The past couple weeks...recap

I've been a bit of a blog slacker these past couple of weeks. My husband was really sick with brinchitis and we spent a lot of time going to see various doctors at walk-in clinics and even ended up in the ER as he reacted really badly to two of the antibiotics he was prescribed. Not fun! Oh yeah - my birthday fell in there somewhere but I spent it taking care of sickie over here. It was relaxing, nonetheless.

On Friday (after much encouragement from my therapist) I confronted my psychiatrist with some of the problems I have been experiencing while being a patient of his. I have to tell you, I was so anxious leading up to my appointment. I sat in the waiting room with my notebook writing, "It's okay to be anxious" over and over again. By the time he called me in to see him my anxiety had subsided a lot.

So I sat down with him and told him that I wanted to talk to him about something before we started. I told him that on his summary report of my progress that he sent to my LTD insurance company that he stated to them that I am still working part time (the stipulation of them granting me LTD payment was that I could not be working at all; he and I had discused this several times before so imagine my suprise when I received a call from my insurance company) and I told him yet again that I am not working at all. He claims that he thought I was working part time from home.

I used this to continue...I told him that it seems to be a pattern every time I see him that he asks me many of the same questions that I've previously answered, and that he doesn't seem to remember things from appointment to appointment, and that it hurts me and makes me think that he doesn't care about me. I told him that I feel like we don't have much of a relationship or rapport, and I feel that I just come in to get my prescription and leave and I need more from him as a medical professional.

He told me that he hopes he's not like this with all his patients and he doesn't feel like he has a good grasp on my case because mine is "unique" (in the fact that my "panic attacks" are generally only severe episodes of nausea, and that I had tried many SSRIs prior to seeing him but was at too low of a dosage that I wasn't able to have a proper trial run to see if they really worked or not). He also said that when I come into see him that I look and act like things are going just fine and that I'm not having a lot of trouble with my anxiety. I told him that's probably because I've put up a front for so long because I never wanted people to know what I was dealing with, that I've learned to "act" like that so people wouldn't think that there was anything wrong with me.

He also said that he's concerned with how long I've been off work (I've been home for a year now; have been not working at all since January). So I told him that despite this, I feel sometimes when I see him that my back's up against a wall and that I don't want to feel pressured to go back to work (although I have yet to tell him that I might be considering working somewhere else when the time comes to go back into the workforce).

Regarding prescribing Zoloft for me (which can cause weight gain) after he knew I had problems with gaining weight on Effexor, he admitted that he had forgotten and that most patients of his who gain weight on meds ask him if it can cause weight gain every time he prescribes something new. Not that it's my fault that I didn't mention something, but I did tell him that I thought it was the responsibility for the doctor to make a note of it and keep it top of mind.

In conclusion, he tells me that he's going to schedule longer sessions for us so we can go through things more thoroughly. He said he's also going to review my file more carefully before each appointment. He increased my dosage of Celexa and advised me to try and look for a CBT psychotherapist that specializes in panic disorders because he thinks that will help in addition to my current therapy. Although any of them that are covered through OHIP there is like a year-long weight. Any suggestions?

He also apologized for the way he's been treating me and appreciated my feedback. So, despite my hesitation it was worthwhile to tell him how I was feeling, and now I feel that I expended so much energy being anxious for nothing.

The psychiatry saga continues...

So I've spoken to my GP as well as the patient relations person at the hospital where I see my psychiatrist and it looks like I'm out of luck for the time being. Apparently the only option I have right now is to speak to my psychiatrist and let him know how I feel. My GP doesn't have that many that she could refer me to because psychiatrists are hard to come by, and the hospital says that there program is so full that it wouldn't be easy to just switch me to someone else. Bummer! So now what? Well, I saw my psychotherapist today she and I worked on how I could approach my psychiatrist to let him know the things that bother me. So I figured that if I can summon the courage to talk to him about at least a few of the things that make me uncomfortable about seeing him, then that might make me feel better and hopefully change things between us. If not, then it will just go back to me not caring and seeing him because I have to because he's the one who prescribes my meds and gives my insurance progress reports.

If any one knows of a good psychiatrist in Toronto who is accepting new patients, please let me know! I will let you know how things go with my current one as I'm scheduled to see him again next Friday, but I'm still keeping my options open if there's someone else I could be seeing who has more understanding and compassion for what I am going through.