((((Daylily)))) Please do not ignore your pain. It means something is very wrong.
That doctor should lose his license. He was cruel and sadistic. He should also be reported to the state medical board.
Please ask everyone you know if they can recommend a kind and caring professional, maybe a family practicioner, not a specialist.
First of all, if the doc felt your weight was a problem, he should have ascertained if you have ever been able to take the weight off yourself. Instead of blaming you, he should have done a complete work up. He should have gotten a diet history....and I will bet that he would have found out that you have tried a million diets and have failed. There are many reasons for that, including hyperinsulinemia, which is very common. I know other people who have had thyroid problems and they could not eat normally until they got medication. I've also known some folks with adrenal problems and they had terrible problems with weight. There are lots of reasons people are overweight and many of them are medical.
Some people just flat out cannot lose weight without surgical intervention. I have a pal who just had hyperbaric surgery 9 months ago. She weighed 450 pounds, had tried every freakin' diet in the world, was diabetic and hypertensive, and had developed a MRSA ulcer on her leg due to poor circulation. She has lost almost 200 pounds and is no longer sick in any way. She is looking forward to a normal life expectancy and good quality of life. My pal was like you in the sense that she put off medical care for years because she felt she wasn't worthy and was ashamed. Luckily, she was saved because she found a doctor who was caring.
Pain is an indicator that something is wrong. It doesn't matter what you weigh, Daylily. No doubt the weight isn't helping things, but that doctor should have looked for causes and solutions for you instead of condemning you. I am so sorry that happened to you, but please don't let one cruel schmuck (pardon my French) stop you from getting help.
I can share my personal story about pain. After what happened to me, I will tell anyone who has pain to insist on getting the best help they can.
I have a recessive genetic disorder that caused pain and almost weekly fevers from the time I was a small child, but I did not know that I had this disorder until two years ago. I was treated for acute episodes, usually in the ER, which usually was excruciating abdominal, back and thoracic pain. I almost had my spleen removed. I was diagnosed and then undiagnosed with lupus and again leukemia. I have a very strange medical history. My sed rates (an indicator of inflammation) and WBCs were off the charts. I was finally told that I had a non-specific inflammatory condition, nothing to worry about. Famous last words. Another strange thing was that I always had protein in my urine, but all tests were usually fine.
I became convinced that I had the lousiest immune system in the world because I felt as if I had food poisoning or the flu at least once a week, complete with high fevers and severe abdominal pain. I could never understand why nobody else got sick and why I would come down with the symptoms almost instantly and get well just as rapidly. I began to feel as if I were a total neurotic.
As the years went by, because of the constant inflammation, I started to develop body pain. I was misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia and depression...and basically told to deal with it. I got all kinds of self help books on fibromyalgia and tried everything, but I just got worse. I developed hypertension and borderline diabetes. My thyroid enlarged and then went back down. I could go on and on about strange symptoms, but anyway, I felt as if my body was in the twilight zone.
Finally it occurred to me that my father, my mother, and three of my grandparents had very similar symptoms, so I started doing lots of research. I had gotten to the place that I could barely move and the pain was excruciating. I was also having some memory loss, which scared the living daylights out of me. My doc put me on short term disability. I had seen my dad die a long, slow and painful death from these symptoms and I felt doomed. The other family members had milder symptoms, but I was going the same way my dad had been...I am a chip off the old block in many ways and this was just one more example. I was really upset about not being able to work.
I discovered Familial Mediterranen Fever, a disease I had never heard of, on the internet. The disease is known as "the great mimic." I nearly fainted because, when I read the symptoms, my dad and I could have been poster children. One of the symptoms is a rash on the ankles....and sometimes the wrists. I'd had the rashes for years. They were so obvious that many people had asked me about them. The wierd lab results were because of the disease. The protein in my urine was an early symptom of amyloidosis, which is caused by the chronic inflammation. So was the memory loss. So was the changing thyroid. I had organ damage and was slowly dying.
I went to my family doctor and told him what I had discovered. His jaw dropped, he examined me and then excused himself "to do some reading." (Gotta love a doctor that admits he doesn't know everything.) He came back, asked me few more questions, and said,"Amethyst, I am so sorry we missed this. I am positive you are right." Fortunately there is a simple treatment for Familial Mediterranean Fever, if it is caught in time. I take Colchicine, the same medication that is used for gout, four times a day. I no longer feel doomed. Everything that was going wrong has turned around. I still have some chronic pain, but it is nothing compared to what I went through. Once in awhile, I will have a flare of acute pain and fever, which is usually caused by overdoing it.
Had I ignored the pain, and believed some of the critical messages I had been given (lazy, hypochondriac, depressed), I might be dead today.
((((Daylily)))), Please don't give up on yourself. Please look for a caring doctor that will listen to you and be a colleague. They are out there. Please never ignore pain and symptoms....never. Don't let the way that some ignorant and shallow people just look at the outside and don't see the beautiful person on the inside define you.
You are in my thoughts and prayers. Amethyst
