GP meltdown.

jayneayresister please reassure your DCs that not all patients take them for granted, and do realise they are doing an almost thankless job within a lousy system.

I have been fortunate with my GPs - since I moved last year I now have a female GP - first time ever. However I can't fault my treatment so far, going next week with what may be a problem which needs further investigation, not sure until I see her.

I have a problem with the Platelet Level in my Blood, she is monitoring me & when I needed six teeth out last month she did all she could to ensure I was ok for proceedure (Blood may not clot properly), she emailed Haematology to get their opinion when Hospital was reluctant to go ahead.

GPs do have a hard time & I try not to go unless it's absolutely necessary. Being on GN makes me grateful my Health problems are relatively minor

I couldn't agree more, jayneayresister. DD1 is a GP and the work of her practice has got progressively more difficult over the years, with an aging population, gov funding constraints, and the problem of recruiting new partners. They are fighting on too many fronts.

my husband had an aortic valve replacement 10 years ago,a tissue one. He was told it's a 10 year life span and it's been 11 years and is still looking ok.
He had a knee replacement 18 months ago and said that operation was much worse than his heart operation.
I have to say he is starting to get breathless more now,and the specialist did say that may happen as the valve began to deteriorate but the scan says it's ok so we have to go with that.

Exactly Caroline I keep being told by my cardiologist that this breathlessness and swollen ankles/legs is nothing to do with my aortic stenosis or my heart in general. So who am I to believe when my GP thinks it is? The most qualified? The surgeon? I am so confused over it all.

Thank you to you all though, you have put my mind at rest a bit if I do have to have it done soon. Of course, you will all be there to help me through it, so that makes it less scary.

I didn't have the blood test yesterday (Wednesday), I wasn't up to going back but I do have an appointment to go later today. And I will try to get the chest x ray done too. I have had a day, however, that I have wanted to pull the shutters down and hide today. Unfortunately I cannot bury my head in the sand and have to do this. It's been an awful year though and I will be glad when it's 2017, new optimism, new hope, new start.

I had the blood test today, and the chest x ray.

The very kind nurse took the blood test and told me that, unless I had had a phone call by close of play today, then all was fine. I have sat on pins all afternoon, waiting. Thankfully the telephone has not rung. So, it's not my heart then.

If it had been, she said I would have had to go into hospital straight away.

So, waiting on my chest x ray result now. The lady who did that was very nice too.

My experience is that all the GPs I have seen are useless. I had text book symptoms of a brain haemorrhage which I diagnosed, to be told that I had anxiety and I was sent to a counsellor. I saw at least three doctors, and guess who was right, me, from reading a medical book ( no internet at the time) ..... I no longer trust doctors at all,
I cannot tell you how many times my family has been misdiagnosed.

It's sad that so many people have had bad experiences. Mine have almost all been good and I have nothing but praise for the GP who saw my GS when, just over a week ago, DS took him to the GP with a lump in his armpit. His feet have hardly touched the ground since. After many tests,scans, x-rays, at a well-known teaching hospital, yesterday, under anaesthetic, he was found to have a very large abscess and we all drew a long relieved breath that it was nothing more sinister.

I avoid my GP surgery as much as possible. Not because I have anything against the doctors but because I'm aware that as jayneayresister states there are too many time wasters and worried well and I don't want to add to those numbers.

Our GPS do not need to see half the patients who come through their doors. Most illness are trivial and will clear up by themselves. People, like my BiL, who are there almost every week and yet refuse to look at their lifestyle.

No wonder some of our GPs are not performing at their best. They must get sick and tired of this type of patient.

I'm not using this as an excuse for not giving the best possible attention to those who, like rubylady are in genuine need, but it must be a soul-destroying job, when you've trained for years to have to dish out prescriptions for conditions such as constipation when you really just long to say to the person in front of you 'You are wasting my time. Either start eating properly or go and buy something from the chemist and sort yourself out '.