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?

[UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea]

I can't find the reference but it was part of a presentation I saw by Dr William Bird, if you google him you'll see he's got some great research about obesity and physical exercise.

Anecdotal I know but I also used to work in the sector and saw first hand how overweight HVs found it difficult to tell women they needed to lose weight.

[DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease]

I can't believe more people aren't up in arms over the fact that he lifted up her skirt without asking her express permission first?

[Nomama]

Possibly because we can't tell whether he flipped up the hem to look at the back of her knees or draped it over her head and had a good look.

Sorry, OP, I appreciate that is a bit flippant and dismissive. But the most important thing isn't to be pissed off and further distracted from the problem that really does exist... having had some exploratory tests it is more likely that extra weight is the root cause of most of your knee pain. Any other causes might be masked by that weight. So lose the weight, then see what happens with your knees.