to have sobbed all over DD3's paediatritions secretary.......

[psychomum5]

......and beeged for them to get the paed to speak to me and explain why he insists on 'torturing' my DD3!

she is my poorly one. last year she had to endure 8wks of twice weekly bloods, after which they confirmed cyclical nutropenia and referred her to a specialist in southampton.

we didn;t get the referral tho, so since january I have been chasing up.

the darling specialist however decided in his great wisdom to not accept the blood results, as my GP had done them (), and won;t see her until they have been done by the local childrens unit.

so we are having to go thru it all again!

problem we have tho is that the GP was wonderful at calming DD3 down and taking the blood with no fuss and bother, and no pain (he prescribed 'magic cream' which did help), and no more than two tries each time, maximum!

now tho, altho this is on a special unit that does bloods all the time, we are going thru hell as they seem to not be able to get blood from her without going thru 5 tries, and the last two they have done in her KNUCKLES, where there was no cream.

and I am the one having to keep her there while they do this, sobbing in my arms and then wretching thru fear and pain.

so yesterday I rang the paeds secretary and sobbed all over her, asking her why the doc felt the need to put her thru this as he was not the one 'at this end'. she then gave me the specialists secretary number, and I sobbed on her too

I got a result, he (the specialist) is phoning our GP during the week, then our paed at our local hospital, then me on friday 'at some point' (so I have to stay in all day).

I just get so cross at them all tho, as I know all us parents do when our child is in pain. they are not the ones who have to hold our children down while proceedures are done to them

oops, sorry for the length

you poor thing and poor dd. I think you've done absolutely the right thing. I find it outrageous that the dr wanted her to go through that again. Sometimes I think they forget that theses children have emotional and psychological needs as well as medical

no, they really don;t.

they see test results and treatment plans or cures, not personalities and emotions.

How awful for both of you!

I dread DS1 ever having to have blood taken - it would take more than me to hold him down.

Your DD has been very brave to put up with this so long.

I am shocked they took 5 attempts this time to get blood. Why are these places not staffed by specialists who know what they are doing? Taking blood is an art and it is possible to do it completely painlessly.

I once had blood taken and didn't even know it had been done - sat there with my arm out, gazing at the ceiling when the nurse said you can go, you know!

Anyway, I think you did the right thing kicking up a fuss. You shouldn't have to do that though. Sounds like the specialist is throwing his weight around because he can but has completely forgotten a child is the one suffering his fickleness.

Hope she gets sorted out soon.

YANBU - I struggle not to cry when I have to hold ds down for his immunisations. My heart goes out to you. It's ridiculous the way they are making you redo the bloods. I would have been crying if I was in your shoes. I hope that they gain some compassion.

it is getting harder to get blood from her as they are taking it every monday and every friday, we are in our 2nd week, and they have done elbow and hands each bloody time so now all the normal veins are bruised and so unusable. this coming friday (she still needs it done apparently even tho the specialist is ringing me that day), they have told me to put the cream on her wrists as they are going to try there this time, and that I know is painful.

oh, and she seems to have developed as allergy to the cream and plaster, so she also has excema in the shape of the plaster and cream on her elbows and hands!

God psycho that sounds horrendous. Your poor DD. And poor you. Agree you totally did the right thing. Bloody doctors sometimes. They really don't step back and THINK.

buda, is really is horrid. like you say, I don;t think they think.

ok, am off for a while, got a migraine needling away from stuff don;e to me yesterday and if I don;t get off here I am gonna regret it.

There are different types of cream and plaster.

The magic cream they normally use is called Ametop, but if you explain she's allergic to it, they can use EMLA cream instead. Ditto, the types if dressings. Do mention to the nursing staff that she's had a reaction to the cream , they will help find an alternative.

If she has to go to a children's unit, they often have play specialists available who are trained in distraction techniques. How old is your dd? Depending on her age, if there's anything to distract her while she's having her blood taken, this can reduce the pain and anxiety.

5 goes is a bit excessive IMO. What grade of doctor was taking the bloods? If she has difficult veins then maybe someone more experienced needs to be taking it.

If she needs to have blood taken regualerly, it's worth discussing with a sympathetic doctor of nurse involved with your child's care, what steps can be taken to lessen the trauma for dd as much as possible.

Hope some of this is helpful.

'they see test results and treatment plans or cures, not personalities and emotions'

Please don't tar all paeds with the same brush!! I used to be a paediatric secretary and the majority of the paediatricians I worked for did actually care about the children.

However...I do hope they manage to sort your DD's blood tests out as she's obviously in a lot of pain from there

oh how awful. I don't understand why he wants the tests doing again - were they not done right? I don't get it.

Hi psychomum, i know how it feels!! A year ago my baby was also diagnosed with cyclical neutropenia after 8 weeks of weekly blood tests - it was so painful for all of us. The test was done by a different person each time and some nurses were great and the other ones would just jab her in one place after another till they found a suitable vein.

I just want to give you a few words of encouragement re the cyclical neutropenia though: they told us dd would probably grow out of it by the age of 2, and she has (she's now 21 months and her immune system is now so fab that she gets ill less often than the other kids in her nursery!) But it's so worrying as it's quite a rare condition and you not much info around. How old is your dd?

oh, and the gp wont have done the results, surely??? gps dont analyse blood do they? surely blood would have been sent to lab?

No advice to offer, just letting you know I'm thinking of you.

Five attempts to get her blood taken?? That's insane! And I've worked in that capacity and used to do all the blood draws for children in our surgery when I was on duty, so I've had some experience in that regard.

I was in hospital this summer and one nurse took seven tries to get an IV in - at one point hitting a nerve in my wrist that was agonising! She was shocked when I told her I was refusing to allow her any more attempts and that the IV would have to wait until another nurse came on duty, as it was beyond ridiculous. She started fussing, saying I needed the IV, to which I countered "of course I need the IV.. I do NOT however, need to be aerated!" I was a bit cranky at that point.

My point being that if you are consistently having the same person having problems with blood draws, you are well within your rights to insist someone else do it. Causing your DD such distress due to inexperience or lack of competence or compassion is not going to make it easier in the long run - she will reach a point where she is terrified to go to the surgery, and it will create more problems. A little numbing cream is a small price for the surgery to pay for a more cooperative patient, IMO. Hope they get it sorted for you.

5 attempts???thats crazy! cant beelive he would not take the GPs results!!! there are people hired in hospitals called phlebotamists(not a great word) whos job it is to take money. You get on the job training, not nurses or doctors. MY freind is one and has no formal qualifications, find it odd they would prefer that to a GP

Poor you and your poor DD, hope it gets sorted soon

Message withdrawn

wow...lots of replies!

am back (obviously). still feeling rough (bad headache and eyes feel too big), but am awake.

DD3 is 10. she has had to put up with lots of tests as she has been poorly lots her whole life, and we are now finally getting to the root cause of it all (fingers crossed).

we do indeed have the ametop cream, but last year had the emla and she was not great with that either, altho not as bad as she is now!

I am hoping however that she doesn;t have to continue.......had a call a short while ago from the secretary saying that he is now going to ring me tomorrow rather than friday, so hopefully I will have a better clue as to what is going on in his head.

oh, and hecate, you said exactly what flame said...............the GP's don;t have their own special lab, they still send it to the same place that the paeds unit send theirs to.........!

Time for you to take charge I think. The doctors work for you so you need to tell them how you want this done, okay. I'd ask Why isn't he happy with the lab not the gps results and make him think you think he is questioning the labs effectivness and should there be some kind of complaint?
Ask him to do the bloods and witness what goes on.
Get the play advisor in to distract.
Be the boss to sign off on all treatments and it's effects on your daughter.
I can't stand this doctor is god crap. He is paind by the NHS = you.

Paind by the nhs - freudian slip there!
paid i mean

doc rang

seems everyone has got confused, and I have been ranting about the worng doctor tho.

the specialist in southampton never actually heard from anyone regarding DD3 until MY gp contacted him in january asking why he not sent for us re- the referral.

seems the paed in Poole never sent it!!!

after a slightly long-winded explaination by him as to why the bloods needed doing, and then me sobbing that they had been done, we got to understand the mistake!

he has asked me to email him all the blood results (I charted them luckily as they were done), and he will except them as he says mums are sometimes much more diligent about the children ((taking back everything I moaned about him before.....)).

he says that from what I have described, it does indeed sound like cyclical nutropenia, so he is going to email me insructions to take to my GP, and she is to go onto a regulation dose of daily antibiotics for 4mths until he can see us.

he does still want some bloods done, but only three in one week (the run up to when I say she is going to be ill.......she is always ill the week I am due my period!). the others can all be cancelled

it is a shame he still wants a few, but he explained that he wants to see exactly how low she goes (assuming we catch it on the right few days).

in the meantime, he will also write covering letters to all involved in DD3 (school, GP, other paed etc) so everyone might actually come together with a decent action plan for her as she goes thru puberty, as the hormones then can could make her poorlier (might not too.......hard to predict which way she will go).

anyway, I am happy. doc is happy. DD3 will be happy that the 10 more bloods is going to be dropped to 3 or 4 maximum

sobbing is good I have found

Sobbing is good!! I wasn't able to see an allergy specialist for dd for 18months. Sobbed and magically stops were pulled out and appointment in 2 months!!
Anyway great to hear things are looking better psycho

I am so pleased for you and your dc.
It works to get someone to see that the job wasn't being done properly.
Good luck with rest of her treatment.