Faith in your GP

My appts are getting further and further apart too. This recent on I made three weeks go. I can't cope with phoning 8.30 - 9am to an always engaged number...
....If I feel I need an appt I ring later and make one to speak to my doctor, who will get me in if it seems urgent. But the phone appts are getting further ahead too!

That is shocking, Tallulah. My surgery seems to have a major problem deciding how to allocate appointments. A few years ago you could ask for a non-urgent or urgent appointment and get in the same day or the day after if need be. A year ago it changed - I rang for one and was told the earliest available was over a fortnight hence. This concerned me as I felt that a less confident patient who needed to be seen quickly would just accept this. This year it's changed again. Ring before 9 for an late morning appointment the same day, between 9 and 12 for an afternoon one, etc. The trouble now is that you've no option to say you don't need to be seen quickly and feel guilty taking up a same day appointment if that's the case. Oh, and of course the phone is constantly engaged...

Tallulah that is awful. We are guaranteed a same-day appointment. I say that, not in any spirit of 'we're all right Jack' but in recognition of the terrible postcode lottery that exists in the UK.

This cannot go on for another 5 years please, as it will surely only get worse.

I didn't know my GP had been away and only just got my letter a few days ago.
She was so nice yesterday and I managed to put my arguments well and summarise the reasons I think I could have problems from my radiotherapy so long ago.
She thinks I could be right.

But admitted she didn't know who I could be referred to. However, I had already talked to a MacMillan's nurse on the phone in the afternoon, and she has said she will try and find out for me what possibilities there are.

My husband went into the surgery this morning to book an appointment, the first one available was 31st May!!!

Well the GP I am actually registered with is useless unless you know exactly what you want. I go to another in the practice. He is thorough and very kind.
There is a new young woman GP who seems OK and helpful but I have only seen her once.

I have confidence in my usual GP. When I see him, he turns the computer screen towards me so that I can see the results of any investigations and tests. One of his colleagues made arrangements to phone me to let me know that I had gallstones! The doctors in that practice have a reputation for good patient relationships.

I have, by letter, but I haven't had any answer in a month.
I have an appointment tomorrow.....

Simply ask her to refer you.

Hoe do I get the GP to refer me?

My usual GP was very sympathetic when my daughter died two years ago, she was very good. But since then I have been having a lot of tests, heart, respiration, chest discomfort, I also have scoliosis of the spine. I feel I have been referred here there and everywhere for different parts of me....

Now I realise that many of my symptoms may be late aftereffects of radiotherapy I had in 1996 after breast cancer, and I want to be referred to a specialist, but instead I have a letter from the last consultant saying he thinks my symptoms result from depression and low mood!

I feel I have been here before, as years ago my old GP decided I had an anxiety neurosis. I left thinking - 'NO, I am ill!' - eventually a viral pneumonia was diagnosed.

It is possible of course, as late effects of radiation are only slowly being researched, that they don't know where to refer me to?
It's very frustrating, and I feel I am slowly getting worse and able to do less.

I don't know your medical history tiffaney but one test I would be asking for if I were you would be for coeliac disease. I am sure you are correct, that pernicious anaemia can cause stomach problems but coeliac disease (which, of course, causes stomach problems) can also lead to anaemia and even pernicious anaemia apparently.
It can be detected from a blood test but you have to have eaten gluten-rich foods for at least a couple of weeks beforehand and an endoscopy would confirm it.
Of course, this may have been discounted previously but it is worth mentioning it to your GP.

Wow, well I haven't been on here for a couple of days so imagine my surprise when I saw how many replies had been added to my thread! Albeit that most of them are abour stripping off for the dr. hahah! If my gp asked me to take all my clothes of I would think it was my lucky day!!! Going back to the comments about B12. Yes I do look at the PA Society web pages and I've signed the petition to access our own treatment. Also I am a member of the PA/B12 support group and their various sub-groups so I thought I was right about NOT being able to overdose on B12. Maybe I am just not confident enough to sit in front of a dr (in whom we put our trust) and argue with him a fact he has stated which I'm 99% sure is untrue, especially when his colleague has also stated the same to me. It's beginning to feel like a conspiracy now, kind of like 'if we give in to this PA patient, they'll ALL be here demanding more injections'. I've had PA now for 15 years and was never informed that all the stomach issues I've had over the years were down to PA. Recently since the stomach problems have got worse (Atrophic Gastritis) my need for B12 has increased. Keep the comments coming people, I'm finding them all very interesting, thanks.

Doversole I am sure you could have any treatment available, even those not fully clinically tested, in the US provided you can pay.
In the meantime I am very grateful for the NHS.

I attend an injuries clinic on a monthly basis for my back and NEVER have to strip off! Lift my t shirt yes. Pull down trousers a tad, yes but nothing embarrassing or uncomfortable. My GP always asks if I want a nurse in attendance if he has to go below the waist - or above, come to that. Sounds some additional training is needed for this young GP - for his own good as much as anyone else's

If patients have to strip off it is usual to do a bit at a time. You would never have a patient totally naked in front of you. ie above waist first, cover that up, lower half second.

Touching Wood here, but I hardly see the Doctor. My Husband does though as he has PD. Until then he had never seen a Doctor either. It was purely random which GP he saw when he first presented with the PD symptoms. They get on well, the GP is very to the point( which DH likes), and he listens very well to everything DH tells him. He has been extremely supportive in every way.

One thing which impressed me greatly was that shortly after DH was diagnosed the GP called me to ask how I was!!, he also asked us to come in together so he could meet me, and have a chat with the both of us.

Bonus is he is also very good looking

With the pernicious anaemia conundrum ..... This is just the sort of thing I would check on the internet. Just a thought.

Removing one's clothes for a back examination - this seems reasonable because the doctor was perhaps checking the alignment of your back, hips, etc which was easier to do without your clothes. My physio always did this, though I left my bra on.

If you are being checked for skin cancer then you need to be naked especially as really nasty ones can appear on the soles of your feet. BUT that only needs doing every year or two not at normal attendance due to something else.
It should be quickly done and then you get dressed again for the spoken consultation

Yes Ana we are all doomed (medically speaking) if we insist on staying in the UK. Money doesn't solve the problem either because the standards in private practice are still inculcated with the sub-optimal way of practising medicine that is prevalent in the NHS. The funny thing is that I still choose to live here even though I could easily be living in other parts of the world - the UK is still special and still a good place to be, IMHO.

Oops ! .....have faith in her GP ....

Oh dear, looks like we're all doomed...

Going back to the OP's comment about whether or not to have in her GP: I've come to the realisation that doctor training in the uk is not great , at least compared to doctors in France, the US and Canada where I have first hand experience. I think it's a combination of accepted norms and practices in the NHS and the UK medical profession (maybe promoted or at least tolerated by the GMC) that over time have brought this about. I definitely feel less safe here in the uk in the hands of our doctors and the NHS. So sad to say but I don't have much faith in GPs though I am sure most if not all of them are good people trying to do their best.

Gransnet's open to both men and women, and to people who don't even have grandchildren! Haven't you even noticed the Granddads' Shed thread...?

Why are there men on here? I thought this was Gransnet, not Grandadsnet! Heaven forbid with some of the posts on here! Ha ha!