Hi Joy - I was hoping that I might get some advice. I keep talking to my housemate about my myriad medical problems, and he keeps lecturing me on why I need to see my GP (for symptoms my GP already knows I have and for which I’ve already been referred to a specialist). He feels I’m being ridiculous for not going to my doctor every time I get the same (or similar) symptoms, but whenever I do go they say “yeah that’s a thing you will get” - am I wrong for not going or right to feel lectured to?
What you’re describing is not uncommon of able bodied people who are healthy and for whom the idea of ongoing illness with persistent symptoms is a foreign and frightening concept that they like to think is just not being treated properly and if only you persist in bugging the doctor, a magic cure will be find.
There’s some members of ETD’s family (and my own) who will hear that I am still dealing with X symptom from something, and they will either say “can’t you just take a pill for that?”, and when you tell them there is no pill for that, their usual response is “well you need to see another doctor then, cause there’s probably a pill for that.”
It genuinely feels like I could go up to Jesus Christ himself and have him tell me “sorry fam, there’s nothing I can do for you” and some folks would go “well you just need to find another messiah.”
So while his lecturing is coming from a place of concern, it sounds like you are already doing what you can (seeing specialists and hopefully getting some treatment and symptom management from them) and he is dismissing this. Meaning that his concern is coming from a place of not quite understanding exactly what is happening and why there’s no magic pill for something.
Typically those of us with chronic or ongoing illnesses, know when we need to bring up new symptoms to our doctors. My chronic pain for instance, when Magic Physio Man asks me if it has decreased or increased, and I can shrug and say “it’s persistent but not getting any worse”, we consider that a minor victory, because at least it’s not getting worse. Worse would imply something else is going on, other than the things we already know about. Worse would send me to another doctor for more tests.
Of course if you yourself feel like your doctors are not being helpful, or that you are not getting adequate care, then that’s another matter entirely. But yea, I’d be feeling lectured at too in your shoes. Sometimes people have good intentions, but the reality of their actions is unwitting.
