I didn't realize until yesterday how my son really felt about all of the recent doctor visits and assessments until yesterday at the base clinic where we went hoping to get treatment for what we think might be migraine headaches. After three heart rate and blood pressure readings were high, even though they kept telling him to relax, the military doctor finally asked him why he was so nervous. I could easily see why he might be nervous. The doctor looked intimidating even to me in her military uniform. She made no attempt to make my son feel at ease. She didn't take the time to tell him what she was going to do before she did it and when my son nervously asked what she was going to do next a few times, she seemed irritated with him and said she was the doctor and he needed to be quiet and do what she told him to do. He wasn't refusing to do anything, he just wanted to know. I am the same way and I have always told him he has the right to ask questions and he has the right to know what the doctor is going to do to his body.
He told her the reason he was nervous was that it seemed like every time he went to the doctor they wanted to diagnose him with something else. He said he didn't mind going to the dentist (she takes time to talk to him and put him at ease before she does anything) but he also said he thinks he might have a problem with anesthesia working on him as well as it does other people because when the dentist started working on his teeth the last time it still hurt a little. He joked that maybe the dentist had given him a placebo and then he said it ended up being a.... When he couldn't think of the word, he asked me what the opposite of placebo was and when I couldn't think of it, the doctor said there wasn't one and seemed irritated that he even brought it up. Of course we looked it up at home and the word he was thinking of was "nocebo" but the doctor didn't know what he was talking about so that felt awkward and it just added to the unpleasantness of the visit.
We now have to go to a neurologist to diagnose the headache problem and the doctor thinks he should see a psychologist or psychiatrist about the doctor anxiety. So he has to see another doctor because he has anxiety about seeing doctors.
I asked if she thought the anxiety might be understandable considering the last time he saw her she told him he had scoliosis and he ended up having to wear a painful brace that he will have to wear until he is at least 16 years old and then the orthopedic surgeon who has even less bedside manner than she does described the operation requiring steel rods inserted in his back if the bracing didn't work. She couldn't say, our time was up.
