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Stitchy · Joined: 25 May 2008 Posts: 23

Doctors again after work tomorrow. I can't believe another 4 weeks have flown by already. I wish he'd give me a couple of months worth of my Effexor at once, so I didn't need to go as often. It's a pain getting to see him as he only works Mondays.

He'll ask me the same questions(I wonder if it's all a test to see if I'm serious about things) and I never know how to answer. "How are you?" well I don't have a disease(well not one I'm seeing you about today) so it's not got better in 4 weeks, and it's not really worse either. Then he'll ask have I had my referral appointment... nope, and he'll say he'll chase it up. Give me my prescription and say "see you in a month"

It's a waste of my time and his.

**PurplePrincess** · Advisor Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 2678 Location: Bristol

Stitchy wrote:

Doctors again after work tomorrow. I can't believe another 4 weeks have flown by already. I wish he'd give me a couple of months worth of my Effexor at once, so I didn't need to go as often. It's a pain getting to see him as he only works Mondays.

Maybe your doctor needs to see you every month so he can assess whether he thinks you need to carry on taking the Effexor, otherwise couldn't you just get a repeat prescription and pick it up from your doctor's surgery every month. I only get a months worth at a time on my hormone prescription and it does come around very fast.

Stitchy wrote:

He'll ask me the same questions(I wonder if it's all a test to see if I'm serious about things) and I never know how to answer. "How are you?

Well it just sounds like common courtesy to me, to ask how you are. Perhaps he is just concerned too. The first Dr. I came out to wanted me to make appointments every month and all we'd do is chat about how I am feeling for 10 minutes, I felt very grateful for his concern and it gave me the impression he really cared about my well being. Perhaps it is common practice for doctors to want to see their patients regularly if they think there are at risk of either suicide or self harming or perhaps are just very depressed. Then at least if the doctor could see you deteriorating then he could try to do something about it before it was too late.

Stitchy wrote:

It's a waste of my time and his.

I don't think keeping an eye on the well being of his patients is a waste of his time or yours.

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Stitchy · Joined: 25 May 2008 Posts: 23

Long time no post, mostly due to the fact I've been without Internet access at home for over a week After spending about 2 hours on the phone on Monday I finally convinced them it wasn't my computer that was at fault but their server. It still took them another 72 hours to fix the thing though. Oh well such is life.

Today I finally got an NHS trust franked letter woohoo I thought finally I've got an appointment, but no it was just acknowledging the referral after about 2 month and a pretty dumb questionnaire I have to fill out BEFORE they can give me one. Even though I went through the same questions with the doctor so he could refer me. They also warned of a long waiting list. JOY!

The questions seemed pretty pointless and had nothing to do with WHY I need to see them.

Name, Address, Phone, DoB all pretty standard (all they probably already have)

Doctor's Name and address (again look at the referral letter and you'll find this information)

Religion, marital status, number of children and their ages, and my occupation

and finally if it was OK to phone me to offer me an appointment.

Oh well it's another small step I guess, but a bit disappointing that it wasn't an appointment.

My doctor is also away for 2 weeks and I am nearly out of meds again... thing means either going without or seeing another one, I'm not keen on either. It's a small practice and I've seen all the other lots of times with my diabetes etc and I'm not sure how comfortable I would be talking about it to them.