To feel my Dr dismissed my symptoms as I'm overweight

[Womby]

I am a 50+ woman who is 4 stone overweight.

I have been suffering for painful legs when walking for about a year - pain in calf muscles, acute stiffness after sitting or sleeping (think 90 year old woman), grinding knee joints (which others can hear when I'm walking) etc. I have been tested for PAD (peripheral arterial disease) and that has been ruled out so I have been thinking it could be Osteoarthritis in my knees as all the symptoms check out and this runs in my family.

I went to a long awaited GPs appointment yesterday (I had waited a month) and had written out a list of my symptoms to save time - he glanced at them and said 'it won't be your knees - it's your weight'. I told him I knew I was overweight and I am addressing that (2 stone so far on Slimming World) but that I am in pain all the day when I'm walking and it is really hampering my life and I'm taking Ibuprofen like sweets as they are the only thing that helps.

He still dismissed what I was saying and refused to examine me. I was very polite but asked if I was supposed to suffer in pain and that I had even been in pain walking from the car park to to the surgery (very close) to emphasise the point. Expecting him to at least suggest strong prescription pain killers or cortisone injections or something but he just said 'take Paracetamol' . I told him that Paracetamol had no affect whatsoever and Ibuprofen were the only thing that takes the edge off but I was worried about stomach bleeding etc which can happen with high use of those.

He just looked at me and smiled and said, 'we've ruled out PAD which can be a dangerous condition so I'm afraid this is down to your weight and I know it's hard but you need to lose weight' - I told him I was doing S.W. but progress is now very slow as I can't walk! He still kept his stance and refused to examine my legs/knees.

At this point I just said, well I'd better leave and made for the door. He walked after me and said 'you haven't got varicose veins have you?' - I said no I hadn't but he then lifted my skirt up at the back to check the back of my knees (my hand was on the door handle ready to leave at the time). I thought to myself if you'd checked my legs properly on the couch you could have checked for that.

I got outside the surgery and managed to drive home but then just burst into tears and I keep welling up and crying again when I think about it.

I feel totally dismissed because I have a weight issue and like I wasn't worth examining as whatever I'm suffering must be my fault anyway. I am under no illusion that weight has an obvious impact on joints and I'm trying my best to address that but I could also have other underlying issues and he's refused to look into that.

I think I will now have to change Drs as I have no faith in this Dr and he has upset me so badly I cannot face seeing him again. In the mean time I am no further forward and changing GPs will take time and I'm still in pain and can barely walk and it makes doing anything particularly my job (where I have to walk around a large site between buildings) difficult, slow and embarrassing.

Am I wrong to feel like this? Is this treatment fair?

[CrazyBaubles]

Please write a letter of complaint to the practice manager. I think GPs sometimes see the same things so often that they don't pay proper attention - and lifting your skirt is a terrible violation.

I few years ago (I was early 20's) I went to the Gp over and over for severe stomach pain / cramps. I was told it was due to my diet (I was overweight) or hormones and dismissed. A few months later I was hospitalised with pancreatitis - the result of undiagnosed gall stones. My entire illness could have been prevented if only the GP had bothered to listen.
I complained to the go (got an official apology) but changed practice.

GPs are not except from being held to account. Weight is just one thing that could contribute to being pain - there are hundreds of others. I would at the very least book another appointment with another doctor at the practise.

[dillite]

My GP told me that me pretty much coughing my lungs out and not being able to breathe was due to me being fat. It wasn't until I coughed up blood there and then that he sent me for an x-ray. Turned out I had pneumonia and liquid in one of my lungs. Ended up in hospital for 2 weeks on a drip in the end. So OP, you have my full sympathy.

And don't even start me on the magic drug that paracetamol is supposed to be. I'm surprised it's not yet being prezcribed to cure cancer.

[TheRealMaryMillington]

How is it not professional or appropriate???

Hamiltoes, she was on her feet on her way out of the door having been summarily dismissed as an overweight time-waster, and the dr lifts her skirt as an after thought. Pretty sure that's not how you are taught to examine people for anything.

[Hamiltoes]

God and people wonder why you are waiting 2 weeks to see a GP.

Ok OP go and complain, take up more the GPs time having to sit down with practice manager or whomever when they could be seeing patients. And do you know what? The next patient who comes in overweight will likely still get the same treatment from him.

I really feel for doctors now. The fact is, most cases of what OP has described is down to being overweight. What does she want, more tests, more scans, more examinations?? Imagine everyone who went to see a doctor had this attitude.

I went to see a doctor with pains in my back, pelvis and leg after a baby. She gave me some diclofenac and paracetamol as she suspected I had pulled a muscle, most likely due to labour. Nope, she was wrong, few days later I was blue lighted to hosp with a DVT and suspected pulmonary embolism.

But what was the GP do have done? My symtoms were not typical for a DVT, I did not have more than one risk factor, no medical history of clots etc. should she have sent me for every test under the sun to rule out everything that could possibly be wrong with me at great cost when all the evidence was pointing to a pulled muscle?

I wonder if a smoker with a bad cough who was told by a doctor to quit smoking and come back if it persisted would get the same reaction on here

[lljkk]

I wonder how much paperwork the surgery will have to deal with if there is a formal complaint not that I'm unhappy with how my taxes are spent.

Did OP say the doctor's hand went up her skirt? Coz I can't find that bit.

I wonder if people would be tutting if it was a woman doctor.

[TheRealMaryMillington]

I wouldn't be happy if a doctor of any gender decided, as an afterthought, to hoik up my skirt to check for veins. After the consultation had finished. Without telling me they were about to do it.

Sorry but whatever way you look at it it's not great. Not the stuff of complaints IMO (and as I previously posted it is not unlikely that the OP's pain is caused or exacerbated by weight), but not great doctoring.

[UncleT]

Now he's had his hand up her dress?? Wow, some severe embellishment of the known facts going on here.

[FuckOffGroundhog]

At this point I just said, well I'd better leave and made for the door. He walked after me and said 'you haven't got varicose veins have you?' - I said no I hadn't but he then lifted my skirt up at the back to check the back of my knees (my hand was on the door handle ready to leave at the time).

Well it was in the OP so not hard to find.

I would be pissed off no matter the sex of the doctor. You aren't actually allowed to touch someone without consent. No matter your profession FFS

[lljkk]

Lifted the skirt up at the back requires a hand inside the skirt? I wouldn't need put my hand up a skirt to do that. Just a pinch lifting outside the skirt a few inches above the hem would do for me to see someone's knees. I guess only OP knows where his hands were.

So now touching someone's clothes without consent = assault. Okay....

[Hamiltoes]

Lljkk apparently even when its a doctor

Now before anyone chimes in yes I realise there will have been incidences off assault by doctors and such, but fgs unless the op is going to come back and elaborate from what I can tell, doc has obviously had a lightbulb moment as OP has announced "well I better leave" (really?) he wanted to check something, she said she didn't have varicose veins, he checked behind her knee because well, when was the last time you looked behind your knee?

It doesn't sound like assault to me or anything like it, sounds like common sense.

Also don't see how he was supposed to check behind her knee when she was lying on the couch?

[scalliiondays]

Have you had your thyroid function checked recently? A few years ago I had all of your symptoms (except for the calf pain) and after putting up with it for ages it turned out I was hypothyroid - I had to request the test myself despite attending the surgery for secondary infertility which is sometimes a result of poor thyroid function. Other symptoms are very dry skin, flaking nails, feeling cold and finding it hard to lose weight.
It's just a simple blood test - ask for your tsh result number and the normal range and if it is at the high end of the range ( bad if you're hypothyroid) request a repeat in a few months time. Good luck.

[TheRealMaryMillington]

(repeats self) of course it's not assault

but, coupled with the general attitude towards the OP, it's just not the right way to deal with a patient.

He might have said, "oh just before you go I should just check for varicose veins, could you stand x and lift up your skirt to x so I can check behind your knees". Would have been polite. Taken 10 secs. Is the way most doctors go about things.

[Jelliebabe2]

I have psoriatic arthritis but before I was diagnosed I attended a pain clinic and was told it was all down to my weight, nothing else was wrong and I should stop eating chips! Ignorant b*h. I hadhave a fairly serious rheumatological complaint but she treated me like an ignoramus must because I was overweight. I am currently much slimmer but still in a lot of pain.

Drs DO need to take weight into account but it should be only part if the equation. They should certainly examine you.

[Pishedorf]

I'm sure they weren't humiliated with your post balloon I wasn't at all but thank you for the flowers. However It wasn't very light hearted though IMO, nor a very nice way of sympathising with the OP by bitchily fat shaming the GP which is, after all, one of the issues raised by the OP in the first place

[Pishedorf]

armpitt it wasn't a joke 'fgs'. It was fat-shaming.

[TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy]

Hamiltoes You ask first, then turn the leg to the side. It's not that hard to check the back of someone's legs when their lying down when they're compliant. I've had it done while lying down and when sitting, I've had doctors ask to do so before I even lie down.

Lifting up the back of someone's skirt without permission is incredibly inappropriate and unprofessional behaviour. Seriously, in what world is lifting the back of someone's skirt without their consent seen as just fine?

Pushing someone not to complain about unprofessional behaviours on the grounds it will be a waste of time and won't change anything is why larger assaults by medical professionals goes unchecked. Most complaints will start off and stay informal, it allowed for checks to be made that may otherwise be missed, and it's an important part of the checks in the system. As someone who was assaulted by a medical professional so I could be "taught a lesson" (exact words to her colleagues as they left the room afterwards) and left heavily bleeding, it was pretty much the rhetoric that stopped me from telling anyone for over five years. I felt it would be a waste of time, nothing would be done, that it would make things worse for me and mine if we saw them again...I thankfully learned better later. I mean, why would one want to disempower someone to feel that they can't have a voice in a very important system in our lives?

Having helped a disabled man who was told by a medical professionals to our faces that they weren't going to investigate his back pain because they thought it was a 'self inflicted biking accident' (the man couldn't medically drive anything, had no license, but he did have the broad shoulders, long hair, and bushy beard...) but when they read his records that the pain was from being a victim of assault they felt bad and put the request for physiotherapy through (which enabled that man to walk again without any aids), biases can crop up everywhere, cause people a lot of harm, and should be challenged just like anywhere else, it's more important than anywhere else because with doctors it can be a major part of quality of life issue and really life and death.

In terms of weight, it may be a factor, it may not, the brush off is quite concerning. Multiple studies show that overweight patients are more likely to have medical problems unrelated to their weight brushed off and over looked by medical professionals, and that this bias means that medical neglect by biased medical professionals is more likely to harm, disable, and kill overweight people than many of the conditions connected to being overweight - people have literally died from taking weight loss advice from medical professionals that ended up exasperated underlying conditions that the patients were concerned of and were brushed off by doctors with the mindset that anything wrong with a fat person must be because of their weight - it's incredibly important that if someone feels they have been brushed off due to their weight that it is challenged and investigated just as anyone would be recommended to do if they felt they were brushed off for any other factor.

If we want the best medical care, it must be accountable and reflective to prevent abuse that is very easy and well known and have such horrible consequences in these settings.

[Hamiltoes]

Spork a lot of what you speak is sense thank you for your thoughtful post.

I guess I just get a bit sick of the people who expect Doctors to be these all knowing super humans and then complain when they don't get their own way.

And the fact that this "every medical condition is down to your weight" is very worrying, I wasn't aware that this was such a common thing. In this situation I had likened knee>obesity with chest>smoker and liver>alcoholism, but I wouldn't think they would have dismissed loads of unrelated things as purely being down to the lifestyle choice of the person involved. Very interesting indeed and food for thought.

[EdSheeran]

YANBU to feel the GP has a lousy bedside manner. He sounds a real arse. However, being overweight has a very big impact on knee osteoarthritis. The rise in obesity has been linked to the rise in people with osteoarthritis in weight bearing joints. That said, NICE guidelines state that GPs should offer pain management starting with paracetamol and then moving on to anti inflammatories and advice and support in lowering weight if needed.

I think people who think you should be referred are BVU. Referred to whom? Perhaps an x-ray but you (the royal 'you') really do need to keep losing weight and taking pain relief before you're considering a surgical opinion especially at your age.

[BalloonSlayer]

So why isn't a GP saying that any health condition can be caused by losing weight "fat-shaming" Pished? I don't get it. Why is it OK for a GP to say someone is "too fat" when in a consultation about a non-weight-related condition but totally awful for a GP's patient to merely think about saying it back in a throwaway comment? Sauce for the goose etc . . .

To me - and my Mum - the GP was saying that any ailment my SF had was due to him being too fat. That's fat-shaming, isn't it?

You describe putting on weight due to some traumatic personal issues. How did my SF's GP know that wasn't why my SF had put on weight?

(It wasn't, by the way, but the GP didn't know that and TBH SF laughed it off anyway. He was/is obese because his whole family was obese - his Mum died at 90 still morbidly obese as she had been all her adult life, and he and his siblings are still going strong into their 70s and 80s: none of them have lost any weight, and many of them are mourning their much thinner partners who have died before them. The whole family are one of those anecdotes which make Doctors despair. They also totally conform to the fat=jolly stereotype.)

[BalloonSlayer]

Sorry Pished have just read your post again and I realise you were calling me on the idea of responding to fat-shaming with fat-shaming and I hold my hands up to that.

[Pishedorf]

Thankyou balloon that's exactly what I was trying to say.

I detest fat shaming and I certainly don't agree with GPs putting things down to weight when it blatantly isn't anything to do with their weight. My own GP does to me what your SFs GP did to him and I hate it. But I would never think, even in passing, about body shaming my GP. Because even though she doesn't realise her blunt manner and focus on my weight is unhelpful, it is true, I need to lose weight to be healthy. And whenever I point it out to any patient of mine I ensure that it is entirely relevant to the situation and done with as much tact and empathy as possible.

[UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea]

Actually, research shows that doctors are often reluctant to address patients' weight and other lifestyle factors, often because GPs themselves are often overweight or living an unhealthy lifestyle.

Similar to the 1970s when doctors who were smokers didn't tell their patients to give up.

[laughingmyarseoff]

It's great you are losing weight OP. Lifting your skirt was very invasive and I would complain about that. He is right that losing weight will help but there are a couple of other things you could do too like yogic exercises to help the joints and taking glucosamine.

[foreverdepressed]

You may be over weight but I object to the premise that weight loss with cure your problem; it doesn't always.

I had knee pain, lost 2.5 stone and the pain got WORSE. It turns out I had torn cartilage in the knee and all the painful exercise I was doing to lose weight was making the problem worse.

Lifting your skirt as you were about to leave the room sounds invasive too. YANBU, change GP he sounds like a jerk.

[Pishedorf]

unexpected what research is this? I'd be interested to see this.

Part of my weight gain was when I went into GP because it's such a sedentary job as opposed to when I was running around hospital wards like a lunatic.

My weight doesn't stop me broaching the subject of patients weight though but only when it is clinically appropriate