Okay that sucked

[ysobel]

Had a video chat with my primary care doc.

In her perception of the world:

* doctors always look for signs of autism and adhd in children
* it is rare if not impossible for anyone to get through school without all appropriate diagnoses
* this includes dyslexia (oh my god the skepticism in her voice when she was telling me about another patient of hers that ~thinks she has dyslexia~ despite having gotten ~all the way to grad school~)
* adhd meds are stimulants and work the same way on all brains so giving adhd meds to an adhd person will cause more problems than it's worth
* because I am not in school and do not work, there is absolutely zero reason to pursue a diagnosis
* (when I pointed out that it's not just a matter of "I can't do things I need to do" but "I can't even do things I WANT to do" she said that it would be ridiculous to put me on meth so I can watch a movie)
* adults with adhd don't take meds anyway, except maybe as-needed if they're in an exceptionally stimulating environment
* I am only having these problems because of increasing physical limitations and also anxiety (even though I've said several times that the behaviors and thought patterns go back to childhood, pre-dating even the existence of my depression)
* my existing diagnoses (FOP and anxiety) are all I need to get adequate support (ahahahahahaha)

I just ... ::flails incoherently::

Oh, and she was baffled by the hostility (actually desperation) in my responses because her telling me all this was just her, like, explaining the roadblocks I might face, and she's just the messenger. Even though none of it was phrased as "you might get resistance because xyz", it was all "xyz is absolute fact and also your needs don't matter because you don't work"

She's usually really good about stuff. Just ... not this.

Comments

[prissi]

Hi Isa. It makes me sad to hear you had this experience, from a number of different perspectives, including "hi I was diagnosed in adulthood, but only after self-diagnosing myself after diagnosing it others a ton myself". And yes, that was after getting told I didn't have it, by a psychologist I got sent to after I was struggling lots in med school. ;)

If you have a referral to adult neuro, I'm afraid you may not really get much of anywhere -- they have even less training in managing this than peds neurology. Your best bet is honestly psychiatry, or maybe there are adult neurologists in your area that may be more familiar and known to handle ADD diagnoses in adults well. If you'd like, let me know what your insurance is and I can work on trying to help you find someone in your area (I presume you're still in NorCal?)

[ysobel]

I would love help 💜💜💜

Yes, NorCal, close to Sacramento. Insurance is blue cross primary, but also Medicare and Medi-cal. And honestly I'd be willing to pay out of pocket at this point, as long as it's not like five million dollars. But something covered by insurance would be nice.

(I tried telling my doctor like a million times that it needed to be a referral to someone familiar with how adhd presents in adult women, because it's different than assessing kids, but I don't think she really grokked why, or really paid much attention to what I was saying.)

[conuly]

It's not five million, but five thou is about what we paid. And btw, when we told the neuropsych we had Blue Cross/Blue Shield they said "Oh. Them." and with that in mind it's hardly surprising we were never quite able to figure out how to wrangle insurance into paying up.