{"id":14,"date":"2020-01-05T07:36:59","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T14:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/?p=14"},"modified":"2020-03-04T20:53:03","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T03:53:03","slug":"poor-treatment-in-an-emergency-due-to-mental-health-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/?p=14","title":{"rendered":"Poor Treatment in an Emergency Due to Mental Health Bias"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"E.R.\"<\/a> <\/small><\/p>\n

It happened again- poor treatment in the emergency room.\u00a0 But, this time I am doing something about it because I am fed up with being treated like a drug addict, or a \u201ccrazy person\u201d just because of the medications I HAVE TO take in order to move, or the incorrect diagnosis codes that are in my chart.\u00a0 I did not CHOOSE to live this way and I do not deserve to be treated poorly because of it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last week a new tooth was hurting (since one root canal and multiple cavities was not enough) and I found out I needed yet another root canal.\u00a0 The dentist gave me a 7-day course of amoxicillin.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t taken amoxicillin since I was a child, so I figured it was fine.\u00a0 I was wrong. The day I started taking the medicine I was wheezing.\u00a0 I assumed I was catching bronchitis, as I am prone to it this time of year.\u00a0 The next day, however, the wheezing was worse and when I called my doctor, she told me to look in my throat and, lo and behold, I had hives in my throat.\u00a0 She told me to go to the emergency room.\u00a0 Knowing what I would face there, I actually asked her if I could just take more Benadryl and \u201cwait it out.\u201d\u00a0 She said it could progressive rapidly (which it did), so I went to the ER.\u00a0 However, so terrified I am of the treatment I will receive at the hospital anymore that I was willing to risk my throat closing, rather than going to the ER.<\/p>\n

Everything is electronic, which means the minute I get into that room that doctor already knows my medical history (or the completely incorrect diagnosis codes they have in my chart from previous visits), my medications, my previous visits, etc.\u00a0 I have been to the ER three times in 6 months and three times I have been treated poorly.\u00a0 This time, in between coughing and breathing hard, the doctor asked me for my medication and medical history.\u00a0 He them \u201cexamined\u201d me and I used this term loosely because although I said I had hives in my throat he never even looked in my mouth.\u00a0 What he did do, however, is say, \u201cDo you have a history of anxiety because it seems like you are having an anxiety attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

I almost lost it.\u00a0 I have had panic attacks and yes, the feeling of your throat closing can incite panic in even the calmest of people so I was a little anxious, but I was legitimately in the ER for an allergic reaction, which he would have seen if he had looked in my mouth.\u00a0 I told him I know what a panic attack is and I was perfectly calm before I got here, that I was not having a panic attack, that my throat hurts and I cannot swallow and that all of this started when I began to take amoxicillin. The only thing he condescendingly told me was, \u201cwell, the Benadryl must have done its job because you are not wheezing anymore, but we will treat you for an allergic reaction anyway<\/i>.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, you are circulating air just fine and you\u2019re tongue is not really swollen or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then pumped me full of steroid, epinephrine, Benadryl and Pepcid and ran a bag of fluids. \u00a0If the doctor believed I was having a panic attack, why didn\u2019t he pump me full of IV valium?\u00a0 That\u2019s the treatment for a panic attack, not epinephrine, which would increase anxiety.\u00a0 I was just another \u201chysterical\u201d patient with a mental health history that came into the ER, probably having silly boy troubles and wanting a \u201cfix\u201d on my pain drugs in his eyes.\u00a0 And he made sure to treat me exactly like that.<\/p>\n

It is exhausting to be treated poorly by the very people who are supposed to help you.\u00a0 Doctors cannot get away with that.\u00a0 It is for that reason that, pumped full of steroids and pissed off, I called a patient advocate and reported the incident, wishing I had done so in May when the last doctor also treated me poorly.\u00a0 I reported this incident and told them that it was a pattern that seemed to be developing.\u00a0 The advocate pushed for a formal complaint and I agreed.<\/p>\n

I have had several readers tell me of similar experiences and I am going to tell you the same thing- doctors CANNOT treat patients poorly because they are on pain medication that they need or because they suffer from depression or anxiety.\u00a0 If you are treated with anything less than 100% of the respect and the care you deserve, you need to report these doctors to the hospital\u2019s patient advocates so they can be counseled.\u00a0 Perhaps they don\u2019t know they are doing it.\u00a0 Perhaps they are doing it on purpose.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know anymore, but I know I won\u2019t stand for it, and neither should you.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of\u00a0Luca Rossato<\/a>\u00a0via\u00a0Compfight<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It happened again- poor treatment in the emergency room.\u00a0 But, this time I am doing something about it because I am fed up with being treated like a drug addict, or a \u201ccrazy person\u201d just because of the medications I HAVE TO take in order to move, or the incorrect diagnosis codes that are in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pain-care","tag-dbtag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}