Went to the GP yesterday because I'm having some serious joint pain. This is nothing new -- I've had surgery on both knees, too many X-rays and MRIs to count, and even more rounds of physical therapy. Nobody knows the cause, nobody knows the treatment.
Anyway... yesterday I go because the tendonitis in my hand is back and I was told to come back about the knees at the end of the month. I go in, explain the situation to the guy and he just sits there, staring at me.
'Hmmm. You sure are a complicated case. What should we do?'
Not a rhetorical question, either. He honestly expected me to tell him what to do.
Then he looks at the computer for a few minutes and comments on the list of meds I'm on. I explain what they're for, and he starts asking about my cluster headaches. I answer, but make clear that I'm not there because of the headaches, those are under control.
He stares around the room a bit more. He looks at the bloodwork results, which I already told him were normal and which he looked at when I first got in there, and comments that everything's normal.
He finally does a physical exam, where he pokes the wrong part of my hand and makes me bend one knee (both are bad).
He stares some more.
Finally he says that he doesn't want to do more steroid injections for my hand because he's afraid the tendon is going to rupture. Then he says I should probably see a specialist about my joint pain (duh!), but he can't refer me to them directly, I'll have to go to the musculo-skeletal group first, and I'll probably get an appointment at the end of the month.
I ask what do I do for now. He actually shrugs and says, 'pain killers? anti-inflammatories?' I tell him I had an NSAID-induced ulcer. He goes, 'Oh. Maybe try the spray ones because they're less likely to give you an ulcer? But you can't drink those.' (That completely threw me, and I just stared at him, absolutely puzzled by the last sentence.)
He stares some more, so I get up and say a half-hearted thanks. He says 'Good luck.' I say, 'I'm used to this. There's nothing quite like being 15 and having your first orthopedic surgeon tell you we should try and hold out as long as possible before we do a knee replacement.' Then I give him a thumbs up and walk out.
On the walk home, I was almost crying because it was such a useless endeavour.
