Hi - I'm here to complain about a recent encounter I had with a sleep
physician! I'd seen her two years ago, purely to fill out paperwork for
my health insurance company, and she seemed fine, smiley enough. I then
saw her recently, with a sleep compl...
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Hi - I'm here to complain about a recent encounter I had with a sleep
physician! I'd seen her two years ago, purely to fill out paperwork for
my health insurance company, and she seemed fine, smiley enough. I then
saw her recently, with a sleep complaint, which has nothing to do with
my mental health, which is stable. When I saw the sleep physician, she
said she wanted to communicate with my psychiatrist. I told her she
could tell me what she wanted to know, and I'd ask him to write a letter
with that information. I could understand that she wanted confirmation
from him that my mental health was stable (as if it wasn't, that could
have explained my symptoms) and while I might be peeved that she didn't
believe me, that she didn't believe my report that I was well and
stable, I could accept that, yep, doctors typically don't believe
patients. (My psychiatrist's opinion that I'm stable is based on my
reports to him that I'm stable, so it's just a case of him reporting
what I'm saying, rather than her taking it directly from me... )
However, the sleep physician also said she wanted to know my diagnosis,
and differential diagnosis. Huh? What the **** has the DIFFERENTIAL
diagnosis got to do with anything? I told her that the diagnosis was not
up for grabs, it definitively was bipolar affective disorder, but she
repeated that she wanted to know the differential diagnosis. There is
absolutely no way that knowing the differential diagnosis is going to
change the way she manages my sleep disorder. (FYI it is schizoaffective
disorder, but I have never had mood-in-congruent psychotic symptoms, so
I categorically do not have schizoaffective disorder.) This is not her
laneway; she does not and never will have anything to do with the
management of my psych illness. This does seem like stigma against
bipolar. The only time the differential diagnosis might be relevant is
where the original diagnosis is doubtful, and there is absolutely no
doubt in my diagnosis. It looks 100% like she doubts the original
diagnosis, that's the only reason why the alternatives might be
relevant. Illnesses that I DON'T have (the differential diagnosis) have
absolutely no relevance to my care. And this is totally not her laneway.
Perhaps refusing to tell her my weight (all she needed to know was it
was stable) also contributed to her stigmatising, making it easy to
label me a difficult psych patient.
ADHD & baggage.
