It is my birthday week.

I had a good time besides a shitty appointment with my rheumatologist, who will no longer be my doctor now.

I’ll get into it.

Number one his office is a little over 40 minutes away from my apartment, and I really did not feel like driving down there in the first place this week.

After all, it’s my birthday week, haha!

Anyway, I figured the appointment was going to be worthless because this is the same doctor, the first time I saw him, I started crying and he put his hands in the air and said “woah, woah, no emotions, now, no emotions!”

So, yeah, obviously he’s a keeper.

My Dad told me about a Maya Angelou quote that goes “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

And I shouldn’t have seen him after that first experience.

I should’ve learned my lesson and figured out about who he actually is.

Even though when people usually see rheumatologists, they’ve probably gone through a few specialists and a half dozen doctors by then, and are at their wits end.

But who am I to cry in front of a doctor, have him tell me “no emotions” and then return to that doctor expecting empathy?

That’s insanity.

Anyway, I did return to that doctor, this was my third visit with him.

The second visit went a bit better, and he did lighten up on the first visit, after I told him I deal with schizoaffective disorder.

Even though he should be sympathetic to folks crying regardless of their mental illness diagnoses.

This visit was just fucking terrible.

I got down there, and waited in the room for 20 minutes to have a training NP come in the room.

She asked me about my hands.

I got visibly upset because this office is obsessed with only the hands where every other rheumatologist I’ve been to has taken my knees, toes, ankles, shoulder and spine into consideration as well as, because I do have mild arthritis in my hands, but I don’t have many manifestations in my hands.

I do have documented arthritis starting in my hands, and they have that information, they took the X-rays, but that’s not my main issue.

So I got flustered and asked her just that.

What about my knees and toes and shoulder and spine?

Do they not count?

So she handed me this sheet of paper and told me to check off all the areas where I have pain.

So I did, and told her that all of the areas I’m checking off, I have diagnosed, imaged arthritis in.

She left the room.

I waited for another 20 minutes.

She came back in and had me fill out the backside of the sheet of paper.

I did and waited another half hour.

Finally the doctor and the training NP came back into the room, and he started to go over the sheet of paper with me.

He said that my “score” put me in standing for the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.

He said my condition is “unexplained by any other diagnosis”.

I didn’t open my mouth.

This guy is off his rocker.

Apparently, he’s the smartest person in the room, and me, having diagnosed arthritis in all of those places, isn’t a good enough diagnosis.

Apparently, Fibromyalgia is the only “logical” diagnosis, which is fucking absurd.

I don’t have Fibromyalgia.

I have arthritis.

He told me he knows a really good pain management doctor for Fibro and he’ll refer me to them.

I already see an amazing pain and spine doctor.

I don’t need another fucking doctor.

I don’t want another fucking specialist.

I need to get as far away from doctors like this guy as quickly as possible.

He then said my CRP levels have lowered and my RA is being managed.

(I thought to myself, so I have RA and Fibro according to you?!)

I interrupted him and told him that since I saw him last, I’ve cut out dairy, gluten, soy, corn and sugar and I can’t help but notice that my CRP levels have plummeted.

He scoffed and said, that’s the Methotrexate working, the diet changes don’t have anything to do with that.

So I didn’t even get to approach the subject of gluten sensitivity and intolerance with him, and how that affects my inflammation levels.

He’s obviously oblivious to how much food can affect the/my body.

He’s obviously the smartest one in the room.

I had wanted to talk to him about coming off the Hydroxychloroquine, because the optometrist I recently saw told me that if he were me, he wouldn’t be on it.

It can cause retina damage that’s irreversible.

And I only have one good eye.

So he told me to come off of it.

Which I did.

And I wanted to talk to the rheumatologist about it.

I wanted to see if the Methotrexate was enough to be on alone – which I think it is, but I wanted to check with him to make sure.

But after all that, I didn’t care about what he had to say.

So he asked me if I had any questions and I just said no.

They left the room and he came back in a second later and gave me a hand out all about Fibromyalgia. 

What a fucking joke.

I’m not seeing that doctor ever again.

He didn’t care about what I had to say.

He didn’t listen to me and what I was telling him or concerned about.

He told me I have a completely different diagnosis than what’s an explainable and reasonable diagnosis for my issues.

I can guarantee you, when I tell my pain and spine doctor, Dr. Zoch, in April what this rheumatologist said, he’s going to laugh and call him absurd.

Because Dr. Zoch has seen all of my imaging results.

He’s been working with me for years.

He’s going to say that the Fibro diagnosis is unfounded.

Because it is.

It’s absurd.

It’s lazy.

And if I didn’t know so much about my body, and how to advocate for myself, it could be straight up dangerous.

The healthcare system is like a fucking machine.

They want to keep you in their appointment list and on their medications because they can bill your insurance.

They want to refer you out to their friends so they can do the same.

They want to keep you on medications and keep you just sick enough that you’re relying on them for your every move.

He didn’t want to hear about my CRP levels plummeting for the first time in my life because I cut out gluten – that doesn’t make him any money.

He brought it back to the medication the he prescribes.

Even though I’ve been on this medication again now for about a year and a half and have had no change in CRP levels until I cut out the gluten.

But yeah, it’s the meds.

You’re the smartest one, you’re right, what do I know.

He’s known me for a cumulative time of about an hour.

I have 43 years experience, 24/7 in this body.

I know what affects me.

I know that cutting out gluten and sugar has gotten responses from folks asking me how much weight have I lost when I’ve actually gained a few pounds.

That’s the inflammation shedding off of me.

I’m literally deflating because I cut certain foods out of my diet.

And my bloodwork shows that too.

He’s just too stuck and too ignorant to notice.

The appointments I’m actually looking forward to are the ones with the rest of my doctors. 

My functional medicine nutritionist appointment is this upcoming Wednesday.

That’ll be validating, and I’ve got a lot to go over with her.

Another one is my general practitioner.

She’s a DO and is very kind and compassionate.

She’ll be able to tell me if I should even try to pursue a Celiac diagnosis, or if I should just steer clear of gluten for the rest of my life.

The Celiac tests require the test subject to be consuming gluten for up to three weeks before the testing takes place, and I’m just not willing to do that.

So, she’ll be able to hopefully help in that area.

And I’m hoping she’ll have a good recommendation for a much more holistic rheumatologist or gastroenterologist or something down that line to help me out – I’m not sure who I need.

Then there’s Dr. Zoch, my pain and spine doctor.

He’s great, and is a huge believer in how impactful the diet is on inflammation and the body.

He’s an amazing physician and I feel lucky to have found him.

So, at least I do have good doctors on my side.

Just the one shitty one ruined one of my afternoons this week.

Like Maya Angelou said, I should’ve believed him when he showed me who he was the first time.

– Keren