[Breckman]

I'm beginning to hate Doctors and i know thats harsh.I hope i'm not offending any dr's that might be on here.....Seems like all they do is take my money and i don't get anykind of permanent relief from pain & that sucks.
Mental help therapist that i've been too don't really seem to give a dam to me most of the time or else i've just become paranoid.I even had one therapist-she was texting back and forth with someone while i was trying to spill my heart out.Very unproffesional in my opinion.In fact i felt she was crazier even than i was!! Seems their only answer is pills.
I won't take anything with sexual side effects,even though i'm not in anykind of relationship and probaly never will be again.I'd hate to lose the possibilty of even being able to masturbate-seems like thats all i have left!!!
Sorry for the rant.Maybe someone else identify's with what i've said?

[sideblinded]

Hi Breckman

I can understand where you are coming from. I don't hate doctors but I am very leery of them. I don't trust doctors I guess you could say. I don't trust their expertise as I have seen so much as I used to work with them in the medical field.

That is really awful if your T was texting while you were in a session with her. That is certainly rude and I would have let her know how I felt about that. Also many docs are so afraid to give patients addictive adequate meds for pain. So many people like you suffer needlessly. I really dislike that.

Some psych meds especially have sexual side effects but not all of them so maybe trial and error?

I hope things get better for you.

[avlady]

Ive been in the mental health system for over 40 years as a patient and i have to say it has changed for the better, but there are still some bad apples doctors and workers around. I was treated soo bad in the 1980s but after my last hospital stay i didnt want to leave. New laws and behaviors are the rules for the workers have taken affect is probably why.

[magical loser]

i know what you mean here, my doctors have been pretty hopeless, no matter what i say they just say its depression and try to give my meds, i went on them once and made me feel awful (probably because im not depressed)

texting is very unprofessional, my latest doctor was on the phone once when i went in (after the receptionist sent me in) and told me to go back to the waiting room, felt like a right idiot. another time she was eating soup. i havent been back since coz i just find them so useless i always come away feeling worse and none the wiser than before i went

[LiteraryLark]

I love my doctors. I go to Kaiser and they all treat me with respect and give me their devoted time. The only problems I have ever had with doctors specifically was my fault. I started seeking therapy at 16 and I did not want to work with doctors, and usually spent most of the time not talking about the root of the problem, and I tended to find flaws in my doctors that weren't really there, like one doctor tended to sugarcoat everything and I felt like most of the doctors talked down to me, but they were child psychologists and were more used to dealing with children than teenagers.

But now things have changed when I realized that I had 100% control of my experience. It usually is never the doctors fault if I didn't get the exact experience I wanted. There are times when I go to see the counselor and I have nothing to talk about, and I still have problems bringing up exactly what I want to talk about or telling the doctor that I want to switch the subject, but now I make more of an effort to do so. They can't read minds. And the counselor I have now is so amazing. We have great chemistry and she reads me very well, and I am in charge of what topics we discuss and she is good at asking for my opinions on her feedback. But I have rejected many counselors for different reasons until I found the right one.

The problem I see a lot on here is that members assume that their health is the doctors' responsibility. That is FALSE. Your health is YOUR responsibility. I don't know each individual case, but I find it suspicious that so many people complain about their doctors and yet so little people can accept responsibility for not getting the most out of their experience with their doctor. Why bother going to a doctor if you can't trust them and would rather trust the internet which is full of false, dangerous, and misleading information? If you want a good experience with your doctor, YOU have to put in the effort, not the doctor. The doctor cannot read minds and cannot make a good decision without an effort on your part. If you don't like your doctor, get a new one. Don't like that one, reject, reject, reject until you find a doctor that you like. If you're doctor is really that horrible, you are in no way obligated to stay with that doctor. And it is YOUR responsibility to tell the doctor the full, unabridged truth about your symptoms and your health history, including all the medicines and rx's you've used that have either worked or not worked. Don't assume you needs pills. I've gone in several times to my psych hoping I'd be put on this pill or that pill, but the psych had reasons why it would have negative effects on me, but there have also been times where I pushed a certain pill, such as antidepressants, which, in my case, is very dangerous, because I knew that there is no other option and that I knew that despite the risks, I needed to take them. I am the only person who knows me best, not the doctor. No matter how trained a doctor is, they will never be the greatest judge as the patient. I work with my doctors very closely. I ask many, many questions big or small no matter how embarrassing it is or even if I would know the response, I'd ask anyway. If I forget a question or a question comes up after an appointment, or anytime I have a question, I email them and they respond within 48 hours My health is MY responsibility, not the doctor's.

[CosmicRose]

Western medicine only knows how to do one thing. Write you a prescription for a medication. Cha-ching.
Western medicine is great if you break an arm and need a cast, or even if you suddenly drop dead and need CPR and happen to be in an emergency room when it happens...
It's also great if you have strep throat and need antibiotics - thank you Drs.
But as far as actual preventative medicine and getting to the root of an illness and curing it completely? Eh, not so much.
You'll never hear a Doctor actually talk about eating healthy or how to cure your body naturally or anything that doesn't have to do with medications.
The only language Doctors speak these days is Medication.

In my experience of the doctors I've dealt with, its all about what's convenient for them. They will make you come back appointment after appointment to get as much money from your insurance as possible and as many co pays as possible. However, with proper communication and understanding, the doctor patient relationship is more beneficial than not..

I feel kind of odd for posting my experiences with doctors. My current doc is respectful, listens, treats me as an adult, engages in dialogue, allows me a lot of input in my treatment options... he has even waived his fee a couple of times when I was broke.
My gf on the other hand has had terrible doctors. She lives in a city in western Europe with one of the highest quality of life ratings and yet the health care is terrible. Particularly mental health care.

[Crazy Hitch]

Well I do sheepishly admit I kind of think I hate my old pdoc for wasting a year and a half of my life for keeping me on the wrong meds then I think nah he's not worth the energy

[zegami]

Originally Posted by Breckman

I'm beginning to hate Doctors and i know thats harsh.I hope i'm not offending any dr's that might be on here.....Seems like all they do is take my money and i don't get anykind of permanent relief from pain & that sucks.
Mental help therapist that i've been too don't really seem to give a dam to me most of the time or else i've just become paranoid.I even had one therapist-she was texting back and forth with someone while i was trying to spill my heart out.Very unproffesional in my opinion.In fact i felt she was crazier even than i was!! Seems their only answer is pills.
I won't take anything with sexual side effects,even though i'm not in anykind of relationship and probaly never will be again.I'd hate to lose the possibilty of even being able to masturbate-seems like thats all i have left!!!
Sorry for the rant.Maybe someone else identify's with what i've said?

Yes, I hate doctors in the psychiatric system, though there are some good ones in the medical side.

Fact: there is ZERO substantive evidence that any of these SSRIs or "mood stabilizers" have ANY impact on the brain's function processing mood, all the "tests" that you see on the commercials are done by the same companies that make the pills, send a lobbyist with some money to get an FDA approval, and you are in business.

The closest thing people feel is a placebo effect, which is why you start a new med and "feel great" for 2 weeks, then "it stops working" and you go back to the doctor to "raise the dose" or "find the right cocktail".

ANYONE who has been in the system for even half as long as me will know exactly what I am talking about.

I don't believe for a second that all those psychiatrists and nurse practitioners are clueless to these medicines, but lets not forgot - the mental health system didn't become an 88 billion industry by helping people.

[CosmicRose]

I don't get treated well at the doctors. I haven't ever since I was about 12 years old. Because I grew up in an abusive household I started experiencing a lot of painful stomach problems stemming from my anxiety. They got so bad that I was rushed into the ER a couple of times.
One doctor asked me to "get up, and jump" and I did, but because I laughed while I jumped they assumed I must be faking everything and they sent me home, without any further tests.
Years later I was diagnosed with a slight form of "gastritis" and "chronic constipation" which can be attributed to my anxiety.
Anyway, because I have "anxiety disorder" on my medical records, the doctors tend to not really listen to any symptoms I present to them. They basically think I'm some kind of hypochondriac, which I'm not.

Almost every doctor I've seen has seemed uninterested while I'm talking to them. I barely go to the doctors now, even if I am experiencing strange symptoms that should require medical attention, because I know they will just send me back out the door.
I try to avoid the doctor's now.
I get anxious just sitting in the waiting room because I feel like they won't really take me seriously anyway.
I'm also upset because the last time I went in, they left my medical records open on the computer and I saw what one doctor wrote about me, it said something like "sexually at risk because of promiscuous behavior" I was floored and deeply upset when I saw that. I made my then doctor delete it and he even commented saying, "What is this?" and deleted it immediately. I am assuming this was written about me because I go to get STD tested twice a year because I'm in my early 20s and I'm dating around like a normal 20-something year old. But to have that written so crudely on my records really upset me.

[*Laurie*]

I have begun to seriously mistrust psychiatrists. Not that I believe they are intentionally harmful, but I believe that psychiatry is still in its infancy. i.e., psychiatrists don't really know what the heck to do about mental illness in the long run.

[CosmicRose]

I agree PoppyRoad, there are two very informative videos on youtube about that problem. One is titled, "The Marketing of Madness: The Truth About Psychotropic Drugs" and the other one is titled, "The Drugging of Our Children (Full Length)".

[-jimi-]

Unfortunately I have terrible experience with health care staff. I have met good ones too, but sometimes I feel I take what I do more seriously than they do, and they deal with lives.

Here they don't take your money, taxes pay our health care so instead of trying to use you that way, they try to save money by rejecting as many people as possible. I know this is political, but my country has sadly started to make priorities in health care meaning if you are foreign, you do not get the same care. Friend's friend is 7 months pregnant and started bleeding very bad. She went to ER because she worried about the baby. It would have taken 10 minutes to check out the basics, for instance that the baby was still alive. But no. Because she was a refugee to here, she was sent home. It scares me when some lives are not respected.

I feel the same about me, because I'm a psych case it is almost impossible for me to get somatic help. They think I'm not worthy.

[*Laurie*]

Originally Posted by CosmicRose

I agree PoppyRoad, there are two very informative videos on youtube about that problem. One is titled, "The Marketing of Madness: The Truth About Psychotropic Drugs" and the other one is titled, "The Drugging of Our Children (Full Length)".

I'm not opposed to psychiatric medication and I adamantly believe that if psychiatric medication had existed when I was a child, and I been properly medicated, my life would have been much easier. Nothing breaks my heart more than when I see a child who clearly would benefit from medication, but the parent/s are married to the idea of not "drugging" their child. So cruel and ignorant, to allow the child to suffer when help is available.

I do believe that each patient needs more time and individual attention so that the best medication combinations can be prescribed. The current practice of throwing out a general plan of whatever meds happen to be most popular at the time of a patient's visit to the psychiatrist is wrong and ends up costing more in time and money than it would cost to spend some good, solid quality time doing some research into the patient's life and coming up with a finely-tuned medication plan.