Finding a good doctor

[deb4508]

I am sick to death of the doctors who only guess at treating you saying things like...
" It will go away in a few days"... or some other crazy thing. You are in pain, all they do is dope you up til you are loopy as **** and when the drugs wear off you are right back where you started from. I know I sound frustrated with them but all I have is a team of nuts. I have changed them so many times I can't think staight. Now the group says I need a shink cause a lot of this is in my head.

Is this not the craziest thing you ever heard of

Thanks for listening
Deb

[raggedyann1]

Deb,

I am so sorry you have had a string of bad doctors. I would run not walk from a doctor that says its all in your head. If you let us know what country you live in and a generalized location within that country we might be better able to help you find new doctors. One of my rules for judging rheuamtologists is to drop by their office a couple times and see how many senior citizens are in the waiting room, that to me while not scientific is a good way to determine if they treat lupus on a regular basis.

Let us know how things go.

Take care,
Karen

[flowergarden]

Deb, if it's any consolation, I'm going on my sixth rheumy next month. I switched PCP's, and I don't remember how many dentists I've seen (for my Sjogren's). It sometimes takes time and effort to assemble a good team of docs. Unfortunate, isn't it?

I've also learned that sometimes because a good doc recommends another, it doesn't mean that the second one is as good. It may just mean that doc #2 is good at socializing with other docs. Then again there are times when the recommendations are based on good medical practice.

Good luck. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/clover.gif style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/flowers.gif

[deb4508]

Sorry for replying so late, past weeks have been really horrible. Not just the medical problemsbut the family as well. I live in USA, Minnesota. I think that they understand heart problems and nothing else
style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Thanx.gif

[raggedyann1]

Deb,

One option for you is the Mayo clinic - just be sure that you will see a lupus specialist in the rheumatology department. Mayo often does a full workup over a couple of days to try and get a good picture of a persons overall health. However I believe you can just make an appointment to the rheumatology clinic. Be sure to go to Mayo's website and google the different rheumatologists to see who is doing or has done lupus research.

You also might search this forum with minnesota as the key word to see what other doctors people have a good recommendation for.

The other thing is to check the medical schools in your state or nearby bordering states. See if they have a rheumatology clinic and if Lupus is one of the specialties there. You still need to google the individual doctors to make sure you are getting a lupus specialist. I learned that one the hard way but in the end I have a very good lupus doctor in California where I live.

Hope this helps,
Karen