![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Ok. I have no idea if Private Practice's depiction of Chiari malformation is even remotely correct, maybe someone else can tell me that. But spoilers 'neath the cut.
1) I am pretty sure that, even if their depiction of Chiari malformation IS correct, no doctor would tell a pregnant patient that had it that they should "tough it out", and I'm pretty sure no doctor would tell her that she shouldn't get surgery to fix it.
2) Is it really that easily mistaken for fibromyalgia? And would it really go undiagnosed for 7 years?
Their depiction of teenage depression is...ridiculous.
1) If a patient comes to you telling you that he is being bullied for liking anime (?????), and has been in and out of six schools for liking anime (???????), and is getting kicked in the shins for liking anime (ok, seriously?), and his mother tells him that he is a whimp for being upset about it, and that his dad would kick his ass for it if he were still alive, despite being the one who got him into anime (ok, come on, really?)...then no, I don't think that he is "hiding his depression from you".
2) If your depressed patient tries to kill himself via stabbing himself in the stomach (!), going up to him after he is treated by the doctors and asking him a) what he was thinking b) "Suicide is NEVER the answer!) and c) telling him how you were teased in HS and look now you have a hot wife? Not going to help. FFS.
Not to mention the insane treatment of Betsey, child of the deceased co-worker Dell, who saved all of their lives at one point or another and saved the life of one of their daughters when she was having a baby.
1) If you are a rich, private practice doctor with a) no children, b) one child or c) one child who is out of the house and married and you don't take in the child of a co-worker who did above, whose mother and father died horrifically just five months ago and has no been abandoned by her aunt in the middle of your office? You are a jerk.
2) If you do these things and then tell you that you are not going to take her in because you want her to get a "real mom and dad" and hope, hope that the system will provide her one despite knowing that the system fails most kids? You are a monster.
3) If you do these things after talking about how "disturbed" she is because her mother died in a meth lab explosion and her father died after not receiving treatment after a car accident? You are a double monster, which is not even a thing.
A child is not disturbed simply because her parents died. If you are going to tell us that she is disturbed and you want us to believe it, you cannot depict said child's 'disturb'ingness by showing her watching cartoons with a baby, drinking soda and being sad that her father is dead and someone else has his office so she can't color.
Frowning and sad eyes because her father is dead does not equal disturbed. Especially not in a seven year old girl.
What the fuck.
1) I am pretty sure that, even if their depiction of Chiari malformation IS correct, no doctor would tell a pregnant patient that had it that they should "tough it out", and I'm pretty sure no doctor would tell her that she shouldn't get surgery to fix it.
2) Is it really that easily mistaken for fibromyalgia? And would it really go undiagnosed for 7 years?
Their depiction of teenage depression is...ridiculous.
1) If a patient comes to you telling you that he is being bullied for liking anime (?????), and has been in and out of six schools for liking anime (???????), and is getting kicked in the shins for liking anime (ok, seriously?), and his mother tells him that he is a whimp for being upset about it, and that his dad would kick his ass for it if he were still alive, despite being the one who got him into anime (ok, come on, really?)...then no, I don't think that he is "hiding his depression from you".
2) If your depressed patient tries to kill himself via stabbing himself in the stomach (!), going up to him after he is treated by the doctors and asking him a) what he was thinking b) "Suicide is NEVER the answer!) and c) telling him how you were teased in HS and look now you have a hot wife? Not going to help. FFS.
Not to mention the insane treatment of Betsey, child of the deceased co-worker Dell, who saved all of their lives at one point or another and saved the life of one of their daughters when she was having a baby.
1) If you are a rich, private practice doctor with a) no children, b) one child or c) one child who is out of the house and married and you don't take in the child of a co-worker who did above, whose mother and father died horrifically just five months ago and has no been abandoned by her aunt in the middle of your office? You are a jerk.
2) If you do these things and then tell you that you are not going to take her in because you want her to get a "real mom and dad" and hope, hope that the system will provide her one despite knowing that the system fails most kids? You are a monster.
3) If you do these things after talking about how "disturbed" she is because her mother died in a meth lab explosion and her father died after not receiving treatment after a car accident? You are a double monster, which is not even a thing.
A child is not disturbed simply because her parents died. If you are going to tell us that she is disturbed and you want us to believe it, you cannot depict said child's 'disturb'ingness by showing her watching cartoons with a baby, drinking soda and being sad that her father is dead and someone else has his office so she can't color.
Frowning and sad eyes because her father is dead does not equal disturbed. Especially not in a seven year old girl.
What the fuck.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Some Chiarians feel better during pregnancy, but some don't. Some can give birth through natural labor while some need C-sections. The disorder has some hallmark symptoms but can affect and strike a lot of people differently. I figure the doctor wouldn't want her to get the surgery during the pregnancy because the surgery is onerous and risky, but after she regained her strength after birth maybe.
Is it really that easily mistaken for fibromyalgia? And would it really go undiagnosed for 7 years?
You have no idea the bs we go through with doctors. Chiari gets mistaken for a lot of things, including the classic "stress." I have a lot of fibromyalgia-like symptoms myself. After years of temporary Chiari symptom interludes that confused my doctors, I had to be ill to the point of dying to finally get a correct diagnosis. Some people have been misdiagnosed for years. Some for decades. One Chiarian whose right arm has been numb for 30 years has finally been diagnosed but the doctor won't do surgery because "it's not like you'll be playing football, right?"
Many doctors have erroneous or outdated information on the disorder. Some think the size of the herniation is all that matters and who cares if the patient is in agony, having seizures, losing sensations in limbs, can't sleep or eat, can't get out of bed, etc. Some will diagnose you with Chiari but say that the Chiari can't be causing your Chiari symptoms so they're not going to work on it. Some refuse to prescribe painkillers, especially opiates, because they don't want their patient to become an "addict."
no subject
no subject
Of course, the people on the lists are mostly people who haven't had good results, while those who have successful surgeries move on with their lives. The statistics I've heard said that 80% of the surgeries are successful. Though one time in The Chiari Institute's waiting room I met one woman who had a successful surgery and no symptoms for five years after it until recently, when it all came back, some of it even worse. When I met her she wore a neck brace almost full time, was in horrible pain, and could barely keep food down.