Healthcare is highly specialized these days. As a healthcare worker, I get why. I work in a highly specialized field. If you have something wrong with your brain or nervous system, we are your people.

If you have a gaping wound on another part of your body, if your endocrine system is off-kilter, or your heart occasionally breaks into a gallop or takes up interpretive dance – then, we have to call in OTHER specialists to deal with those issues.

The benefit of this is that the specialists are really good at knowing what to do with these isolated issues, but I’m never sure if any one of them sees the entire person in front of them.

I’m not sure if anyone has ever seen all of me.

I know a lot of my issues (all of them?) are because my immune system is on overdrive. I’m on a number of different meds to control the symptoms and my body’s function. None of those medications is actually treating the root cause of the inflammation. I think that’s because no one knows what the root cause is.

Right now, the symptom management is not doing it, at all.

One of my doctors proposed a new medication. I’ve been a bit on edge with this doctor since we first started seeing each other.

It started when he threw my diagnosis out the window and started from scratch. The last time a doctor did that, I endured painful and invasive tests, only to be told that I did indeed have what I had. This time, it was a painful physical exam where the doctor expertly dug his fingers into the exact point in each joint from which the pain radiates. He interrupted me constantly. He determined I had a different condition than three previous professionals had diagnosed. But he seems eager to help me, and I wanted to give him a chance.

I felt suspicious when he called medications by their name brands, and quickly got rid of the boring, old school medication I was on and put me on a new, shiny medication that had a name I knew from commercials. The pain got worse for a while, and then it went back to about the same it was before, so, not an improvement.

In the days leading up to a recent appointment, I’d accidentally come across a medication in a completely unrelated podcast. It’s called Sweaty and Pissed (*smirk* Since then, they’ve changed the name of the podcast to Itchy and Bitchy). It’s a podcast about perimenopause and menopause, which are ridiculously under-researched because they happen to women. Women are hard to study because they have periods for part of their lives. At least, that’s the excuse I’ve heard for the lack of research on half the human population.

The med I heard about is as old as the hills, has almost no risk, is inexpensive, and has shown potential in studies to decrease pain in patients with autoimmune disorders.

I did some precursory research online and based on what I saw, the studies were relatively small, but had the words you want: Double Blind, Placebo, Name of a Prestigious Institution, etc. They said the medication showed promise.

I told my doctor this. He repeated my diagnosis (I’ve spent the past 8 or 9 years with a different diagnosis, and I keep calling my problems by their old name. It’s BARBARA, not NANCY, he said in raised tones. I need you to understand what I’m saying.) and said that AS A CERTIFIED MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN BOARD OF RHEUMATOLOGY, I only prescribe medications that have been brought to me in a briefcase by a pharmaceutical rep. It helps if they also bring Mets tickets, a mug, or a nice pen.

OK, other than the part in caps, that’s not what he said, but that is what I heard.

I’ve never met a doctor who was glad I did internet research. They’re like the priests of old, reading the scriptures to the illiterate masses in Latin. Also, you can get the internet to tell you literally anything you want to hear, so it can’t be trusted. Doctors, on the other hand, know everything and are always right.

I didn’t present my doctor with specific studies about the medication, Low Dose Naltrexone, or LDN (the same one they use to treat addiction, but a way smaller dose). I didn’t get a chance to tell him much before he said no.

Instead, he wanted to prescribe a medication that would require special permission from my insurance (read: it is expensive and the insurance won’t approve it without a fight).

This medication had a long list of potential side effects and isn’t even prescribed in Europe due to the risks. I listened to what the doctor had to say; I didn’t really have a choice since he interrupts me every time I speak up.

I didn’t say no during that visit, but by the time I knew a little more about the medication, I was pretty sure I didn’t want it.

Once you read the list of side effects, you start questioning if you’re all that miserable the way things are now.

By the end of that day, I had looked up the name of a local naturopath and made an appointment. I found a company online that was willing to mail me the medication I sought. It’s that low risk. Someone in a pharmacy reads your online health form and says, sure, you can have these pills. They give you instructions for how to take it, and that’s it.

I sent an email to my doctor saying I needed time to think about the new medication, and that I was seeking out a second opinion.

I didn’t tell him my second opinion wasn’t another BOARD CERTIFIED RHEUMATOLOGIST, but rather a doctor I’m almost certain he would consider a quack.

The naturopath is going to want to do expensive diagnostic tests. She’ll find out I’m allergic to all my favorite foods, that my body is abysmally low in every vitamin and mineral. I’m sure I have adrenal fatigue and the treatment will be something that is completely incompatible with my way of life.

I’ll have to start eating ORGANIC WHOLE FOODS, drinking water that’s been filtered by a more expensive method than the one we use now, and making spinach and dirt smoothies to make up for my nutrient deficiencies. Whatever the treatment is, it will be expensive and time consuming. And possibly also taste bad.

Maybe I will say, I don’t have time for this now, this is so hard that the toxic medication my doctor, A CERTIFIED MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN BOARD OF RHEUMATOLOGY, has recommended, is looking pretty good about now. I should have saved myself some time and gone with that option to begin with.

But there is a chance she’ll look at my kaleidoscope of symptoms and say, those are all related, and I think I can help. I see that you’re short on time and mental bandwidth, so let’s keep it simple. I’d rather you make changes you can manage. Otherwise, you may give up before you have a chance to see any benefit.

That might happen. And on the off chance it does, I’m going to give it a try.

I have few recent photos to pick from for my posts lately. I had camera issues for a while, and now apathy issues. The majority of my photos are like this one, a selfie taken with my youngest, who always knows how to find me when I’m horizontal, no matter where I’m hiding.