with another doctor indirectly) you are not benefitting your patient, so please stop it.
The medical record is not your personal journal, it is not the place to grandstand, to take shots at the patient, to show your ego, nor is it the place to take out your frustrations from home.
Given the fact that you assume the patient will not likely read what you’ve written it might be tempting to fill the chart with your own bullish rehetoric, but this says more about you than it does about the patient and therefore it does not belong there.
When I worked officially as a patient advocate under the federal Protection and Advocacy system devised in 1986 by legislation enacted by Congress I attended extensive training sessions on various aspects of the job and I learned alot about what a proper chart is supposed to look like.
We used to have an independent contractor evaluate all advocates’ charts on patients nationwide, and my charting was actually deemed the best in the country of all Protection and Advocacy systems.
There are certain principles that exemplify skillful charting on a patient.
1) Charting must be accurate and precise
2) It must be relevant
3) It must be written to benefit the patient
Accuracy and Precision
This is pretty self-explanatory but there is often confusion as to how to interpret what is “accurate” and what is “precise.”
Let me start by saying that you are only resonsible for charting what you know to be a fact. This does not mean that what you don’t know is not a fact; one to be disputed in the chart. For example; upon receiving my doctors’ notes last week, I discovered that my pulmonologist had written some things attempting to question my diagnosis of Sarcoidosis. Why he would do this when Emory has already confirmed the diagnosis seems suspect in and of itself and smacks of personal agenda.
My diagnosis was obtained by objective tests 13 years ago.
I had a Gallium scan and other test results such as labs which showed idiosycratic markers for the disease. That is a fact.
There is no disputing that, yet the doctor did. It is true that a follow-up gallium scan this year indicated it was probably not actively in flair now, but that does not invalidate the diagnosis itself. It only means it’s not in flair at this point in time and indicates that my current symptoms are coming from something else. It has not magically disappeared as it’s a chronic and incurable disease. It’s possible that this pulmonologist may be using outdated understanding of the disease (long ago it was believed to spontaneously “go away”), but this has been disproven with the advent of more understanding of the physiological workings of the disease.
Sarcoidisis was once thought only to be a lung disease (hence why it’s often treated by Pulmonologists), but now it is known to be a multi-system disease that can and does affect every part of the human body. It was once thought to be only characteristed by non-caseating granulomas, but has since been shown to be much more complex than that and its inflammation manifests in many more ways than once believed.
It is now undrstood by the top experts in the field to be associated and most likely caused by intracellular pathogens. It is not merely an autoimmune response after an offending pathogen has been cleared from the body, but instead the resulting inflammation is a response of the body detecting a pathogen it just can’t locate and effectively kill.
My Pulmonologist, Dr. H perpetuated further inaccuracies when he charted that my Dysautonomia was “self-diagnosed” and and in his insistance on continuing this assertion in the medical record pretty much accused me of lying given the fact that I’ve told him that this came from a doctor who treated me with IV Saline at Piedmont hospital; not from me.
It is a fact that I knew nothing about Saline as a treatment modality for Dysautonomia before the doctor ar Piedmont did a blinded experiment (unknown to me at the time) by putting me on Saline infusion, then taking me off for 24 hours or so to see what happened symptom-wise.
The doctor who tried this did not explain any of this until after he trialed this method on me. This prevents any bias I could have had and thus rules out placebo effect. The factthat I responded positively when treatment was given and negatively when it was withdrawn indicates that reduced blood volume is a factor in my Dysautonomia.
Dr. H glossed over this in his charting, disregarding what I’d told him. He made no attempt and showed no interest in verifying what I had told him, merely assuming it wasn’t true. Why? The answer to that lies in an area of his mind only Dr. H can answer, but one thing is clear; that the subtext in his charting conveys that he does not believe me.
How does this serve the patient? Answer: it doesn’t. It only serves to undermine the patient. He went on to state in the record that I was “suspicious” and “defensive at having my opinion challenged.” Hmmm. Sounds like projection.
During our last appointment he got very huffy and puffy that I wouldn’t just accept as fact his theory that my problem was psychiatric in nature and wanted to end the appointment because I wasn’t buying it. He said ” Do you really think Neurlogy is helping you?” Then was very offended when I told him I wanted to give Dr. V a chance, and his statement was “OK, I’ll take a back seat to Neurology” as he rolled his eyes and heaved a huge sigh with matching dramatic shoulders shrugged up, then down.
His charting reflects that he was agreeing to that course of action, yet he contradicts that with a lengthy monologue which tries a bit too hard to invalidate my seeking expert assessment out of state (which Neurology supports my obtaining).
He says that going for these assessments is “premature” yet he suggests I go to a psychiatrist” (which should be the last resort after everything else is ruled out, and it hasn’t been). There are alot more tests that have not yet been performed before throwing me in that dustbin. For all his talk about lack of “proof” and “evidence” he has not one shred of proof that this condition is in any way psychological. Besides, psychiatrists are generally in the business of prescribing medication (indicating a physiological cause for which medication is assumed to have a beneficial effect on a patient).
So which is it, Dr. H? Let’s stick to the facts.Let’s be accurate and precise rather than subjective and vague.
1) I have dysregulated blood pressure,
2) chronic constipation,
3) near syncopal episodes,
4) Muscle weakness and spasticity, and severe fatigue
5) Etreme thirst and need ice water by the bed at all times
6) GI upset; nausea, lower GI spasticity, inability to eat solid food for weeks at a time
7) I’ve been hospitalized and treated for such problems, and said treatment improved the symptoms without my knowledge of Dysautonomia at the time (I did not read up on it until after it worked).
8) Dysregulated sleep/wake cycle (evidenced by 3 sleep studies that he ordered and interpreted)
9) I have Central Apnea and Biot’s Respiration; both indicative of a “central process”. Patients don’t develop these for no reason. Idiopathic does not equal psychological or psychiatric. It just means the cause has not been found yet and it requires further investigation.
Relevance
All the wild speculation about my condition possibly being in my head is a distraction from the task at hand and has derailed any unbiased investigation. Dr. H went way off-course with only the lack of an explanation for all my symptoms as his reasoning for wanting to send me to a psychiatrist. I don’t see how this is at all relevant, and seeing as he figured I wouldn’t see what he’d written, the intent could only be as a coded alert to other doctors who might be looking at my records to view me as less than credible. None of my sleep problems were addressed in that last appointment with him although I’d told him that the sleep attacks had returned. He was only interested in invalidating me along with all my symptoms and even my established diagnoses, as though in one fell swoop he’d completely come to revile my very core essence and viewed me as suddenly unworthy of even the most basic dignity afforded to patients because they are human beings who deserve compassion and empathy.
It was this “othering” that is unmistakably present in the room, that visceral feeling that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you encounter it.
Written To Benefit The Patient
Charting on a patient must be written with the intent to do something useful for the patient.
What do you intend to accomplish?
What is your game plan?
How are you going to go about helping the patient?
These interventions should be developed in partnership with the patient, as the patient is the one who must be happy or at least content with their healthcare outcome since the patient is the one who must live inside their own body.
You, the doctor can go home and forget about the patients’ pain, fatigue, GI symptoms, movement symptoms, syncope, or other medical problems. The patient, however does not have that luxury.
Dr. H. stated in my record that he was going to go along with Neurology, but Neurology (Dr. V. to be specific) had changed course and was now on my side and no longer doubting that I have Dysautonomia. Dr. V had a very succinct plan which partnered with me to obtain the full assessment for my Dysautonomia, laid out in bullet points.
She did put the Aspergers assessment on my chart as a goal (which although I asked her at the time to keep this off the record she did not), but be that as it may, this was neuropsych; not psych as Dr. H was so blithely wanting to push.
Did he read her notes? I wonder. Perhaps he assumed that she would go in the direction he was heading and when she didn’t he lashed out using his charting as a weapon to defend his wounded ego.
Since I believe they can edit records later I have no way of knowing when Dr. H entered the voluminous material pushing the psych agenda. It may have been soon after I left his office or it may have been later once he’d seen that Dr. V. was not thinking that my problem was in my head.
Dr. V. commented on June 3rd at my last appointment that she had noticed my blood pressure had been running low. Although she did not know the underlying cause of the Dysautonomia she did not dispute it in any way, and was welcoming my going to these consults out of town, admitting that Emory does not have the facilities nor expertise to do full autonomic testing here.
Unlike Dr. H., her notes this time were constructive, laying out a plan that I was in agreement with, a list of numbered goals, (and sticking to the overall goal which was to find the underlying cause of my Dysautonomia and ultimately treating it). That is more like it.
To this day I believe that Dr. V. in her heart is sorry for how she misjudged me on our first meeting and truly wanted to make up for the scathing rush-to-judgement that is forever branded on my medical record.
I don’t know why she did not edit it when she returned from maternity leave, but maybe the reason was to show that sometimes doctors can be wrong and that they can also admit that they were wrong and can change later. It takes a bigger man or woman to admit when you made a bad judgment call and correct it than to stick to your story even once you realize your first impression was incorrect.
It did hurt to know that what she’d written the first time was the straw that broke the camel’s back and resulted in both my GP and Pulmonologist’s diverging from me and the impetus for the dissolution of those doctor/patient relationships, but she is not solely responsible. They have a part in it too, and it’s disturbing that either of them would so quickly dash my credibility on the rocks because of some other doctor’s opinion who had just met me. Those two had known me as a credible person; one for about 1 year, and the other for 13 years.
They should have known not to be swayed from my side based on some opinion espoused by a doctor that had no chance to know me as they had and had only a limited snapshot of the circumstances under which I came to the clinic.
In the final analysis Emory’s Administration didn’t allow things to work themselves out and to set the record straight once more data could be obtained. They were too invested in making sure it never would be worked out, too invested in keeping the record toxic and defamatory so that I could not obtain care in or out of Emory.
In their fervor to interfere between doctor and patient we may never know if all this might have ultimately been put in the past and whether the relationships that still existed would have become stronger once more facts were elicidated upon further testing.
Perhaps this could have been a model, a learning experience for other doctors to see how things can evolve over time and how things can be put back together after such a fire-storm of controversy sets the record on fire.
Maybe behind the scenes Administration thought such a mess had been made by their various employees that it was irreparable, but the most unfortunate thing of all was that by the time they started blocking people from working with me things had died down considerably, those who had openly turned against me were gone, and when Dr. V. returned it looked as though things might have a happy ending afterall.
Just as my care made a constructive turn, I encountered a brick wall; the corporation added insult to injury, swooped in, and never allowed the answers to play out.
Instead of becoming a teachable moment for other physicians watching it this case became a prime example ofhow not to do conflict resolution when you discover that agents of your company have engaged in unethical charting on a patient.
Aspergers and other forms of Autism were once thought to disappear once a child reached adulthood, but now experts are discovering that’s not so. Many people reaching the age of majority who were diagnosed as children who may have had services while growing up and an increasing number of undiagnosed Autistics have now “aged out” of the social service system and find themselves at a loss as to how to fully function in society.
While Autism exists on a spectrum with each individual presenting differently in both strengths and defecits, there are certain traits that people with this condition generally have in common;
* Difficulty in reading social cues from others in their environment.
* Difficulty in communicating their thoughts, feelings, and intentions to others in a form others can understand.
* Trouble in processing and making sense of the world around them.
* To some degree feeling uncomfortable making eye contact.
* May have sensory issues, and some don’t like being touched, certain tastes, textures, sounds, and/or smells.
* Literal thinking and impairment in one’s ability to decipher sarcasm, lying, disingenuousness, deception, trickery, two-faced behavior, and in some instances out-and-out meanness.
* Tend to take people at face value.
* A strong moral sense of honesty, right and wrong, and justice.
* May come across as odd or accentric.
* May have trouble regulating emotions (either appears emotionless as in showing lack of affect in voice or facial expression, and/or the opposite may present itself in that the person may get very upset at times).
* May have inflexibility in changing one’s routine.
*May have very specific and sometimes narrow interests that are focused on very intently, and difficulty “switching gears” to transition from doing those activities to doing other activities.
* May speak long-windedly and circuitously especially about those topics that interest him/her, often unaware of when others lose interest.
* Difficulty conceptualizing opinions widely divergent from their own (once believed to be a lack of empathy, but now recognized as difficulty with a particular type of abstract thinking).
*Repetitive behaviors; known as “stimming”(some of which have the function of self-soothing).
*Co-morbid conditions can include ADD/ADHD, Anxiety and/or Depression (usually situational), sometimes Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and more recently a variety of medical conditions are recognized as being associated with Autism such as GI conditions, Dysautonomia, allergies, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Mast Cell Activation Disorder, Ehler’s Danlos Syndrome, and other Autoimmune Diseases.
*Often these individuals are vulnerable to bullying by not-so-nice people who pick up on the fact that something is different about them and take advantage of their “blind spots.” This does not only happen to children in school settings, but can happen to adults also in the workplace, the community at large, and even in healthcare settings.
There are a growing number of cases documented of abuse and/or neglect in ERs and in other hospital settings. Staff often lack the training and patience necessary to accommodate such populations and therefore handle the situation very badly.
(Note that these symptoms in people with Autism often become worse when they are hungry, thirsty, or have medical issues that are not addressed in a timely manner. This is why it is especially important to pay attention to these clues and take them seriously. They are not a sign of mental illness nor of the individulal just being “difficult” nor are they a defect of character, but indicate that something is legitimately wrong that needs addressed ASAP).
It was once believed by experts that boys were affected at a 4:1 ratio to girls, though some believe the ratio is actually 16:1, more recent data suggests that the accurate statistic is likely 2:1 (male to female) or may be even more evenly matched between the genders.
Dr. Judith Gould of the Lorna Wing Center and Center for Social and Communication Disorders believes that current statistics about the prevalence of girls with Aspergers are under-representative citing a 2.5:1 ratio.
Tania Marshall did her docturate in Asperger’s in females, has published a number of books on the subject, and is currently practicing in this sub-specialty. She has found that it’s quite common for girls to fly under the radar until at least secondary school when communication and interaction among girls becomes more emotionally-based and a social hierarchy begins to develop. Females are better at concealing it and emulating those behaviors that are socially acceptable (referred to as masking).
For those adult women on the spectrum who are now in their 40s and 50s virtually no diagnosis of girls existed in the 1960s and 1970s when females of this age were children, so many women are just now obtaining official diagnosis and having to make up for a lifetime of struggle, misunderstanding, and riducule from those who mistake their condition for something else.
Back in those days nobody believed that girls could have Autism, so other euphemisms were used in lieu of official diagnosis when they were taken to neurologists and/or neuropsych tested. (I have miraculously managed to keep a report I had when I was tested at age 5).
This is in effect what happened to me. Neurologists have been telling me for years between the lines with statements such as “Your brain is wired differently” and “Your brain’s not hooked up quite right” and when I asked what I could do about it they were at a complete loss as to what to tell me.
In those days there really were no effective interventions or coping mechanisms. With all the stigma attatched and ignorant people out there confusing Autism with mental retardation, I really didn’t want to “go there” having been given the message that this was a family secret that shouldn’t be explored any further and was better left alone. I pushed it to the back of my mind telling myself it must not be true because all the media images of Autistic people were of children wildly out of control and non-verbal 24/7, 365 days of the year. That was not what I was like, but I had some of those problems at one time or another under certain circumstances and alot of the other quirks I had and still have I didn’t know were actually indicative of it.
When things went South at school due to my inability to focus my parents just switched me to a different school to avoid the inevitable questions that would ensue.
Throughout my educational years I was luckier than most in that I didn’t run into much bullying except for at a new private school in 5th and 6th grade in which the girls were especially snooty.
Then in high school I just tried to remain as invisible as I could and other than appearing a bit shy, nerdy, and separate, nobody really suspected nor bothered me.
I really thought this was something I would take to my grave as I figured things couldn’t get any worse with my just going on with my life and I was used to coping the best I could. It worked fairly well for awhile and I managed to “pass” except for a period mostly in my late teens and 20s when it was mistaken for other problems for which neither therapy nor medication did much good.
Been there, done that, so thanks but no thanks in case anybody’s thinking of suggesting that, LOL. Good old Dr. H. was and he couldn’t have been more off-target. I received some highly disorganized medical records in the mail at the end of last week which included doctor’s notes.
He and Dr. V’s Nurse Practitioner both floored me with their outlandish interpretation of what was going on with me medically; cynical verbiage that I won’t even dignify here because it is so judgmental and unkind that it’s unbefitting anyone who calls themselves a”medical professional.”
Dr. V’s first entry was pretty bad too, but she seemed as best as I can tell to reverse her opinion once more data became available about my Dysautonomia and I had a chance to disclose to her about the AS. (She did officially diagnose my Dysautonomia after our last visit on June 3rd, by the way, so that’s progress).
I’m pretty sure she’d just automatically gone into the first visit with a bias from what The Dark Man had charted. Even though she’d changed her mind later, it really scares me how easily influenced these doctors are to think the worst of a patient.
It appears that Dr. T steered clear of the pile-on and kept her notes constructive; good woman! ♥
These other people were in actuality seeing symptoms of my Aspergers and charting tidbits about my little quirks here and there and interpreting and/or knowingly misconstruing those traits as something almost willful on my part, poking and prodding at it as one would bat at a pinata!
Now I know why they were treating me like some sort of criminal or dangerous individual to be feared and loathed.
Such is prejudice in its ugliest of forms. And now it all makes sense why the spin they put on it is so ego-dystonic to me, because not only were they proposing something I don’t have in me, but it’s the very antithesisof who I am.
It is they who are dishonest and have duped me into believing they were actually trying to help me, smiling and pretending to like me and creating this ruse of positive relationship that I was unable to see through because of my Aspergers!
I find myself now unable to trust another doctor and I don’t know if I will ever be able to, at least not for a long time, because how can I trust when people are being genuine when they can so easily lie to me with a straight face? How can I know that they won’t write these terrible things again that are so untrue and unfair about me?
When I became really ill with the most recent illnesses, the protracted suffering and stress due to the institutional bullying, slow-down, and stoppage of care that I was subjected to over the past year (especially the past 7 months) caused my AS to become much more obvious.
I am now at a stage in which I don’t think I can put the Genie back in the bottle. Now there is one more problem that I need to do something about and find services for soon. Try finding services for a 55 year old adult woman in Georgia on Medicare. It’s not easy, and in fact nearly impossible.
Because of what’s happened at Emory it is no longer stable and manageable and I’m pretty sure this destabilization is permanent. People have no idea what I’m dealing with at home.
Now that I’ve decided to come out publicly I am trying to embrace it as best I can and use the positive aspects of it with which to cope. Although I didn’t want to open up this can of worms initially I am trying now to make lemonade from these lemons and educate the public so that this won’t happen to others who have to go to the doctor for some medical problem and risk falling victim to such atrocity. Maybe others can learn from my process and together we can make the world a safer place.
In 2013 A UK study published in the medical journal “Brain” began uncovering the differences between males and females who have Autism, not only in how they present symptom-wise, but in terms of brain structure.
The Cambridge research published in this esteemed neurological journalused MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to compare males with and without Autism, and females with and without Autism.
What they discovered is that overall, males had greater tissue volume, but that females’ brains with Autism more closely approximated the male brain than did Neurotypical females (those without Autism).
However, males with and without Autism did not show structural differences from one another.
A growing number of experts feel that testing remains behind the times, having been devised to detect Autism in males and that this may account for the under-diagnosis of females on the spectrum.
Many females present with symptoms often mistaken for mental health conditions such as eating disorders, drug abuse, etc…
Women with this brain orientation come from all walks of life. Some are unemployed,
some are professionals,
some are single,
and others are married and/or with children.
They come with all different combinations of skills and challenges. Some look obvious and others, you’d never know unless they told you.
Despite the fact that adult services remain hard to access, there is hope in that more research is being done with adults, and more is being learned about how to cope with it in addition to a growing advocacy movement by and for people with Autism. I will leave you with this beautiful music video by a fellow Aspie woman. Her voice is absolutely lovely. Please share and raise her up.
PatientsRightsAdvocate.com 