The Consultation

I made an appointment with my GP. Over the last few years I haven't been to see her as my workload and hours made it too hard to get and keep appointments, so I'd been going to a walk in clinic which is fine for small health complaints but I felt like I needed someone who I knew and who'd looked after my family for a while.

So I went through my list of concerns with her and she listened to me. Instead of just throwing a prescription at me she asked if I was happy with medication or would I prefer something else. I told her I'd prefer not to be on medication - after all I'd done well so far - plus there's the stigma of it and the additional cost. Still, I'm not the kind to open up to people and the thought of therapy scares me.

I had other concerns, and after hearing me out, the doctor recommended that I have a blood test to determine if my serotonin levels were low and to test if I might have a thyroid disorder or something similar as sometimes these things can mimic depression and generally exacerbate things. However she did say that what I had told her held concerns for me.

So I had the test done on the weekend and will now have to make the follow up appointment to get the results and find out the truth. I have to say, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would have been, you know to open up to someone about it. I think I definitely made the right choice of doctor to see and that made all the difference.

My partner had a chronic mystery illness for about two years and after seeing many doctors at different clinics, we had no luck in finding a cure or even a diagnosis and we came face to face with many disbelieving faces and knowing looks. I imagine it could appear that we were just after drugs, but at the time nothing but antibiotics provided any relief. Turns out it was actually a pretty simple and weird diagnosis that is being effectively treated now but it took a lot of searching to find a doctor who gave a shit.

The one we found referred my partner to different specialists for other kinds of scans, suggested options and actually looked into my partner's history and said to us 'Oh, you know I can see this has been going on for a while, let me see what I can do!' Magic words.