Generally, the schooling that nurses and doctors go through is rigorous and intense, so I know in that general realm, they are far more intelligent than I. Especially once I got to college and realized how intensely my nursing school and pre-med friends studied... I mean, come on. I barely passed "rocks for jocks," aka geology. I am a science idiot.
When you're a generally healthy human, you might have one or two (if you're a woman) doctor(s). But I have gastrointestinal problems so I have a specialist I see regarding that part of my health. When this all started 10 years ago, I was in high school and my pediatrician referred me to a doctor that I believe the best in his field. He has kids my age, he understood how frustrating it was to not understand why your body was being weird and hurting at such a time in your life.
When my symptoms got a little worse a few years after college and I wanted to do the lab work to test for Celiac, he obliged. A year later when I was diagnosed with Crohn's he just got it. He started me on medication because it's easier to work through medications and up to infusions rather than the other way around. The meds he put me on seemed to work. Then I moved back to the Fort for grad school and really wanted a doctor up here in case something happened, being that it was only about 6 months out from my 8-day hospital stay with an abscess that started the most recent gastro problems.
My new doctor was not as great, but he got it. He understood I didn't want to mess with things because I was in graduate school (a high stress situation with a disease heavily influenced by stress in most cases) and just maintained my prescriptions for me and was there should something happen. Then he retired last year. He referred me to someone within his practice. However, I didn't see that doctor. They gave me to another, younger doctor.
Young isn't the problem. I don't mind young. But the incompetence I have witnessed with her in two visits and numerous phone calls with her nurse... Incompetence on FLEEK. Something you DEFINITELY do not want on fleek. The bedside manner, the way they (both the doctor and the nurse) handle my prescriptions are beyond frustrating. They want to argue with me, they want to act like I don't understand my disease or know what I'm talking about.
When you get diagnosed with something like this, it's really never far from your mind, because likely I'm living with it for life. It affects how I plan for trips, when I go to sleep, how much I sleep, how I deal with my workload, etc. Because it can be affected by stress. I'm thinking about going Gluten Free in 2016 (at least for a few months) to see if it helps. I visit the CCFA website and Facebook and twitter pages regularly to see what's going on, if there's any new information, what other patients are doing and experiencing. I want to stay educated on what's going on inside my body. Why on earth am I being treated like I know nothing about the disease I live with?
TLDR; My doctor is an idiot. My doctor's nurse is an idiot. They act like I don't understand Crohn's Disease and its treatment options and the medications I take. That I've been taking for almost 3 years in some cases. End rant.
