AIBU to be miffed at GP experience?

[Purrrrplexed]

Here comes a wall of miffed text, sorry.

Had a "funny turn" a few weeks ago. Felt very unwell and had a racing heart after laying down in bed, tried to sleep it off, it escalated and then culminated in what appeared at the time to be seizure-like activity in my legs. It passed, and I needed to pee very badly all of a sudden.

Went to the GP the following Monday to report this, as it was scary and horrible/ GP ordered a full wack of bloods. Bloods came back: low on vit D, slightly elevated thyroid hormone, one slightly elevated liver test, slightly under threshold calcium. All else normal, GP prescribed high dose vit D (that stuff is great, it's taken care of dizziness I'd been feeling for months!).

Felt fine for a couple of weeks, then the "funny turn" repeated, but in a milder way, same symptoms, but seemed somewhat diluted. Went to the GP the next morning, was told to go to a&e. Did so, all normal except ECG showed high heart rate, Dismissed from a&e and told to go to GP (of course!). Had to wait a few days as weekend was in the way, during which time it happened again, with 1 added symptom: a pain that felt like rather intense heartburn. I'm not prone to heartburn at all, having only ever had it mildly in the final weeks of pregnancy.

Sorry for all the detail, I'm trying to avoid a drip feed of info, and I think it's important to explain there were a lot of things going on before the point of the heartburn. Heart rate has been slightly high since the third "funny turn." I know this because I have a pulse oximeter, bought because I thought it would be a good thing to have during covid for reassurance. Heartrate mostly staying above 120. My normal is 75-85 ish. Temp slightly high but not worryingly so.

Seemingly unrelated, I've had chest pains for 6 years but that followed a really mean chest infection so I have written it off as a pissed off chest wall and have no concerns about it. In the same area this pain manifests I get a strong muscle spasm if I lean over a certain way, this has also gone on for years and is not a concern to me.

GP, who is a trainee, albeit one who is far enough into training to see patients alone and make calls on what he thinks is wrong, and to have a student sit in on an appointment, but has to have it okayed by a senior Dr at the practice before making referrals or prescribing. GP wanted to send me for one of those 24 hour ECG harness jobbies to see if there's some strange things going on with my heart, and told me as much. I waited while GP ran this past another Dr.

Other Dr overwrote what my GP was suggesting and decided it's bloody GORD (reflux) even though I have no GORD symptoms, never have, and literally only had one non-pregnancy related instance of heartburn during the "funny turn" that began with a racing heart. Insisted I have to take meds for GORD. GP was very apologetic about this as it's not what he wanted.

The reasoning behind this is that the area my chest hurts in could be epigastric pain. I don't think it is: when that pain happens it's painful to the touch on the surface, to me, it's very clearly related to that old nasty chest infection! Probably pleurisy. How could it be GORD when the allegedly epigastric pain has gone on for 6 years and the heartburn happened once, during a bloody funny turn? I didn't even have the chest pain during any of the funny turns!

I agreed to try the meds anyway and took the first one yesterday, a couple of hours later my stomach was agitated and my appetite went and hasn't come back over 24 hours later. Heart rate still high. IT'S ALMOST AS IF I TOOK A MED I DIDN'T NEED.

I feel really annoyed that the "senior" Dr who hadn't even spoken to me decided to give me reflux meds based one one small part of a larger picture, against what the GP who saw me and did my obs was suggesting. Annoyingly, in the leaflet of the reflux meds it lists palpitations and chest pain as a common side effect facepalm

Am I unreasonable to feel extremely miffed? I'm borderline angry. It would be different if the GP I saw was thinking GORD but he wasn't.

I don't like going to the GP, I don't go unless I feel like I absolutely have to, I want to know what caused the weirdness but feel like I'll just be constantly dismissed by the nameless superior who has not even seen me yet overrides what my GP thinks.

Has anyone here had a similar funny turn? If so what was it? I hate not knowing!

@InSpaceNooneCanHearYouScream

Well your Vit D level is on the floor and you're hypothyroid, you might want to head over to Healthunlocked- fantastic advice over there about thyroid and Vit levels-sounds like lots of your levels might be seriously out of whack and GP's usually aren't the best as dealing with it. Good luck!

I second the healthunlocked suggestion. You will get so much more help from very experienced people there (that actually have hypothyroidism) than you will from most GPs. Only in the UK would that TSH result be considered only sub-clinical.

I’m not sure adding iodine as a supplement is a good idea if you have the auto-immune version of hypothyroidism, which is the most common, as it apparently can make it worse.

Have you been offered betablockers? I had similar symptoms & was given them & the symptoms have never returned.

My TSH was 18.0 and I was told by an endocrinologist that I had sub clinical hypothyroidism. Only in the U.K.. Thyroid U.K. and HealthUnlocked helped me so much.

I had all kinds of funny issues including palpitations and fast heart rate before I got hypothyroidism diagnosed. It's really hard to get treatment unless your TSH is over 10 in this dumb country.

If you can afford it, MediChecks have the fingerpick Thyroid Function with Antibodies Blood Test on sale for £50 which includes TSH,FT4, FT3, and two types of antibodies. If it turns out to be autoimmune (positive antibodies) you might find it easier to persuade them to treat you.

@pawpaws2022 It's so hard getting any kind of referral from what I can tell. Nightmare! I also plan to take 4000 daily after these suped up ones run out.

@SeaToSki I highly doubt they will test me to see if I had a heart attack- I know the heartburn could have been heart related but the funny turn wasn't enough to have been a heart attack surely- the one that came with the heartburn was one of the two milder ones. It took a week of the GP trying to get me in for bloods for that initial "MOT" the receptionist had said a month! They are running weeks behind with blood taking appointments. It's a shambles tbh and was even before covid. The GP I saw said the "superior" said I'd not had enough funny turns to justify the 24h monitor. (Yet somehow ONE instance of heartburn was enough for bloody reflux meds). I've got some pregnacare leftover, if they are still in date I'll start taking those.

@Staffy1 Noted re the iodine. I'll be having a mooch on Healthunlocked for my bedtime reading, I love learning.

@Nat6999 The Dr at a&e mentioned those briefly in the same sentence as telling me I didn't meet emergency investigation criteria, GP didn't mention them at all (yet).

@CiderWithLizzie 18.0!! Flippin' heck!

@GreenUp The GP did mention a low dose of thyroid hormone, but also gave me the option of retesting to check it wasn't just a blip, which I chose because I want to give it a chance to be a quirk. Now I'm wondering if the senior Dr would have even okayed it. Can't stretch to that test this month (kitten due to have his troublepuffs de-puffed), but can next month, if the GP refuses to do it.

First thing I always tell our junior doctors "Beware the apyrexial resting tachycardia - you're missing something" If you've genuinely got a heart rate of 120 at rest, then your heart really needs checking out properly.

What do you mean by slightly under the threshold calcium? Slightly under the lower threshold or slightly under the upper threshold? Have you an actual figure?

@nocoolnamesleft Truth be told, I just had to google "apyrexial." There's no fever, but my temp is a degree higher than my usual norm- I didn't even notice it, the GP told me it was on the high side at 37.6, and it was like that at two separate appointments a couple weeks apart. Heartrate's been as high as 124 at rest, with some deep breathing I've got it down somewhat, can't seem to get it to go under 95 though.

@Checkcheckcheck "Below low reference limit" but only just. It says 2.16 mmol/L [2.2-2.6]

@Purrrrplexed - If you have hypothyroidism, your metabolism runs low and so does your body temp. The vitamin d & calcium thing and shaking legs suggest that you should get your parathyroid hormone checked and maybe a ultrasound scan done. If you have a parathyroid problem it can leach vitamin d and calcium from your body and cause osteopoenia (sub-clinical bone loss).

@Justilou1 My temp is higher than my usual, but not abnormally high. I will ask the GP about checking the parathyroid hormone though, I wasn't even aware of it! Thank you. The shaky legs is the bit that really baffles me because it doesn't seem to really fit with everything else. It was like a nerve was set off. In the milder funny turns it felt more like a vibration.