I have yet to find a doctor who makes any kind of sense to me. The closest I came was with my OB practice, but even then, each visit required a certain suspension of rationality. First, there was the midwife who was constantly disappointed with my weight gain and told me ridiculous things like "Eat a piece of cheese instead of a meal." And of course, the doctor whom I affectionately refer to as "Spyro," because (a) that was his actual name and (b) he acted very much like a cartoon dragon, breezing in and out of the room in 30 seconds flat. And finally, there was the midwife who was very friendly, but who felt the need to always stand within 6 inches of me and stroke my arm, leg, back, or hair. Plus, of course, their advice for any problem was "Drink more water," which got to be somewhat annoying once I was already drinking a good 16 glasses a day.
So naturally, when Luke's pediatric visits started, I expected some amount of ridulosity, but surprisingly, there was none. His pediatrician is very laid back and not at all an alarmist, which gives me great hope that she won't be the kind of doctor who prescribes antibiotics for a cold. And then, I took him to his one-month visit yesterday and the facade began to unravel. I should preface all this by saying that there's a lactation consultant (who shall be called "A" for our purposes) associated with our pediatrician's office who, judging by my last and only encounter with her, is utterly obnoxious. However, she did try to "diagnose" me with some disorder, for which she convinced the pediatrician to give me a prescription. Yesterday was the first time I had been back since getting that prescription, so of course, the doctor was curious about how it was working:
Dr: Did the prescription help with the pain?
Me: Um. Not really.
Dr: Yeah, I didn't think it would.
Me: You didn't?
Dr: No. Actually, A diagnosed me with that same disorder when I first had my daughter and she wanted me to take that drug too, but I decided not to because who knows what side effects the drug might have had. But I was curious to see what it would do to you.
So apparently, she prescribed me a medication that she didn't believe would work for a disorder that she's not really convinced really exists WITHOUT KNOWING ABOUT THE POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS, all because she was "curious." Which makes me doubly glad that I looked up the side effects on my own instead of relying on the "Oh, it might cause a slight headache" disclaimer offered by the lactation consultant. (As it turns out, the list of side effects include lowered blood pressure, severe headaches, and dizziness.)
At least she used ME as her guinea pig instead of Luke, but the next time she prescribes anything, I know to keep a healthy dose of skepticism. (I do still like and trust this doctor as much as I've ever liked or trusted any doctor, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I got a definite measure of comfort when Luke peed on her at the end of the visit.)
1 comment:
Call me next time. My drug book has every single drug in it with EVERY single side effect you could possibly have! Lactation consultants are generally ridiculous, and I would never listen to them. My lactation consultant (who I never consulted again) said that if you get your son circumcised, the skin will get stuck, and you'll have to get him circumcised again. She said she knew this was true because it happened to her son...3 times! Um, why was she talking about circumcisions? I have no idea! And the only downside to pediatricians who don't prescribe antibiotics for a cold is that they generally don't prescribe them for anything else either. Ryan's pediatrician is like this, and when he ended up with a perma-ear infection for 4 months, he never received antibiotics. I had to go outside the practice to get antibiotics, and I got scolded by the pediatrician's nurse for doing so. Ryan really needed those antibiotics because it told us that he needed tubes, since his ear infections were antibiotic resisitant. But it's still better to never take antibiotics during a cold (like you said) unless you're immunocompromised.
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