Have you ever been laughed out of the ER?? The "average" person would probably answer "no" to this random question. Unfortunately, for chronic pain patients with invisible disabilities this can become a common occurance.
I have personally been laughed out of the ER twice. Yes, twice--- as if once wasn't bad enough. Both times I was undiagnosed and was in 10+++ pelvic pain. I had been up all night, no OTC painkillers would help. I was laying on the floor screaming at the top of my lungs. Yet, when I got to the ER I was made to feel like a fool by both doctors and nurses. They did every test in the book on me including a pelvic ultrasound and found nothing. The pelvic ultrasound was a nightmare, as they force you to drink a TON of water and won't allow you to use the bathroom until they are done with the procedure. Even if you tell them how badly it hurts to hold your urine, they tend to have no sympathy.
Basically, on both of these trips, when they could find nothing wrong with me they accused me for making it up. Making it up for attention, making it up to get pain killers, making it up because I was a hypochondriac. Now seriously, let's think about this. If I was going to make something up, wouldn't I make up something a little less embarrassing than pelvic pain?
Lucky for me, eventually I was diagnosed by a specialist of all specialists and I no longer need to deal with the ER. The ER may be good for heart attacks and broken bones, but I will never go back to an ER for pelvic pain related issues again.
I hope to live to see the day where an undiagnosed young lady experiencing pelvic and bladder pain can find some help in the ER without being made fun of. I know it's not the ER's job to discover rare conditions in people, but they should be open minded, aware and respectful of all patients. Hopefully in time ER workers will become more educated about these issues so that at least they can give pelvic pain patients in a flare a few prescription pain killers and a referral to the proper type of doctor.
Anything other than being laughed at would be nice. We all hope for a cure, but until then all people with invisible conditions deserve respect and dignity along the way.
So, have you ever been laughed out of the ER? Share your stories.
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2 comments:
Hi, I saw your blog on WAHM (I'm MissyMiss). I'm glad I'm not the only one who had a terrible experience at the ER, although I'm sorry you had to go through this. :(
I had chronic pelvic pain for years, and about 8 years ago, I went to the ER for severe pain...10 on a scale of 10. The waiting room was almost empty, yet they made me wait over 12 hours to be seen. Every patient after me was seen first. When it was finally my turn, the doctors and nurses were incredibly rude to me. One doctor told me that I probably just had STDs. This was said in front of my current boyfriend, and was very embarrassing (I didn't have any STDs, just for the record). I never went back to the ER again.
They accused me of having both STDs and a UTI at first too. Both negative of course. Even though I told them I already knew I had no STDs or UTI proven by a recent gyno visit. They are so unsympathetic.
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