This is really getting old.
This is getting old.
You know I really do understand why interactions with doctors could turn people against modern medicine altogether and make you into a crazy anti-vaxer running around trying to cure the world's ills with sodium ascorbate. I really, really do.
I have been feeling like no one is listening to me ever since Bella was born, and I am still feeling that way. Not a single care provider that I am seeing gives the slightest bit of validity to anything I say. I get blown off, brushed off, and pushed aside with every single concern I raise about every single thing.
At my gyn appt yesterday, he looked at my swollen infected yoni and mumbled something about sitz baths while trying to run out the door. No, I said. We tried sitz baths. This is an infection and responded very well to clindamycin, but clindamycin was making me very sick. Please prescribe me something else.
He finally gave me a scrip for zithromax, but said if I just waited it would probably go away. "Then why did it respond to the clindamycin so well?" Ah, said he. Because it is an infection. "YES, exactly." Idiot! Why not just trust me that I know that my body is not ok? Why do people keep looking at this swelling which is causing me intense pelvic pains and making me scared for my fertility, and telling me "Well, you had a baby." Yes, I had a baby. I would like to have more! Please help me NOT be infected anymore!
My midwife said the same thing, along with blowing off my concerns about my babies weight gain. Why not trust me that I know my body and baby are not ok?
My doctor told me my baby needed energy healing instead of food, and that my diet wasn't good enough. Yeah, my diet is not the greatest, but it is more than adequate. Just because I can't tell you every meal I've had for the last three days (Hello? New tired mama!) doesn't mean I haven't eaten sufficiently to make milk. Why not just trust me that I know what my body needs? And maybe I should see an energy healer too. I asked if my low thyroid might be an issue (yes, it might be, many people with thyroid problems have problems with milk supply), and she totally blew me off. "No, just make sure you're eating enough." Eating enough! I have never been fatter in my life than I am right now. I am not even attempting to diet due to fear of my milk supply. I'm EATING PLENTY!
Today at the endocrinologists I got to feel scorn heaped upon me for listening to lactation consultants, and then felt like the floor dropped out from under me when I said that there were resources online discussing PCOS, low milk supply, and use of metformin to resolve it. You know what she said? Are you ready? Pro-vaxer that I am? Believer in sound medical research that I am? "Well, you can't believe everything you read on the internet. I will look it up, but I need solid, peer-reviewed studies to believe it." HA! She thought I was a whacko anti-vaxer!
She went on to say... "The problem is sleep. You're not getting enough sleep." Huh? I get plenty of sleep! More, probably, than most first time moms! Why not just TRUST ME that I know how much sleep my body needs? Why not trust evolution to not create a situation where a tired new mama cannot feed her baby! Why not recognize the fact that even if my diet were pure crap, even if I were starving to death, even if I hadn't slept all week, my body would still make feeding my baby a priority... if it were working right... and take from me to give to her!
Plus, she told me that women with PCOS do not have low supply problems. And that I can't use a scale to tell how much my baby is getting at a feeding, because a fluid ounce does not equal an ounce of weight. Well, dammit.. I just weighed a fluid ounce and it does too. Perhaps not on a super duper scientific scale, but on my special scale which counts tenths of an ounce, it weighs exactly one ounce. That may not be perfectly scientific, but it is certainly sufficient to get an idea of how much volume a baby is taking in!
I am so tired of people not listening to me, I am about to blow. All I want is just one care provider who will listen to my concerns and say, "OK. Let's figure out what is going on," instead of trying to tell ME what is going on with my body WITHOUT LISTENING TO ME.
I know there are good doctors out there... I just don't know where!