Doctors Frustrating Me

I couldn’t come up with a creative title for this, my apologies to the academy 😂.

I have been on my wellness journey for at least 3 years now I believe. Basing that solely on the age of my youngest kid as I remember him being in a carrier seat at my appointments. And while I feel I have made some progress, I also feel like I am left feeling more frustrated.

Time and time again it feels like I am not taken seriously. Being told I am “too young for problems” and still leaving in what feels like a 70 year old person’s pain to me. Having to beg for tests to be done to try to figure out what in the hell-o kitty is happening to me. Doctors leaving me to do the research and essentially diagnosing myself and relaying the results to them. Is this a standard practice now!?

Since the age of, at least fifteen, I have had this ongoing facial “rash”. Back then it was my nose and spread into where my cheeks meet my nose. I vividly remember one day we were having family over and I hid in the bathroom crying because it hurt so terribly much and looked as bad as it felt. It comes up as red scaly dry/peeling looking skin that burns and itches all at one time. As I have progressed into adulthood it started to spread more going up between my eyebrows and my forhead. Now as recently as this past year, it has even started showing up on my chin.

I had done the food sensitivity blood test and the elimination diet based on those results; going dairy, gluten, tea, soy, and coconut free. In doing that, I still was having these face flares. I can’t remember the longevity of them back in the day, but I currently have been spending the last several months tracking the son of a beeeep to see what, if anything it is correlating with. Of course with all of this, I am still researching trying to find what it might be just based on the symptoms. Back in August, I came across an article on autoimmune progesterone dermatitis. In layman’s terms, it is when your body is going through increased progesterone (ovulation) and your body triggers an autoimmune response to it. Since then I have been tracking my face with my menstrual cycle and sure enough it is coinciding with that time frame.

I sent a message in to my doctor’s office last month about my face again. They recommended to come in on a day it is flaring [same day appointment] so that they could see it and determine what specialist I need to see. Which brings me to last friday. My face was flaring so bad! I sent a message in at 630AM to my doctor’s office and then when they opened at 8AM I called and had to leave a message to be passed to the nurses to see if they could squeeze me in. I wait and wait and wait and wait. Until around 3pm, I get a message back from my actual Doctor saying, “did you wind up being seen today? I can put a referral for derm if you want” 😳 uh no, you should know you didn’t see me…. Anyway, I message back no and asking if dermatologists would be able to determine if this is autoimmune related as I think it correlates with the progesterone dermatitis. He responded with, “I would assume so. I would have no way of knowing. I will have so and so put the referral in.”

Like, what!? And this isn’t the first time I have been told similar things.

Now the thing with dermatologist appointments, is that they are scheduled months out and you don’t exactly get to pick your day. This time when they called me to make the appointment, I explained the situation and how I need the appointment to be scheduled during a flare up. I wound up getting it scheduled, but it won’t be until the end of December. Which, fine whatever. But, man am I tired of this doctor run around.

If I wanted to diagnose myself, I would have went to medical school and treated myself. I have been talking with a couple of people about this and they too have had similar happenings with their doctors! Is this just the standard practice now? Letting us google our symptoms to diagnose ourselves and then ask for treatment? I am seeing all these specialists to try and figure out why my issues are occurring and it feels like none of them actually care to get to the bottom of anything. It is completely frustrating and making me feel like my wellness isn’t important. Like it is completely normal to be living in all this pain every single day and all these ongoing things that I am dealing with that makes life challenging. The challenges lead to the depression spiral and make me feel like it isn’t worth living through.

I just want to know what is wrong and get it controlled! I deserve a quality life and my children deserve to have a mother that can handle the most simplest of things without being in pain!

Hopefully December brings me some answers, but I am not going to hold my breath. Has anyone else been experiencing the same thing with their doctor? Talk to me about it and how you handle it, in the comments!

👩‍⚕️jenn