I apologize for the lengthy blog today, but very important for people to know:
For those with Lyme Disease, we are unfortunately all too familiar with stories of how patients are mistreated by doctors and health care (in this case a P.A.) "professionals". I as well, during the years of searching for confirmation of a diagnosis went through a fair amount of inappropriate and unprofessional
treatment. I thought this would be in the past now that I was properly diagnosed and receiving pain management.
For those unfamiliar, it is nothing short of criminal, how the politics of this disease has somehow granted permsission for health personnel to persecute lyme patients. Personally, I have been literally thrown out of Dr. offices; once I was told by an infectious disease doctor..."If you are here to talk about Lyme disease, you are barking up the wrong tree"! A renown teaching hospital in San Diego told me "there's nothing anybody here can do for you..you need to get on a plane and go back where you came from" (Connecticut).
These are just a couple of past experiences of mine but I have read horror stories from numerous others.
Yesterday, at my monthly appt. (in carlsbad, ca where i have been a patient for approx 2 years) I met with a new P.A. who just started there. I normally go in, pick up my refills and am on my way, about a 5-10 minute appt. My LLMD at the time referred me to them and the doctor and other P.A's there have always been very compassionate.
While I could appreciate somebody new taking the time out to get to know a new patient, that would be acceptable. That was not her intention. Instead, I was in there for 20-30 minutes at least, being grilled, humiliated, degraded, accused and verbally abused. She asked very inappropriate and personal irrelevant questions regarding my son, his school and even wanted my legal records for my disability case but never
once asked pertinent questions about lyme, how it affected me personally and made no attempt to understand a patient and a disease she clearly knew little or nothing about.
I asked her several times to please stop and told her over and over that I felt I was being personally attacked...she refused and kept on insisting that I was lying to her and demanding on the spot proof of lab positive lyme disease in order to refill a prescription I had been on for 2 years, given to me by her supervising doctor.
She then demanded a urine sample, which i have never been asked to provide before...when i asked for what purpose, she said for the DEA. I asked for further explanation and was given none. What the heck is going on? She made me feel like a drug addict off the street.
She was very argumentative and every time I threw out a lyme fact in an effort to explain to her my situation and try to answer her questions, she became more and more infuriated. The last 10 minutes of the appt
I finally had to turn my back to her, tears running down my face; I felt demoralized, belittled, ashamed, abused and almost "raped" of any morale or self esteem.
I cried for hours and still this morning again. I know I am not the first person who has endured this type of treatment and I would like to take some sort of action to help prevent this from happening to others.
It was the absolute most humiliating and degrading experience in all of my lyme journey to date and it is simply inexcusable! I know this is happening to others, too sick to fight back, but it has to be stopped!
Believe me, this was more than just a bad experience or personality conflict with another; this was outright abuse; for anybody that has been abused or victim of some sort, you can understand how I feel right now; I am not angry; I feel literally like the victim of a crime. I have always had high self-esteem and self-respect and think that is what she, whether intentional or not, took from me yesterday. I seriously don't know how to let it go.
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