New Doctor

[Guest guest]

I saw a new endo yesterday and had high expectations since I checked

the VA med board web site. I found that she had done a fellowship at

UVA and had previously practiced in Bethesda but don't know if it was

NIH. What a joke, she was the worst one yet and I don't plan to go

back. I told her all my complaints. Her answer to the sweating was

menopause; about the redness, pain & heat in my feet, she told me

that it was normal for your feet to be red after standing on them.

She said to look at my husband's feet and I told her I wasn't

married. She would have known that if she had looked at the form I

had just filled out. I took all of my previous test results with

me. She looked at them and said that my aldosterone is normal

because when they gave me saline, my aldo went down to 5 like it

should have. She didn't seem to care that before the test aldo was

20, renin .9. The only test she wanted to do was my estrogen level

and I said no. Her rationale was that once she found out my estrogen

level, she would know what to give me to stop the sweating. I told

her about that drugs make my feet hurt much worse and I won't take

them. I assume she wanted to put me on an anti-depressant because

that is what other doctors tried. I took one zoloft tab and about an

hour later a terrible burning sensation started in my hands and

feet. It was terrible all day but better the next. It gradually got

better each day and went away completely after about a week. She

commented that my glucose level was elevated on my last test and I

told her that I wasn't fasting. If she had looked at the time on

the sheet, she might have guessed that. Then she asked who in my

family had diabetes – probably a good guess to ask every patient that

these days. I told her my mother had it. Later when she was still

trying to convince me that my sweating was caused by menopause, I

told her that my mother didn't even have hot flashes, she told me

that my body was different from my mother's. Have you ever noticed

that when a parent had something that they are trying to diagnose you

with, that means there is a good chance you have it; but when a

parent doesn't have it, then your body is different from theirs. She

suggested that I go to NIH where they could diagnose me to find the

cause of the neuropathy and possibly get me into a treatment trial.

What that meant to me was that they would diagnose me with something,

not necessarily, the correct diagnosis and put me in a drug trial.

More on drug trials later. She suggested several things I could try

for hot flashes. Black cohosh which I have already tried and it gave

me terrible diarrhea. Red clover which I haven't tried and Evening

primrose oil which I have also tried but didn't help. I should have

known when I got an appointment with her right away. I called for

the appointment last Wed and could have seen her of Thurs or Fri but

I had other things to do. When I asked where they were located, the

receptionist told me to look it up on the internet. I am done with

endos unless something turns up and I go back to see Dr Carey at

UVA. I want to have my ACTH level checked again since I read that it

is higher early in the AM and it was tested at Hopkins at around noon

and was high then. The dr I saw yesterday said that my ACTH isn't a

problem since my cortisol is normal. I`ll ask my primary to run the

tests.

Fran