After having a lot of pain in my back and hips that seemed to not end, I knew it would be smart to see an orthopedic surgeon. I’m still sad that my original orthopedic surgeon isn’t with my insurance anymore because I did appreciate how he never talked down to me and really worked with me to make a plan. I’ve had a few appointments with other orthopedic surgeons since then, but I’ve never really worked consistently with another doctor. So I had to get a new referral, which fortunately was a very simple process. And I got everything all set to see this new doctor.
It turned out that this wasn’t a new doctor to me. I had forgotten that I had an appointment with them a few years ago. If I had remembered that, I might not have gone since I now know I didn’t have the best impression of him. But since I didn’t know that until I was in my appointment, I went into this appointment hoping that I would like this surgeon and that maybe they would be the newest member of my medical team. But instead, I left that appointment feeling pretty certain that I will never see this doctor again and knowing I need to submit a complaint about them.
I know that going in for a random check for an ongoing medical condition isn’t the most normal thing, but when I set up this appointment I was still in a lot of pain. I’m glad the pain is gone now, but I would like to know what was causing it since you really can’t get diagnosed post-pain. Because of how it happened and ended, I feel like it must have been a back issue and not a hip issue. And it might have been something as simple as pulling a muscle. I know there isn’t anything wrong with my spine (based on information I got in this appointment) and there’s nothing else that is obvious. So while I started this appointment explaining that’s why I made the appointment, it was really only for a few moments before we moved on.
This doctor asked me what else was going on and I tried to explain my history with my hips. That’s when the doctor said that they had seen me a few years prior. I then moved on to explain that the pain I had worried me and I knew that I still needed a few surgeries for my hips and that I’ve gone longer than my original surgeon expected me to be able to go. As soon as I said that, this doctor said that they didn’t agree with anything my other doctor said and that I might be in a worse situation because of my first surgery. That really didn’t sit right with me. I knew how much pain I was in before and how that surgery helped. To be told that surgery wasn’t a smart thing to do really contradicts my experience.
And things just continued to get worse. Basically, the rest of the appointment was this doctor telling me I need to lose weight. They implied that if I was in pain now, they wouldn’t even recommend doing any diagnostic testing as they would not treat me until I was at a weight they felt was right for me. I know that there is a fat bias in the healthcare field and I have experienced that from time to time. But it’s usually been from doctors who I won’t see again. For example, once at Urgent Care, the doctor I saw asked me about losing weight when I was there for strep throat. Weight has nothing to do with strep. But with my regular doctors, I usually don’t get weight lectures because they understand that my problems don’t necessarily connect to my weight. But this doctor seemed to not want to discuss anything else.
They could see that I am working on my weight and am working with someone in bariatric medicine, but they were almost hounding me and asking over and over again what I am going to do to lose the weight they think I need to lose (which is also 40 pounds more than what any of my other doctors recommend for me). I kept explaining what I was doing and they just wouldn’t listen or understand that I am working on it. I don’t know what answer they wanted me to give them. They asked what I was going to do and I told them and their response was to ask me what I’m doing. It was so frustrating and I really was ready for the appointment to be over because I could tell that this was going nowhere.
Finally, they did review my x-rays with me and said that I do still have some hip dysplasia on one side (which is a birth defect and completely unrelated to weight) and that there is no sign of arthritis or any other issues. But then it got back to them asking me about my weight and what I would do before they felt like it was too late. I was feeling just over this appointment and was so glad when they ended things with me by saying that if I do have any more pain that I would need to be at the low weight they want me at before they would consider helping me.
I have never had a doctor say that they wouldn’t help me if I didn’t meet their weight requirements. I’ve also never had a doctor who could see what steps I was taking toward losing weight and just ignore them or dismiss my previous efforts. I think that was not right of them. What if I had a lot of pain right now and they refused to help me because of my weight but it ended up being something they could have fixed if they had listened to me before? I follow someone on social media who was dismissed by a doctor when they went in to discuss their pain because of their weight and when they got to another doctor who was willing to work with them, it was discovered they had stage 3 colon cancer. Refusing to help patients because of weight isn’t right. I would have understood if this doctor said that they wouldn’t recommend a hip replacement until I was at a different weight or if they discussed why weight can cause issues with that surgery. But to say they wouldn’t do anything for me unless I lost weight was just awful.
I am working on writing up a complaint about this doctor. I know I wasn’t treated fairly and that they wouldn’t have cared what my complaint was because they wouldn’t see me as a worthy patient until I was at their goal weight. And to have a doctor ignore what I’ve been doing and see that I’m working on weight isn’t fair either. They knew what medications I’m on and what doctors I’m seeing, yet they didn’t care because they wanted me to do something other than what my other doctors recommended and what their plan is for me. I have lost some weight since starting my new medication. I’m down about 3% of my body weight, which I think is pretty good for it just being a month so far. But it could have been 50% of my weight and I feel like this doctor would have been just as dismissive of me.
I’m grateful that the pain I was experiencing is gone for now so I don’t have to worry about seeing this doctor again. And I do want to find a different doctor to work with me because I don’t feel comfortable with this doctor at all. Even if I was at the weight they want me to be, I would still know that they wouldn’t want to help me if I gained weight and got out of the range they want me to be in. I don’t need someone helping me who only wants to help if I match specific things. Unfortunately, this doctor is the only hip specialist at the hospital I go to. So I would need to find a different medical center to meet someone else. But honestly, I think the drive would be worth it so I’m not treated like this again.
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