Do you have a condition that no one believes you have? - Page 2

Munchkin03 · #16 03-15-2005, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KappaKittyCat
I also have asthma, and I hate it when smokers (some of these my "friends") are rude and blow smoke in my face even after I tell them that I'm having trouble breathing.

That's really messed up. I've never had a problem telling friends, drunk or sober, that their smoking is interfering with my breathing. They've all been really accomodating.

KSigkid · #17 03-15-2005, 03:16 PM

It's not necessarily that people didn't believe me, but...

I actually have a heart condition, Wolff-Parkinson White syndrome. It's an arrythmia disorder, so sometimes I'll have palpitations and a rapid heartbeat, even when I'm just sitting around. Other doctors had always chalked it up to anxiety, but finally my current PCP did and EKG (really the only way to diagnose it), and found that something was wrong. Right now things aren't too bad; every once in a while I'll have problems, but nothing will be done at this point. In the future if it gets to be a quality of life issue, they would do an ablation, but that's not an option that either I or my doctors want to consider right now.

Have some other stuff going on healthwise, but I'm not ready to divulge my entire health history.

honeychile · #18 03-15-2005, 03:35 PM

I have had this diagnosed as several different things, but I tend to get dehydrated much too easily. My enzymes get thrown off and it either affects my heart (much like your symptoms, KSigkid) or I pass out.

Most of my soccer friends didn't believe me until two summers ago, when I passed out during a game. They take me VERY seriously now!

RedRoseSAI · #19 03-15-2005, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by crzychx
I have a mild form of OCD....

I hoard everything....I never throw away a magazine, especially my cosmopolitans & my Sigma Kappa Triangles, & I even keep the wrappers of some of the food I eat (like fruit leather.)

...I'm almost wondering if continuing medication really would help. My family doctor is a weird one ...

For a long time I considered my OCD a problem but now its just part of who I am. I wouldn't mind being able to relax a little though, because my anxiety is constantly through the roof.

PLEASE seek alternative help! If not for you, then for your friends and family! My mother-in-law is much like you just described, and has made life for my husband, his brother, and their father a living hell. From what I understand, it's gotten worse over the years. I'm sure if her OCD was under control, things would be much, much different (and much better)!

cashmoney · #20 03-15-2005, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ZTAngel
ADHD.
I become bored way too easily. I can't concentrate on one task for more than 20 minutes or else I get antsy.

They just think I'm fidgety or that I can't focus when it's just that my mind will start racing with a billion other things.

I'm the same way. I just thought that ment I was smarter than everyone else.

Dionysus · #21 03-15-2005, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ladygreek
I think in some cases it may be denial. My daughter was recently diagnosed with MS and it took me a little while to accept it.

First of all, I'm sorry. My mother was in denial for seven years that her mother had Alzheimer's. Denial, especially with more serious conditions, I understand. But when people confuse less serious conditions as a "lack of willpower" it gets my blood boiling.

Dionysus · #22 03-15-2005, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ZTAngel
ADHD.
I become bored way too easily. I can't concentrate on one task for more than 20 minutes or else I get antsy. I guess that's why I'm on GC so much at work because it gives me a break every once in a while.
When I was younger, a teacher had suggested to my mother that I get tested for it because she believed I had it but my mother refused. My mom thought that if I had it, the doctors would just want to put me on meds. My mom being a teacher that, at the time, was teaching children with emotional problems, figured that she could teach me to overcome it myself. I guess I found my own ways of dealing with it but nobody believes that I have it. They just think I'm fidgety or that I can't focus when it's just that my mind will start racing with a billion other things.

My mom believed that I had it as a kid and even let them medicated me starting at age 13. However, since I started college she thinks that I somehow outgrew it. I'm not as nearly as hyper as I used to be, but I'm still having LOTS of trouble concentrating. She can't undertand why I need to turn down the TV/radio/computer in order to listen to her. My dad has never believed that I have had it. He also doesn't believe that there is a such a thing as ADHD - or any other neurological conditions. He just think they are nothing but laziness, bad morals, selfishness, and DEMONS.

Regarding other posts...that is just really fucked up how people deny your physical conditions.

If someone blew smoke in my face after telling them I have asthma, someone else would have to HOLD ME! Regarding those with digestive problems, have those cynics follow you around after eating your trigger foods. You can't fake excessive flatulence, the squirts, or vomiting. That will teach them.

squirrely girl · #23 03-15-2005, 05:14 PM

i've got a problem where my blood likes to clot...very quickly. i can't donate blood. but my mom thinks i'm crazy...

the only other thing wrong with me is nerve damage in my right arm, but most everybody believes me on that because they've seem my arm totally spaz on me/them to where i can't hold things...

-marissa

WCUgirl · #24 03-15-2005, 05:16 PM

As I was growing up, I had to watch my dad go through "spells" where he became physically ill and needed to lie down. He had lots of different symptoms that went with it, and was eventually diagnosed as having anxiety and had to start taking meds for it. My mother, to this day, swears it's all in his head. There were times when she would get angry and scream at him b/c she didn't think there was anything really wrong with him -- she thought he didn't want to work/mow the lawn/whatever and mentally forced himself to become ill.

I know now that it's not just in his head, as I've experienced some of the things he was experiencing when he was having these spells. I haven't been diagnosed w/ any sort of anxiety disorder as of yet, and lately things have been okay, but I think I sort of know what my father was going through.

It's just so incredulous to me that someone could deny that someone they love is truly ill.

_Lisa_ · #25 03-15-2005, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RedRoseSAI
PLEASE seek alternative help! If not for you, then for your friends and family! My mother-in-law is much like you just described, and has made life for my husband, his brother, and their father a living hell. From what I understand, it's gotten worse over the years. I'm sure if her OCD was under control, things would be much, much different (and much better)!

I guess I just don't see how it effects my friends & family besides the occasional disagreement?

SissaYSU · #26 03-15-2005, 05:23 PM

Physiologically I have a bad case of hypoglycemia and asthma that has not acted up in a long time

(happy face cuz my asthma has been very good) My hypoglycemia is a pain in the ass. I am on a strict diet because it falls so easily...have to keep a very strict eye on the carbs (can eat all the complex carbs I want, I have grown to like wheat bread...it's the carbs in white bread...simple carbs... that my body doesn't handle so well) and simple sugars and absolutely no drinking whatsoever anymore (drinking drops a normal person's blood sugar...when I drank it caused my sugar to crash...it used to suck to go to a bar or a club with friends and have to drink sprite but it's not worth getting sick over...plus I get to laugh at my friends making fools of themselves and not deal with the hangover in the morning

I have to test my blood sugar with a glucometer too which isn't so bad anymore. I have never had the problem of nobody believing I had the problem. My sisters all know I have it. I've had problems with it before when they were around.

~Sissa

Rudey · #27 03-15-2005, 05:23 PM

Does a hangover count?

-Rudey

ZTABullwinkle · #28 03-15-2005, 05:55 PM

After my first knee surgery, I was in EXTREME pain. The doctor told me that I couldn't e having that much pain with the epidural. He found out two days later when I passed out because of the pain when he cut the stitches to pull out my drains. That was just the beginning!

I tried to return to school, but couldn't stand to wear a shoe (sometimes even a sock. I couldn't stay in school all day. My mom actually threatened to pull me out of school, because I was "just trying to get attention."

I had another surgery to break up scar tissue a month later (couldn't bend my knee more than 30 degrees...after I bit my physical therapist in pain...Doctor realized something was up.) I got out of the hospital the day before Thanksgiving. The pain was so bad by 8 PM, my father tried to slap me out of it.

It wasn't until two and half months later we found out I had a nerve disorder, Refelxive Sympathetic Dystrophy. Hard to explain, but VERY painful. I was lucky that I had a doctor who had two other patients with it. He recognized the symptoms but waited because he felt I was too young to get it.

Now the biggest problem I have is when I start falling because that knee collapses. It usually takes me a good six months of going to my orthopedist before I can convince him that I have another buil-up of scar tissue that is causing my knee to lock and collapse. Each time he has done surgery, he comes out and tells my mother (or my boyfriend last time)....she really needed that surgery. I should have done it sooner!

On top of that, I have been struggling with depression and anxiety from this injury. It has been VERY hard on my parents and brother, but I am very lucky to have them.

I would love to an insurance adjuster for Workmen's Comp. I would probably be too empathetic. I know there are those few out there that do ruin it for those of us who are truly sick. BUT...MAN has my adjuster put me through hell since I got hurt!

(sorry so long....I will end my rant.)

pinkyphimu · #29 03-15-2005, 10:33 PM

i am so glad i found this thread....

my family has been a bit in denial that i have suffered from depression. they somewhat understood when i broke up with the guy i had been nearly engaged to because i had a reason. they didn't get why i needed to take meds because i should just get over it. it didn't help when i would tell them that i was so depressed i couldn't put my shoes on to go out. anyway, they saw that it helped, but really focused on the "time heals the heart" thing. when i told them that i had gone to the doctors for meds again a few years later becuase i was depressed....they thought it was bc of the guy again...lol. no, i was just depressed.

i have also been told by a doctor at my college health center that i didn't have a uti (even tho i heard her and the nurse arguing about the white blood cells in my urine sample right outside my door). she told me i was irritated bc i had sex. when i told her that i hadn't she told me i was lying. ummm, why would i lie? it is not like my mom was sitting right there.

then another time this same doctor flat out told me that there was nothing wrong with me and i was making it up. there were 5 people living in my house who had all been to the same doctor and had bronchitis. i had the exact same symptoms and went in a few days after they did and she told me i was lying. i didn't know what to do, so when i went home for thanksgiving, my parents brought me to my family doctor. well, i had borderline pnemonia bc my bronchitis had gone untreated. he was HORRIFIED when i told him what she said. from that moment on, i went to the emergency room whenever there was something wrong with me. it was better for my parents to pay for me to get good health care than get crappy free health care.

finally, is anyone else completely annoyed by the commercials for orlando, fl???? the one that says since so many people don't take their vacation time, they have to take pills for happiness??? and if they just went to orlando, they wouldn't need pills? i want to throw something at the tv everytime it comes on.

winnieb · #30 03-16-2005, 12:06 AM

I have ADD--- recently diagnosed and prescribed meds. My mom is convinced I just have too much stress and that is the reason for the symptoms. And a close family friend flat out told me the only reason I sought the diagnosis was because I wanted to take ADD meds since it is such a "popular" thing to have right now. I just nodded and smiled.