CRP level and DP’s reaction, would you be upset?

[Treasdre]

I have felt extremely unwell in the last week. I eventually went to hospital despite DP (surgeon!!!) telling me I would be wasting hospital time and that I would eventually get over whatever was in my system.

Anyway while he was at work yesterday I was in so much pain I got a taxi to hospital. When I got there I was given an urgent scan with dye as CRP was over 400. I messaged DP and said I was staying in and he said he would be over after work but I was being dramatic about 400 being massively high and he’d seen higher. I just feel so hurt. We’ve only been together 2 years and he does have form for being a bit cold sometimes but AIBU to think this was a shitty thing to say to me especially from a surgeon who surely knows that is a high reading?

edited to add that I am not medically trained but the person doing my scan said the reading was extremely high and I urgently needed the scan. I’ve been googling since then and it says online too that it’s high. I feel like he completely invalidated how unwell I was feeling and how serious this is

Are you sure that's not your calprotectin?
In our lab CRP doesn't read anywhere near that high... In fact I think that over 400 it just says ">400"

Gosh, that sounds awful OP, hope that the hospital will have you on the mend soon. Thank goodness you trusted your own instincts and went. You're in the best place.

I don't know how easily I'd forgive a partner who is dismissive when you're feeling so poorly. Being a surgeon is neither here nor there - he is supposed to be the person who loves and cares for you. When you're back firing on all cylinders, you need to have a serious think about if this relationship is right for you.

400 is really really high, i would be surprised if he sees loads of numbers that high unless he's a shit surgeon with really high infection rates!

I think this is a HCP thing - my mum is a nurse and she always used to downplay it when me or my brother were ill as children. Hope you feel better soon OP.

This is true. I’m a GP and I have to admit I always play down my family’s illness.

It’s partly because after a long day at work I’m all out of sympathy, and usually the symptoms my kids moan about are not as serious as most of the patients I’ve seen that day.

Also I don’t like drama and histrionics, so any sign of that makes me less sympathetic.

But another thing is that I’m trying to stay calm myself, and appear in control, even if I don’t feel it. When DS had a significant bleed at home post tonsillectomy he was terrified. I knew it was serious but I had to play it down so he wouldn’t be as worried.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply it wasn't, I just wondered if he was desensitised to medical emergencies generally. Though I get that it could be yet another example of a man who can't accept the idea of his wife being ill, it crops up on here quite a lot.

I think the normal test does but there’s away to calculate it if it’s over400. Mine came back as 560 and I’ve heard of higher than that.

Honestly, I’d think about whether he has any redeeming qualities OP. I don’t think this attitude is unheard of in some doctors, but this who he is. If you are looking for support or sympathy when you are ill he isn’t ever going to be there for you so you need to decide if that’s a deal breaker. It would be for a lot of people.

Hope you are feeling better soon.

He’s either a really shit surgeon who can’t recognise a marker of serious illness or he’s a dick. I hope you feel better soon.

Is he an orthopaedic surgeon?

My mum told me to stay away from 2 types of men:

1. men who play sport all weekend

2: orthopaedic surgeons

I mean she’s not wrong

YANBU a CRP of 400 is very high and definitely needs to be treated urgently.
YABU to expect empathy from a surgeon - never met one with an ounce of bedside manner
Hope you’re feeling better soon - but run he’s not going to get better.

Medics are notoriously unsympathetic to their own families about illness. To be fair they’ve probably had to work whilst being ill, themselves.

Of course he’s seen worse! It would be weird if he hadn’t. But it’s not a competition. He’d better hope that he doesn’t get ill and need you to look after him.

he is quite full of himself when anything medical comes up

Well you can certainly put a stop to that right now, can’t you? I’d be inclined to tell him that he might be good at following the ‘cut here’ instructions of a consultant, but he’s clearly not as good as he thinks he is at basic diagnoses, so you don’t want to hear it from him anymore because if you’d listened to him, you could have had life threatening consequences.

Or, you could tell him that in addition to his ill informed opinion, you don’t appreciate his lack of care for you and you don’t think it’s indicative of a couple who’ll be spending their futures together.

I'm now imagining that he's a terrible surgeon with the highest sepsis rates in the country, gaslighting all his patients. I hope the OP comes here to out him when there's a national scandal about it!

I've got to be honest I would be considering letting his place of work know. I think a surgeon downplaying a CRP of 400 is terrifying.

This. My friend was married to a gynaecologist and gave birth at the hospital he worked at. He obviously wasn’t allowed to be ‘her doctor’ - he was there as her partner, but knew all the staff who were on shift. He told them to only give her paracetamol - apparently she didn’t need any other pain relief.

And paracetamol was all she got. She was in labour for three days.

We were all amazed* to find out two years later that he was shagging one of the nurses who’d attended the birth.

*not amazed at all.

PS - unsurprisingly my friend later had PND. When her own GP prescribed antidepressants, her husband told her she was ‘pathetic’.

I hope one day he wraps his stupid Porsche round a tree.

Considering you've only been together 2 years I think you should be seriously considering your future. You won't always be healthy or manage to avoid accidents such as a car crash and one day you could become bedbound for several weeks or months. Would he care for you? Provide food or a glass of water, help you to the toilet or give you a wash? I would say he would not. So how would you survive OP? Think carefully.

She was totally right - a friend of mine used to be an orthopaedic surgeon (gave it up in his 40s to teach as he hated medicine) and he has told me some tales... I'd also add pilots to that list.

WTH?? That’s awful!

I don’t think they are all that level unsympathetic to family members. He sounds controlling and abusive.

I also have a lot of medics in my family - while it’s true that there won’t be a huge outpouring of sympathy in response to health issues, they will still take the time to listen and advise properly.

I hope you feel better soon and are being treated well by a decent Dr. He should be embarrassed he wasn’t even able to notice the markers. Lucky you ignored him and took yourself to hospital. I hope I never has the misfortune of being his patient! When you are feeling better I hope you review this relationship and find someone that is caring (and not shit at his job!)

He’s a surgeon. They are a different breed.

I expect he’s trying to save face for not recognising how unwell you are.

He’s a dick.

Hope you’re better soon OP.

I think you could be right, my gp said the same about her own children and thought I was worrying too much about mine