morgan617

i realize that different drs make different amounts. but this doctor makes, conservatively 300,000 per month in just endoscopies alone. the shortest our ins has paid has been 30 dollars short of what they asked for. when he has to move next door to me and try to decide whether to pay bills or buy food, i will feel sorry for him period. that being said i agree insurance companies have gotten out of hand completley, but not totally sure it's just the doctors getting scr@#$%. our rates are awful and our coverage worse every year. it is political but we the consumers are suffering as much if not more than any doctor out there. i say this as a nurse of 30 years. morgan

don't even get me started. if you can afford the cobra it really is cheaper than the doctor and labs and meds. but if you can't hopefully there is a free clinic in your town, or if you have no income you should be able to get medical coupons. good luck and sorry to hear about your plight. morgan

i got a bill from our gastro doctor saturday. it was the copay after my husbands insurance paid their share. the problem is, we already paid. when i called them today, the billing person said, we don't like what your insurance pays, so now we separate the bills. one for the doctor and one for the facility. well they do it in his office!!!!! i was so angry. so i said you guys are so money grubbing if you can't screw the insurance company, you just give it to the patient? she said huh? but i hung up. i wrote them a letter stating that since the doctors were obviously starving, how could we not get billed twice. living on my fixed income of a whopping 1000 a month, i'm sure they must be suffering, making far less than that. and i hope they sleep well at night. they have lost a patient that's paid for their building about 10 times over. my bp must be 1000/500 i am so angry. what is wrong with this world when all we are is production and not people anymore. i used to have so much respect for this doctor. but he is part of this decision making process and i can't afford to see him, even with insurance. i asked if there was going to be a separate charge on office visits because we had to sit in a room, as opposed to the waiting room. arrrgggghhhh no more doctors ever. period. morgan

if you are a student and work part time and have a son, do you qualify for medical coupons? my grandkids and daughter in law have them because my son's income is low enough to meet the standards. you might try that. morgan

i've had so much pain in my back , hips and legs i can barely sleep some nites. they did an x ray. it was "basically" normal whatever the heck that means. i wonder if maybe the protein shakes have too much calcium or some type of mineral that is causing the pain. since that's the only new thing you've done you might check with the nutritionist. i know i can't drink boost without getting sick, so who knows. just a thought. morgan

i'm not sure how an mvp can go away. that's pretty weird. but i have developed the click since the ablation and it was so clear on the echo even i could see it flopping around. but as the tech said, the doctor will decide. and we will see. thanks for the input. morgan

i just finished my event monitor. it's just as briarrose said. mine recorded for one minute before i pushed and then 30 seconds after. make sure you change electrodes everyday even if you don't shower, as they dry out and they can also irritate the skin. it is very easy to use and you can wear it on a belt around your waist like a beeper. it does make a somewhat annoying noise but only for about 30 seconds. you play it back over the phone. it's pretty amazing. much better than holter i think as you cna't predict when you are going to have arrythmias. good luck! morgan

had an echo done yesterday. first one in two years. post ablation too. she showed me where i have a pretty significant mitral valve prolapse. since no one has ever seemed to notice it before and now i have a click in my heart sounds, i am assuming it occured, or at least reared its ugly head after my ablation, which is why i got so much sicker. so i looked up mvp and saw my life right in front of my eyes. i have seen mvp mentioned here, but none of my docs have mentioned it to me. i have sort of ignored it, thinking it didn't pertain to me, especially because of the low bp's most people seem to have, when mine is malignant. but there definately seems to be a connection. so hooray, today i feel validated. my cardio may not acknowledge it, but my primary will. now if i could just this bp under control..... morgan

wow jessica, so sorry about all this! if you read my post i'm pretty fed up too. but it makes you wonder what's going on with him that he has suddenly changed so much. is he taking on new patients and becoming too busy to deal with the ones he already has? some docs never know when to say enough. sorry about your vacation too. i only get out about once a week on average, so know how frustrated you must be. and it really bites, having no insurance. if that's his problem, then he bites. sorry i can't help you more but can certainly sympathize! hope ypu get over this bad spell soon. morgan

my opthamologist says floaters are really common. i get them all the time even if i just turn my head too fast. not sure why, but he says benign. morgan

i wrote a letter to the rheumy and asked him why he went into a practice that deals with chronic illness when he so obviously doesn't want to deal with it. i asked him what was up with people like him. his office took the x rays and haven't even bothered to call with the results. ggrrrrr anyway, i told him maybe it was time for him to become a pathologist, so he won't have to deal with people who want to know what's wrong, and not how to just get high and not care what's wrong. so there, the big jerk... morgan

i don't generally have any problems with them. but the thing about sinus infections is the least amount of time you should be on meds is 3 weeks. just be sure they give you enough to knock it out. morgan

i had scopalamine once for a meneiers attack. it caused me to have hallucinations, ie hamsters all over the place it can also make you very very dry. they use it pre op to slow down secretions, so just keep that in mind. it does work well for a lot of people, but not sure i'd try it again. morgan

thanks for your input. i really love my pcp and that's probably the only thing that keeps me going. he doesn't understand dysautonomia, but at least he believes me. as horrible as this sounds, it is a comfort to know i am not the only person to get treated this way. i wouldn't wish it on anyone, but at least it's not just me. thanks so much for your support. i am just going to stick with my primary and not waste my time with anyone else. the office left a message that my back and hip xrays were "basically" ok. i don't even care enough to find out what that means. pretty sad. morgan

sorry, by the way i just started beginners tai chi on tapes. it really helps my stress. not sure yet whether it will help anything else, but i am more relaxed afterwards. morgan

when you get the cuff, take it to your docs office and compare them, so you know they are close. sometimes they are off and it can be confusing. i told all our patients to do that and i do it periodically just to make sure i'm not getting wrong numbers. the mercury ones are the most accurate, so good to compare those and most docs get theirs calibrated periodically to make sure they are accurate. just an fyi. usually you can just call ahead and don't need to make an appt. for this. morgan

went to rheumy two months ago. not very thorough exam although his report to my pcp sounded like he spent 10 days with me. said he really doesn't go by labs. told my doc he's sure i've got collagen vascular disease along with everything else and drew more blood. went to see him monday and blood work showed chronic inflammation, but no specific point. so he said let's start you on pain meds. i said no, let's figure out what's going on. he said fibro, so i said well i just deal with fibro. he came over and just started reefing my legs around. ouch i told him my back and hips were killing me and he's just jerking them all over. i finally yelled at him to stop because he was hurting me. and so he got up and walked out of the room saying, well get some xrays and give me a call in 3 or 4 months! what a jerk. he could have said, let's see what the xrays show, and they may be normal but he is ASSUMING they are without seeing anything. i was so mad, all i could do was cry. that's about all i do anyway. but because my labs weren't fatal. he just blew me off, and because i am not just going to get zoned on pain meds and not care what's wrong. it just sucked. then yesterday i went to the cardiologist. he doesn't see pts now, we see a pa and he decides if the dr should see us. he said he was going to be very frank, that i was way beyond his scope. which was refreshing, so he went to get my doctor and he had left! is that caring and concern or what. he is the only electrophysiologist so i was just left hanging and the pa was upset too. but he did set me up for an echo to see how my heart function is. my bp was 160/110. he said you can't have that and not get heart damage at some point. it never really flucuates too much. it is always high like that. so two pretty much bummer visits in two days. and to top it off the rheumy thought it was funny i am losing weight. am still losing. more slowly, but still dropping. waiting to hear on xrays and will see what echo shows, but am just totally fried on docs and their pissy attitudes. anyone read in readers digest about the crummy doctor syndrome. interesting. as a nurse, i totally believe it. and had a personal experience which proves it. sorry to vent so much, but just a bummer two days. thanks for listening. morgan

ebv is usually associated with chronic fatigue syndrome. although i don't normally get the sore throats swollen lymphs and fevers, my doctor thinks i have overlaps with fibro. i've never been tested as he thinks it's pointless, treatments would be the same and i agree. morgan

gayla, how sad and frustrating for you. i have a dad who thinks nobody's problems could ever be as bad as his. it is so annoying. but i guess at least he doesn't harrass me about being sick, although he has said if i just don't think about it, it would just go away. parents,, aren't they great sometimes morgan

dan's ideas are great. sometimes you just have the stress due to 5 finals and even normal people will feel that stress. i usually find that a quiet place with slow deep breathing will help, even if only for short periods. or listening to quiet music, like ocean waves or rain or something like that. try to sneak in even little naps frequently. sometimes 10 or 15 minutes of rest will make a difference. that's all i know other than pills. good luck on your finals! morgan

sorry as an added note, i seem to be waking up with an arm or arms so dead i have to use the other one to move it, or shift around a lot till they wake up. gross morgan

what a scary thing. i do it a lot, especially at night, but when i'm especially tired i do it during the day or eve too. just can't get enough air. i find it's much worse when i'm on my cardiac drugs, not sure why. i never seem to have it, when i'm not. i did notice a peculiar thing last night. i am on a heart event monitor and last night i was feeling sob and just weird like when i can't breathe, so i pushed the button. when i played it back my heart rate was in the 60's. now most people would say so what, but my heart rate is normally around 90-100. so that's 40 less beats per minute. which is a lot if that's what your heart is used to pumping. which makes me wonder what it is when i'm sleeping and if that's why i wake up so much. hmmmmmm morgan

i swear to God they'll be carting my cold dead body the next time i go to an er. so sorry sue. hope you start feeling better very soon. it must be the time of year because i believe i am feeling about the worst i ever have. i have a rheumy appt tomorrow and cardio tuesday. big deal same old crap. oh sorry can't help you please pay on your way out. sorry but i get really grumpy before doctors appt. anyway, sue you take care of yourself, don't let the jerks get you down and feel better. morgan

just wanted to wish all you great mom's a happy mother's day. i know no matter how awful we feel, our kids are number one. hope you have a wonderful and healthy day! morgan

welcome shanna, i wrote earlier but it didn't show up, so may double. this is a great place to come for questions and opinions. hope it works well for you. also if you just need to vent, we will all listen, because we've all been there. you may want to read some of the stories people have written and see how alone you are not. sometimes things are a little different , but all have common threads. again welcome. morgan