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A bit of a rant, so bear with me for a moment....

I've been travelling a lot lately for work and have been in Italy for a little while (beautiful country, awesome food).

Unfortunately, I suffer from something that requires drugs that really mess with your head. I was fine for a year or so, but symptoms came back and I needed to go back on medication.

I didn't want to use the same meds as last time because the side effects are pretty brutal... so we tried something else. I was on the medication for a few days, and things seemed pretty good, so I figured I was good for my next trip.

Well, let me tell ya -- things are never that simple....

I woke up a few nights into my trip with my entire body on fire. It felt like every cell in my body was electrified. I couldn't sit still, my head was swimming, and I was in agony.... I took one of the medications I use to sedate myself when I feel antsy, but this was seriously worse than anything I've ever felt my entire life. Every sensation you could feel, hot, cold, pain, all at once. Everywhere.

I knew it was a side effect, because I've felt similar rushes before.. just not this bad, so I did my best to wait it out... that and the fear of going to a hospital where nobody speaks english were my primary motivations.

This episode lasted about half an hour. (between me trying to ignore it, and it getting worse, to taking a sedative, to getting comfortable again).

So the next day, I try to call my doctor. She's not working.

The nurse goes to another doctor at the clinic and asks for their opinion.

That doctor tells me to go see a doctor.

At this point, I just wanted advice on how to proceed. Coming off the medication can be just as bad as going on it... do I keep the high dose, do I cut my dose, do I stop, what?

So I call other canadian clinics that deal with my sort of ailments, and all I get is, "we can't give any advice if you're not a patient of this clinic, you have to see your GP".

Wonderful. Hard to get to your GP when you're a couple thousand miles across the atlantic.

Fortunately, one of my italian colleagues was able to get a hold of a neurologist who was able to give some advice on the medication, and I feel effin' good today. "Effin' good" being anything better than yesterday.

I just find it amazing that the canadian medical community would leave one of it's citizens in the hands of foreign medical care when it could have so easily offered an opinion that could resolve my issue in a day.

Whether it was an italian doctor doing it over the phone, or a canadian doctor doing it over the phone, the advice would have been the same, and I wouldn't have had to suffer another day.

Thank God Italian doctors are more worried about helping folks out than their own asses.

</rant>

Dude, I had exactly this kind of experience RIGHT IN CANADA. Sure enough, it took place in North Bay. On that note, I shudder to think of what would have happened if it took place in anywhere smaller than here.

Sprained my ankle / tore ligaments pretty bad. If the ligaments weren't torn, they were pretty damn strained. Note the ambiguity - I never really found out the extent of the damage.

I did this at an ice hockey game last summer. I caught a rut as I went to stop and it locked my foot in place and all of my momentum and weight ratcheted across my one ankle. Not cool. I barely made it off the ice. So, within hours it's swollen larger than my knee / approaching the size of my lower thigh. I can walk on it, sort of - weight is ok, motion is grudgingly accepted. I assess it, no grinding of broken bones is felt, nothing is ready to protrude from within, no interior bleeding. So, ice and elevation. More ice. And more.

The next few days brings the scary bruising. The itching. More ice. I'm barely moving around at work while keeping it elevated (thank you RDP and email!). About 4-5 days in, it's not even budging in size. Now I'm getting a little concerned as more pain seems to come as I walk on it each day.

Call my GP / family doctor. No answer. GJ on that., *thumbsdown*.

Decide to go to a walk-in clinic - and it's advertised as such in the phone book. I arrive. 3 nurses around a computer screen, assuming Facebook or PopCap games or something. NO PATIENTS IN THE WAITING ROOM. I walk in with obvious discomfort and a strange gait. They don't even address the fact that I'm there till I make it to the desk.

I ask to see one of the doctors on duty. They REFUSE. They say I need to make an appointment. I laugh, gesturing around the room. "Where's the mass of patients preventing you from helping me right now?"

They still refuse. I then ask them why they are listed as a WALK IN CLINIC in the phone book. No response. Literally. I then ask what the big deal is for them to write me in as an appointment. They refuse. To this day, I wish I had gotten names. I asked them what they do when someone calls. They say they make an appointment. I said "Good, so let's just make me an appointment:" More refusals.

Now I'm starting to see red. Instead of starting a yelling match that will surely have made them call the cops, I make my way to the door. On the way out the door, they get the finger and "I sure hope you jackasses are enjoying not doing your jobs while collecting my tax dollars". One of them starts to get indignant and offer a retort. I walk out and make sure I slam the door.

Thankfully, a "real" walk-in clinic decides they can see me. They assess a sprain with strained ligaments, order me not to play hockey for at least another 4-5 weeks and to slowly rehab it when I can bear it.

So, I've made a 100% recovery since (thankfully) but there's one hole left - my GP. They finally return my call after I place a second call asking them to evaluate my ankle for my own peace of mind. It takes them the additional 2 days to return my call because I used the words "peace of mind" - their words on the reasoning. To them, that means I'm trying to be frivolous with my piddling torn-up ankle and sniffly kids are obviously far more important. I call them back and inform them that I had since been taken care of properly by one of the walk-ins and that notes were on file of my lack of response from them and my experience with the other clinic. Copies of my remarks were also sent off to my MPP who then forwarded them off to the Minister of Health's office.

Not surprisingly, within weeks the signage outside the "walk-in clinic" that refused to see me was changed to something about a clinic that makes no mention of bieng a "walk-in" clinic. How nice.

Not to defend either case here but there are two sides to the story

In DP's case, DP is asking a doctor who has never seen him before, let alone treated him, to accurately diagnose a reaction to medication while halfway around the world. Sure the doctor (hopefully) has access to the patient chart, but had the doctor screwed up and something horrible happened as a result of this phone diagnosis, then the doctor's ass could have been sued into next week.

What should happen in a case like that? Should the doctor make a "best guess"? That's really a rock and a hard place I think for a doctor

As to case #2, at the very least they could have found you a proper referral NOS, telling you "we can't help you, go away" was the height of unprofessional behaviour and if I were you that would have been grounds for a complaint to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

They saw you. they saw the distress, it ain't rocket science at that point.

NefCanuck

Nef, I totally agree with you, and I know why I wasn't getting any advice.

The problem is that my only other recourse is to tell an italian doctor, in English what's going on. They don't have one of my medications in Italy, or know my history. So someone goes in suffering a reaction, and suddenly I'm in the care of those who don't accurately know my symptoms or the cause.

I just needed a little advice from those in the know... in english...

It's a scary predicament to be in, and without a very well-educated guess from a neurologist here, I would have been up s**t creek -- either in italian hospital or suffering through a long plane-ride home in the hopes that someone can fix me on the other side.

i got a story, but ill keep it short.

my mother in law has been having lots of pain, been collapsing due to pain etc.. she goes to her doctor and doctor attributes it to under lying conditions. 2 weeks later she keels over in the bathroom, was found my my brother in law and taken to hospital. she was there for 8 hours, released without knowing what was going on. took 4 days to find out she has gal stones the size of the average testicle and that she needs emergency surgery ASAP. they book and appointment for her (this was 2 weeks ago) for her rush surgery.... on october 13th! its fricken day surgery with 2 incisions and if she moves the wrong way or eats the wrong thing, she can drop dead.

welcome to guelph!

DP sounds that you suffer from some kind of depression, no?

(10-03-2010, 12:30 PM)NikiterZTS Wrote: [ -> ]DP sounds that you suffer from some kind of depression, no?

Yeah, I suffer from an anxiety disorder... amazing, the discomfort one can feel when the body can't control it's flight-or-fight response.

Damn, sorry to hear you've had so many problems puppet. And glad you got it mostly sorted out!

Wife went to the hospital some time ago because her heart was doing all kinds of weird crap. Spent 8 hours in the emergency room, and NOTHING was wrong with her. They said she was fine and could leave. Meanwhile, her heart was still doing weird crap. To this day, we still don't know what was wrong with her, and I'm glad nothing happened to her otherwise the so-called "doctors" would have been in the morgue. I had to leave the room immediately after the "treated" her.

When I finally moved here for good, I told her "I just pray I never get really sick or in an accident or something life-threatening. If that ever happens, drive me to New York." because I've found that the care is appalling. Not to mention the 'care' my father-in-law has gotten over the years -- 3 hip replacements in a YEAR? Same hip?! Nasty infection, wrong sized equipment? The guy hasn't been right in a few years, and in constant pain for about the same duration.