Dr. education

[nancw]

I had a great experience with my GP yesterday. We were discussing my upcoming one year anniversary of living GF, my annual checkup, and what blood tests we would like to run. I launched into a litany of information I have gleaned from this forum and other sources, and we agreed that we wouldn't run the CD panel again, as it was all negative last year at the time of my "conversion" to GF life, so unlikely to show much of anything (we have concluded that I am most likely non-Celiac gluten sensitive). Then, simultaneously, we said "Let's check B12 levels".
She admitted that she has done some reading on her own, and was impressed with all the information I was sharing with her, which she said is also being passed on to the other doctors in her clinic.

One small step for Nance...one slightly larger step for sufferers of GI/CD in south Denver!

[aklap]

Keep up the great work Nance!! We'll do it on Doc at a time if we have to Hopefully they'll tell 2 doctors and they'll tell 2 doctors...
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[GFPolarBear]

Maybe I've been very lucky/blessed so far with a PA and docs that are willing to have the sort of conversation that you had with yours, Nance, but it is fantastic, isn't it?

Basically, the one doc I've ever seen (this was years ago) that had the total "I'm the doctor, you're the patient" paternalistic attitude I saw exactly once, and then I found a new doc. (I personally think that's a red flag in a doc, but that's an opinion I've held for some time; my best friend is a recently-completed-residency doc, and her 'generation' seems a lot more open-minded.)

[nancw]

Al - Yup - one at a time - doctors, relatives, friends, strangers in the aisles of the grocery store. I am fearless when it comes to "spreading the word".

GFPB - yes, I feel lucky now, but almost everything she knows about CD/GI she learned from me and/or at my urging in the last year. She missed all my symptoms: tingling arms & legs, rapid weight loss (5 lbs. + per week!), fatigue, depression, anxiety, brain fog, hot flashes, skin/hair/nails, because she thought, like so many docs do, that CD is only a "diarrhea/failure-to-thrive" kind of disease. Her PA got close once and tested me for Vit. K deficiency, but my doc just wanted me on anti-depressants, which I resisted for almost two years.

The D.O. I saw for my back last week was about 30 years old, and very interested in what I had to say about CD/GI. I urged her to get familiar with it in all of its manifestations, because she's going to see more of it as awareness spreads.

I've seen the "I am the dr. and I am king" types before...but they don't like me much, and never see me (my choice) more than once.

[GFPolarBear]

Nance:

That reminds me, I need to get in touch with the PA who originally diagnosed my thyroid stuff and make sure she knows what ended up being found...

Thanks! (off to do my part to educate the health care profession... )