My doctor treated me like a junkie over a spider bite.

[RandySF]

It started late Wednesday afternoon near quitting time at lush, wooded California campus. I don't remember the exact moment the spider bit me, but at some point I noticed pain in my thumb and smashed the little creature as soon as I saw it. Thursday morning, it itched, and oddly enough, that sensation shot like like electricity into my forefinger as if traveling a nerve. By the time I got home from work, I was just miserable. It swelled on one side and ached and itched at the same time. I popped as much ibuprofen as I felt safe and iced it down but I knew it had to be looked at, or a least it seemed like a good idea.

I make an appointment and saw the doctor this morning. By this point my my self-treatment brought the swelling down to a bump. So when he looked at it, his first response was "Sorry, I don't think antibiotics are necessary." I was too annoyed to say that I just wanted the pain and itching to go away. "I'm not a junkie. I barely touch alcohol. I'm your patient." He hadn't yet asked me how I was feeling at that moment. Did he ask about the degree of pain, the itching? No. So I spent the next few minutes giving him the answers to the questions he didn't ask. He eventually prescribed an ointment, after again making the point that antibiotics were going to work. Maybe I should have worn a suit to the appointment.

[Aristus]

1. Bastard.

He should have just treated you, and kept his judgmental remarks to himself.

I have a lot of patients who are IV drug users. It's not something anyone has to coax out of them; they're up front about it. And I treat them without shaming or judgment. Fix the problem, test for associated diseases (like HIV & Hep C), offer de-tox, and treat them like human beings.

If a patient tells me it's a spider bite, I just go with it and administer the appropriate treatment.

[NJCher]

2. Dump him

find a new doctor.


Cher

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. He's right, antibiotics probably aren't necessary, for a spider bite.

A reaction to spider venom is not a reaction to bacterial infection. Doctors overprescribing antibiotics for conditions that don't need treatment with anitbiotics is the reason we have increasing antibiotic resistance.

[RandySF]

4. That's fine, but I wasn't asking for it.

I just wanted it to get better. But he was just interested in telling me what I couldn't have.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Probably because he's used to people asking for antibiotics for things that don't warrant them.

Which too many doctors seem to go along with just to get people to shut up. And something like that, if there's no substantial secondary infection and it's not something like a black widow or brown recluse, will get better on its own; it's a self-limiting condition, all you can do is treat pain with Tylenol/ibuprofen/possibly a topical anaestheic and keep the site of the bite clean.

[RandySF]

6. By the way, as soon as he walked in, he told me my diabetes was improving.

Thing is, I don't have diabetes.

[jberryhill]

11. well that would be an improvement over having diabetes

[SunSeeker]

13. You SO need a new doctor.

He has horrific bedside manner, he made you feel like he didn't give a shit about you. Hell he couldn't even be bothered to read your chart/file before stepping in the room-something that would have prevented the stupid diabetes comment.

[daredtowork]

16. lol - I think I've met this doctor. nt.

[freshwest]

18. Yes, some think their function is to deny care. They get a bonus, I guess.

[freshwest]

17. Yeah, I've got a lot of idiotic stuff in my chart that never happened, and it's why I don't like to

go to doctors. Most only believe each other and not you, and they won't budge. You're not part of their clan.

Some doctors care more about meeting the metrics of care than you. They act as gatekeepers to keep costs down, and you might be magically cured if your insurance doesn't cover your problem. Yes, it's a miracle!

AKA 'failing the wallet biopsy.'

Been bitten by recluses twice. Since your bite did get better, the doctor may have been right. I wish you'd had the remains of the spider for him, eww.

If it'd been recluse, it would have not stopped until the wound grew and ate your flesh off without the use of antibotics.

My first recluse bite, I didn't go to the doctor right away but when she saw it, she knew what it was. Second time, she gave antibiotics as it was the same thing.

As far as the diabetes BS, fire this doctor. Sounds like he'd amputate the wrong foot or something when he can't even be bothered to read the chart and see who he was talking to.

Perhaps next time call the nearest poison control center and tell them about it to get out of seeing this numbskull, if you can't change doctors.

When I was bitten by a snake, that looked a lot like a rattler, I called up the doctor's office as everywhere was fifty miles away then. If it'd been a real rattler, I'd have had to call the volunteer fire department to get help. Some of my neighbors had to be life flighted to a big city to save their lives.

But with this, they asked specific things about the newly deceased by shovel snake. It turned out to be a bull snake, not a rattler so I didn't go in. The venom still hurt from the hand up through to the shoulder and one side of my chest. No big deal.

Glad you are better. And do change doctors if you can and don't worry about what they say. It's clear the doctor read off a script or something. It's maddening at times.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. BIG red flag.

Seriously, this doc could end up killing you. He does not see or hear you, and worse yet, cannot even bother to read your chart.

[ReRe]

20. If you go back to that DR...

... you also need to get your head checked. I bet you $5 bucks he has a drug habit, himself. Not a good Dr, RandySF. How's the bug bite doing? Here's a kiss for your finger:

[RandySF]

21. Thanks

After I asked if I had diabetes, he suddenly realized I was the bite case. Still, I'm getting rid of him.

[ReRe]

23. Good. ;-) n/t

[whistler162]

24. Well that is not as bad.

associating the wrong patient to a room maybe because the nurse/aude put the wrong chart in the bin outside the door or the doctor just got confused by who was where. We are, mostly, all human.

[SheilaT]

7. Un, how is telling you that he doesn't think

antibiotics are necessary is judgmental? And what does that have to do with being a junkie or drinking alcohol? What am I missing here?

[Old Crow]

9. Glad I'm not the only one left confused by this post. (EOM)

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Me Three

I don't understand the complaint.

[JEB]

8. Take your chances with the spiders, but

give Doctors a wide berth whenever possible. And watch your wallet.

[jberryhill]

10. I didn't even know spider bites were an addictive habit

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. "Maybe I should have worn a suit to the appointment."

Try this one:



But keep yer ass low.

[NBachers]

14. Spider bites can be deadly serious. I know a guy who lost both his legs and was brought

back from the brink of death several times due to a reaction to a spider bite. His life was never the same- it was catastrophic for years.

[daredtowork]

15. There's Some Legal(?) Problem with Pain Relievers

I was pretty baffled by this one myself because I have a genetic condition that precludes me taking NSAIDs, but I was also mobility impaired and so disabled I was on welfare, so for the past couple of years I kept waiting for doctors to do something to actually treat me

I have no history of drug addiction or recreational drug use at all. I don't even drink: even if I could afford to, I don't like beer. Also, I was suffering from a lot of fatigue, so I wasn't interested in narcotics. Combine with my actual physical problems, there should have been some screaming headlines in my medical chart for my doctors to actually treat me. Yet I was getting nothing but referrals to acupuncture.

Part of the problem before January was I was on Medi-Cal: I think the only sort of pain reliever I was covered for was a muscle relaxant. The doctor tried prescribing it, and it did nothing for me. Then he just left me to suffer.

My sense is there are a lot of mixed messages in the medical community about prescribing pain relievers. They don't want to prescribe anything you might get addicted to. But this often leaves doctors standing around twiddling their thumbs and giving the "lifestyle speech" while their patient just suffers. In my case the source of the pain was nerve damage: the type of pain reliever I needed wasn't even a narcotic/opioid/whatever! I was probably put through a couple of years of needless suffering while doctors evaluated whether my "pain" required relieving in their estimation or not.

There's something wrong with that. The doctor should diagnose, but they shouldn't get to "opine" on whether pain should be relieved or not. The patient is the customer! Even the poorest patient is the customer because if they are disabled, that patient is a drain on the taxpayer pocket. The duty of the doctor is to get them back on their feet, not to see how much pain meds they can do without.

Just my 2 cents on that.