Gaslighting By Medical Doctors

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

Can relate to it but never thought about it being gaslighting. But I see the parallels.

For me it was constant back pain near the shoulder blades. I had a rough accident as a teenager and they had to staple me together from ankle to the back. So bad sometimes I could not sleep or function in daily life. The painkillers they gave me were horrible on my stomach and I only took them as a last resort, because I feared getting addicted and end up on something heavier, like morphines.

Besides that I also took stomach protectors because of the meds. Now, after some years it got better but then after a massage it got really bad. Different pain, same place and I went to the doctor. He pressed around there a bit, made me scream up in pain and prescribed more massages. I looked at him and said something is not right, it's different pain than I am used to, more bright, pointy and "meaty". Like something is stuck there. He started pulling out a pamplet about phantom pain and that it may be time to do a physical rehabilitation, so I can learn to live with it blablabla.

I actually went there and they didn't even do an xray on me, I got the label that it's in my head or respectively the pain was so bad it burned into my head and now I feel it even though there is not physical cause. It got better a bit and I was doing the workouts they taught me to do. "The cat" and similar.

Half a year later pain is back and even more excruciating. I went to a second doctor, he touched there, I scream up again in pain and he asks me about the scars there and all over. I told him and he requested the files from the hospital. That took a while because they store it somewhere else after ten years. Turns out, that in the medical summary when I was let go from hospital as a teen, they said that there is still a broken bone fragment on a disc that they could not remove at that time. In the section where they recommend further healing support, it was about tending to the scars and getting psychologic help to cope.

The specialist, when I visited the second time after I was called they have the medical info, instantly put me into an xray and there it was. A little splinter broke off and started to pierce into the muscle tissue around my spine. Nothing serious in a way it would threaten any nerves, but serious enough for him to call the local hospital and ask if he can send me over for the next day. Well they would not. A few weeks later, I got it removed. It was only as small as like, pulling of a bit of the finger nail but enough to make my life hell.

Since then everything is fine and I have so much more life quality when it's about my back. The incision they made healed completely and I can not even feel it anymore when I search for it with my fingers. Yeah but at first, I was only thinking there is pain.

Doctors are fast with their diagnosis sometimes. He seen me franatical plead for help and thought I am histrionic or mental and went with the "there there, look at what this nice place is, a place for you to calm down and recover. And I believed it!!!

I believed it and sat into the classes about pain management and "phantom pain". I accepted it until it got worse again and I thought "this can't be it". After that, I made an appointment with that doc. Just to get back on him how he stamped me with the psychosomatic label "phantom pain" but all he had to say was "It didn't hurt you going there or did it" and of course it did not, the asshole implied something else that was uncovered there. Too dark for this thread anyways but that led me to seek another doctor. I did not hope for an apollogy but at least him thinking twice with the next patient.

He made the impression on me that he was not phased by this in any way and that's when I looked for another doctor.

I have seen bone fragments migrate for years, doing a bit of damage along the way.

I think it is amazing how hard, and persistently the body will work to remove a object it considers foreign.

We truly are an amazing species.