How many times

How many times have you had a doctor or therapist tell you something was all in your head and it turned out to be real and serious because they just discarded your symptoms?

I've been very fortunate to have a great doctor and T, and none has ever inisuated that.

I've never run into the situation where my condition got worse, even when my psychiatric diagnosis was very clear to them in my records, which I know I am very lucky for. I think being very particular about the choice of my doctors where I could, and establishing a productive dialogue and medical relationship with them has helped. I've been fortunate to have doctors who were quite willing to say, "Even though we can't find the cause of X, let's try Y to see if you will start feeling better. If Y doesn't work after a time, we will then try plan B." In other words, they worked with me. Often their hunches where pretty accurate and their ideas to help me find some change or relief seemed to work (or very possibly just as a matter of time things started improving - I completely believe sometimes the body just eventually works these weird things out without us really understanding how or why.)

My husband has a rare neurological disorder that was often attributed to being "all in the patient's head" for almost anyone who had this diagnosis. Fortunately, with time and better research that has changed. Doctors who know about his diagnosis know how very real it is (and there are more of those doctors now thank goodness), so we haven't run into any doctors who tried that approach in many, many years, but it was a problem for a while. The bigger issue he has had is that he has always been on the cutting edge of research and treatments because he has had this disorder longer than most people do and is in a very advanced stage now, and over the years, he's been a bit of a guinea pig -- mistakes have been made that have probably made things worse, not maliciously or out of malpractice but simply because they were working with limited knowledge about his disease (they've learned from his case).

I hope whatever is going on can be figured out and/or improved for you. It can be very frustrating to be in that position. Unfortunately, as much as is known about the human body, so many symptoms don't point to a specific diagnosis and that leaves us without answers.

I became quite ill with undiagnosed hypothyroidism as my (then) GP wrote my symptoms off to PTSD/mental health and said i just needed more therapy. It was a trainer at the gym who recommended i get my thyroid levels tested. GP grudgingly agreed to it, tho' told me it was probably a waste of time. Boy, was she wrong.

What really got to me was that she later told me if i'd been a new patient and she knew nothing of my mental health history, with the symptoms i was experiencing she would have done a thyroid test straightaway.

I've also had gastric issues ascribed to 'stress' and been stuffed around for ages before being given proper testing and medication.

Some people see a mental health dx and assume everything you experience stems from that.

I have a good mental health team and a good primary who takes me seriously But there’s this one issue we don’t agree on.

Before when I was on Medicaid I had the worst primary and my mental health team was helpful (besides one therapist) but the help I was getting back then is nowhere near the help I am getting now after I switched insurances and can go to good places and doctors.