Why is it that doctors never tell you when they’re prescribing you a high risk medication? I just got out of my first appointment with my new gastrologist. I’d never had one before, but I was in the, in February with severe abdominal pain, and I have had non stop abdominal issues really ever since. And in reality, I really should have had one a lot sooner because I’ve truly had abdominal problems my entire life since I can remember. But I just thought that was normal. And everybody had just completely inconsistent this TMI, sorry in advance, inconsistent stools and abdominal pain after eating. I didn’t know that this wasn’t like a normal occurrence for people. And I’m also on a waitlist, two year long waitlist to go to a clinic to get evaluated for Eller’s Danlo syndrome because I have literally all of the symptoms of it and mineralogist is the one who brought it up to me, was like, you need to get tested for this. We’re gonna treat you like you have it because you have every symptom of it and I just, nothing else has worked for you in your migrants. And it has to be linked to this. There’s just no way. And also, it’s in, runs in my family and it’s genetic. So I get into this appointment and I’m like trying to gauge, you know, what we have to do when we’re chronically ill. You gotta gauge like, is this doctor gonna listen to me? Is he gonna be open to this? So I’ve course looked up the doctor ahead of time. I didn’t get to pick the doctor because this is the first appointment I could get in since my appointment in February. I’ve had to wait over three months for this. Okay. And it was his staff that saw me in the. So I was like, alright, it’s probably a good idea for me to see at least people from his clinic. But that meant I had to see this male doctor. I tried to avoid male doctors, and specifically an older one. He had relatively good reviews. So I was like, okay, maybe this will be okay. Okay, so I tell them all my symptoms.
I’m explaining everything. I’m also explaining that I’m getting evaluated for this. I’m a diagnosis, but it is in my family and I’m being evaluated for it. So I want to consider it. And he’s like, literally says a sentence that, you know, we hear doctor sale at time, don’t treat patient E immediately cuz zebra treat them like a horse first. And granted, I will say when it comes to gastroenchanology stuff, I have not had really any interventions besides being on a map resolve for like a really long time, which I Learned you’re not even supposed to be on.
Thank you PCP for not telling me. And I got on panel pros all in February. And so ideally, if I had like a stomach ulcer, that would have helped significantly with that. And I had been having actually a lot less issues. And then last night I woke up at like 3 a. M. In the morning with severe abnormal pain, like the pain I had when I had to go to the. So glad I had this appointment today. But anyways, I’ll just say I’m explaining everything to him and he’s like, let’s try to treat like IBS symptoms first and also get you something for the pain. So he prescribes me dies cyclomine. And I ask him, as I do all my doctors when they prescribe me a new medication, what are the side effects? Because I tend to have the type of body that gets all of the worst possible side effects that you don’t expect people to get. So you don’t bother usually telling them, I am the person who will get those side effects, so I need to know them ahead of time cuz my body is very sensitive. And also I didn’t disclose this because it’s not in my chart. But like I talk about on here, I’m autistic. And so because of that, I just I seem to be like more aware of the environmental changes that happen in my body and like it becomes intolerable. So if I start into medication, I have to be like just very aware of how it’s gonna possibly interact with the other medications I’m on cuz I’m also on a lot of other medications from other illnesses. And he tells me the only thing I really need to worry about is possible dry mouth, but that we’re gonna start me on the lowest dose and you take it before you eat whatever.
And I’m like, okay, not great, but I like don’t remember medication names well. So like, I didn’t Google it right there at the moment, like I should have. Or ask him to spell it so I could have googled it in the moment. Although most doctors don’t really like that because then you’re like blatant Lane just questioning them. But whatever. So I just said, okay, and then he’s sent me for lapse. He listened to that at least 7 for labs. I also do stool sample thing for H. Glory finally. And he’s getting me checked for inflammatory markers in my labs to see if I have like maybe a different inflammatory bowel disease type thing like crowns or something, Kalitis, something like that. So I finally get to my car, I decide to look it up. What is it? The first thing I see when I Google dicyclomine side effects is why is dicyclomine a high risk medication? I’m sorry, what? And then I start looking at what to avoid taking with discyclomine and antihist means I’ve to take Zerg tech every day. I take it year round all the time. I take antihistamines. And then the next thing is sedation, muscle relaxance, seizure medications. Well, my migraine medication for like when I have emergency, oh, what’s it called? My emerging medication. Then take when I get migraine has seizure medication. I take muscle relaxance almost every night for sleep because I have insomnia and I have neck problems from my connected tissue disorder and TMJ. So the only way I can sleep is with muscle extras to force those muscles to relax while also using braces to prevent my body from dislocating.
Also, I know my face is red. I was trying to record this with in my car without like the car on because sometimes the sound is too much, but it got too hot so I turn my car on. So sorry if the sound got weird, but like, I just, why don’t they tell us this stuff? So I, after I read that, I immediately like went on our patient portal and I sent him an email. I was like, hey, I don’t know if you realize like I take, I don’t know if the Zirtech was in my chart, but I take it every day. I also take this muscle actually, like, is it so okay for me to fill this prescription, take this medication? And I am, I just sent that email. So I haven’t heard back yet, but like, we’ll see. It just.
I went on and on about how I’m so sensitive to different medications and how like the side effects mess with me so much to the point where he was like, I don’t wanna try you on anything that’s actually more significant until we get you on like a bene fiber supplement or something to see how you react to that since basically diagnosis with ibsc. So, and he was worried if he did something else that like it would cause my about movements to be more extreme in one direction or the other.
But then you prescribe this, not to mention also one of the top side effects is increased heart rate. And I have a general heart disease. I have a heart condition and I already have to take vivance, which increases your heart right for my ADHD every day. It’s the only thing that really works for me. And I take a different medication that’s a beta blocker that actually helps lower my blood pressure and my heart rate.
But like I really am supposed to avoid other medications that cause increased heart rate. And I just like, why do they never look at anything outside of their specialties, specifically doctors and specialties? It drives me so crazy. It makes me so upset. The, our medical healthcare system is like this where it’s just so separated and nobody interacts with each other. And I feel like that’s what causes so many of these problems for me is like they don’t look at the other parts of my body, the other parts of my chart. Like if you looked at all of my symptoms, like the elder stainless is so obvious, but he’s like, I don’t like, it could be something else, which whatever it could be that in conjunction with it, that’s fine. But like you didn’t even look at my other medications, see interactions really, it seems dangerous to me. It’s so frustrating.