Rant: 1st Post Op PCP Visit - 1/7/09

Mar 03, 2009

Post Date: 1/7/09 11:44 am
Okay, so I have generally loved my PCP in the past.  When I told her about the surgery, she was like great, here let me write the referral.  Bada-bing.  She said, you may have trouble getting this surgery since I don't think they'll let you go out of network (how right she was!) but I'll do whatever I can to support you.

When I needed all my pre-op stuff, and I brought her the sheet from Dr. Crookes, even though I wasn't approved yet, she went ahead and ordered all the tests, and coded it correctly so it would get approved.

So I fully expected more interest and open-mindedness today when I went to see her.  I printed out Diana Cox's PCP "script"  (linked here if you don't know it) and put in the pic from DSFacts, and I brought the "Bariatric Nutrition: Suggestions for the Surgical Weight Loss Patient" article since it lists all the major deficiencies and recommendations for DS patients.  I also brought the Hess article, the 10 year retrospective study on DS patients.

She blew me off, oh yeah, I know all about the surgery, and she wanted to talk about my relationship to food.  "Oh, I've had a couple of patients who lost a lot of weight and gained it all back, because they couldn't change how they felt about food, and they stretched out their pouch."

I felt like punching her in the nose.  I'm like, this is not the same surgery.  I DO NOT have a pouch.  This surgery doesn't have as much re-gain, as explained in the Hess article.  There is significant malabsorption.

And then she repeated herself, well you know it's easy to lose now because you don't have any room, but overtime, what are you going to do when you can eat more?

So, I repeated myself - I only absorb about half what I can eat!

Then I explained to her that I don't have a problem with food, that a lot of my weight gain has been from metabolic disorder - starting with a diagnosis of PCOS in college. 

Then she was like, oh, don't drink soda with meals.  At that point, I just rolled my eyes at her, and said, of course not.  (I'm not drinking soda anyway because the gas bothers me and I no longer like the taste.)

She wouldn't even let me get through the list of things on my "script" - she was just so not listening.

I wanted to scream when I left.

I am hoping that if she actually reads what I left her, she will finally have an inkling.  I got the impression that she thought that since she was the doctor, she knew everything.  Which is the opposite of what I have gotten from her in the past. 

It was just bizarre.

Okay, end rant.

Thanks!

Aimee :)

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