Yes, We Patients Do Know Some Things

In today's Washington Post, there is an article written by a doctor who actually admits that his patients do know something about their own selves, maybe even in more detail than the doctor herself knows.

A friend of mine recently was denied a prescription refill for birth control pills, which she has been on for 14 years, because of her elevated blood pressure. She kept insisting to her doctor that her pressure was only elevated when she was in the doctor's office. She bought an at home blood pressure monitor, and those at home readings backed up her claim. But the doctor wouldn't believe her, and refused to budge. In this Post article , the doctor/author tells the story of a similar patient:

I treated Morton for high blood pressure with a diuretic and a pill, Diovan, that dilates arteries. But when I began raising his Diovan dose in response to high readings -- ranging from 160 to 180 systolic pressure over 100 to 110 diastolic pressure (normal is generally considered less than 130 over 85) -- he was uneasy. Concerned about the potential side effects of higher doses, including fatigue and dizziness, he began to measure the pressure himself and record the values at home. The readings he got were consistently lower, 120 to 140 over 80 to 90.

What the two sets of readings suggested was "white coat syndrome," a recognized phenomenon in which blood pressure levels are higher in a doctor's presence. These results helped me to adjust his medications more effectively. Though I didn't disregard my own readings, I did begin to figure his in. I became less likely to raise his dosage automatically in response to an elevated value obtained in my office.

Now if I could only get my doctors to believe that I don't run fevers, and never have in my life (just like my mother and grandmother), I would be golden. I even tried to do the at home readings of my temperature (I went through a rough period of having extreme hot flashes followed by bone rattling chills). But when I attempted to take my temp at home, it showed it being like 90 degrees, or something ridiculously and impossibly low. Oh well, that's beside the point. I was just pleased to see that at least there is hope that some doctors might open their minds a bit to what the patient is telling them, and not solely consider hard #s from test results.