Crohn’s Disease- humiliated by receptionist at doctors

[KnittingMania]

I’m at doc surgery rn waiting for my appt. I have Crohn’s Disease and have to access toilet unexpectedly up to 12 times a day or more. So Sod’s Law it happened while waiting here. Immediately after I exited the toilet, having tried my best to mitigate odours by cleaning etc, the receptionist bustled out and went straight into toilet, huffed loudly, went elsewhere with lots of door banging and came back with air freshener. She then sprayed it not just in toilet but throughout the reception kind of passageway that is in clear view of the waiting area.

I cannot help being ill. I avoid so many things bc of this miserable and embarrassing illness. I thought I could feel safe at doc’s. They could provide air freshener in the toilet. But my point is wider- no one should be shamed by their illness in a doc surgery.

I would like to complain. Should I? It’s kind of embarrassing doing this. But I feel she should learn and raise her levels of understanding.

“Someone might feel sick/anxious if they smell poo” does not outweigh someone having an asthma attack and being carted off to a&e.'

Are you minimising and dismissing other patients very valid complaints and conditions? If someone has severe nausea or anxiety it is very debilitating, public toilets are for all to use. No one is going to have an anaphylactic reaction or respiratory failure because someone dropped some freshener in the loo.

Are you taking the piss?!

Lighting a match or two is brilliant for burning off poo smell, and a box of matches won't take up much room in your bag.
Yes you should email the practice manager about what happened, people who go to a doctors surgery are often unwell so it is what it is.

I worked with someone who had Crohns and she did this after using the loo. It did seem to work.

My friend has IBD and she very often needs to go urgently quite often when we might be out.

She seems quite unconcerned about whether she makes a smell or not and due to the condition she has to live with, good for her.

Yes, there are. Spreading falsehoods endangers and perpetuating ignorance of allergies and asthma can do real harm. Please stop.

The spray/ you NEED to allieviate the smell and allieviate your embarrassment!

You did. You literally said she needs it. In caps.

How do you know?!

Crohns patient here. I've always got a small bottle of essential oil in my bag for this purpose, and that goes a long way to masking the smell.

However, this doesn't excuse the appalling attitude of the receptionist.
I would expect more forbearance from a member of staff in a GP surgery 🙄. As others have said, this matter should be reported to the practice manager as it's unacceptable.

Air fresheners don’t get rid of smells anyway, they just mix the smell of human shit with chemical shit… If someone is going to feel sick or anxious about smells how is adding more smells supposed to help?

God, people are idiots. People who are at a GP surgery with an asthma exacerbation could very well find themselves in harms way if someone starts spraying room spray about the place polluting the air.

Nope, @Gladyys says it’s fine 🤷‍♀️

I'm sorry that happened to you op. As someone who suffers from bowel issues too, I know how mortifying incidents like this can be. You really hope nobody notices. Drawing attention to it like the receptionist did was cruel and unprofessional, I can totally understand you must have felt and you absolutely should complain. She probably does this sort of stuff often.

Ignore some of the idiots on here too. I'm not sure what it is about poo that makes some MNers resort to such childishness. If they aren't calling poo troll they are demanding we carry VIPoo around with us. Shit stinks ladies, yours does too. Sorry to break it to you but it's life. A bit of tolerance and understanding wouldn't go amiss.

Complain about what?! She sprayed air freshener which is literally her job!

Then Gladyys is a liability.

So many of them on this thread

OP, that was totally uncalled for. I wonder if carrying something like this will help?

https://pourri.com/collections/toilet-sprays

Considering the majority of women on here have either had a baby or looked after one, it makes me wonder how they managed to change their own babies when they’re apparently so terrified of poo.

I would take a VIPoo spray with me everywhere if it was that bad.
If it was that easy it would be a problem solved, but it isn't. Things like VIPoo only help to ameliorate the problem once the faecal matter's in the water, and then not completely. But it can't solve the problem of the gap between bum and water. And because people have bowel disease, their faecal matter can smell a lot worse than your standard poo. I'll assume you didn't know that.

Poor you, OP, I really feel for you. My mum had ulcerative colitis and then later bowel cancer (because all too often one causes the other) and used to be mortified about sudden rushes to the loo and the smell on a regular basis. I can remember on one occasion on a day out in Cambridge we went to the Fitzwilliam Museum and someone there made a huge song and dance about the odour, running in and out of the loo and making 'Eeeeugh' noises. It was the last time my mum had a day out. The humiliation was too much.

I'm not as nice as bookworm14: I hope karma does its work and those of you who've been so unpleasant on this thread do get to experience inflammatory bowel disease yourselves.

Goodness me why are people so precious? If you use a public loo there's a good chance someone will have done a poo in there and it's going to whiff.

Take a clothes peg if you can't deal with a smell for a few minutes.

Air freshener is worse!

Theres a whole range between asthma attack and respiratory failure

I assume from your comment you think its perfectly okay then if people are rushed to hospital so long as they dont die, so long as things smell pretty of course 🙄

3 people die from asthma every day in the UK.

I doubt any job description for a receptionist includes "spraying air freshener accompanied by big sighs if someone has a bowel movement".

Air freshener is disgusting anyway and in my view should be banned. Getting it in your lungs can't be healthy.

shes not meant to spray , some people are asthmatic she can trigger an asthma attack
it sounds like she was trying to shame you , horrible bitch
definitely complain

What a load of tosh.

I'm surprised at a GPs surgery not having a vented open window or an extractor fan in the loo. Ours does. Which is just as well as I visited the GP when I was expecting DS and promptly threw up in the loo - luckily I did hit the toilet and not the floor! And I didn't have anything to mask the vomit smell as I wasn't expecting it!

As it's a GP surgery surely they're used to people getting a sudden tummy upset or being sick when they've come in just feeling unwell and it's turned into something more? Or a reaction to having blood taken or stitches removed? I can feel pretty queasy after injections myself so I'd imagine the toilet gets a lot of use other than being 'just' a toilet in those circumstances.

How do they deal with the smells then? An open window or an extractor deals with it pretty quickly with the door shut.

Sorry you were so insensitively dealt with OP. A quick spray inside with the door shut would have done the trick if they can't use their sense and open a window. No need to spray in the actual waiting room.

YANBU nobody this stupid and inconsiderate should be working with patients.

You have my sympathies OP my grandmother had crohns and had these same issues.