Posted on Sep 9, 2017 in Blog |

8 Years Ago Today: The First Appointment I lied on the 22-page “Complete History Form” Dr. Mozayeni asks all patients to fill out. I suspected if I revealed all of the symptoms I had experienced over the years, he would surely think I needed a psychiatrist rather than an LLMD. No one has that many symptoms without being a hypochondriac; even I had to begun to believe this. I focused on my major symptoms and denied the less compelling ones. I was very nervous at my first appointment with Dr. Mozayeni. Partially, because I couldn’t believe I might actually have Lyme Disease. If I did have Lyme, I didn’t want to have Aunt Betty’s outcome. And I didn’t want to have one more physician looking at my paperwork and giving me another incomplete, inaccurate diagnosis. My anxiety had reached a new peak. It wasn’t like getting a splinter in my finger. I couldn’t remember getting the splinter. I couldn’t see the splinter. I couldn’t get a pair of tweezers to excise it. I knew I felt pain and it kept getting worse. But there was no red, swollen, site with puss coming out. There was nothing to show a physician except my own perception and recording of symptoms. Even some of my lab work was faulty, skewing the puzzle more so. For years, I watched and listened as physicians provided little explanation and less treatment for pain that was increasing sometimes exponentially. Over those years, my anxiety increased, my defensiveness grew. I talked with other people, researched the Internet (not necessarily the best idea), desperately seeking answers. When I did receive a diagnosis, I thoroughly researched that condition, becoming as expert as a non-science major can become. But when I met new physicians and explained previous conditions, my knowledge base was met with skepticism and obvious discomfort. I found most physicians did not appreciate being challenged by laypeople. I discovered an ugly dimension in medicine. When the physicians could not come up with a plausible diagnosis or effective treatment, they did not like being put on the spot. They did not care for being challenged with the possibility they...

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