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It doesn't even have to be a mystery illness. A woman can walk into the clinic with a broken rib, and doctors will tell her it's menstrual cramps (true story from my partner).

I got extensively checked out for why I was in pain all the time after I ate, losing massive amounts of weight to the point of near-starvation and felt like I had food stuck in my esophagus all the time. Doctors tested me for a couple of weeks for physical esophagus problems, declared I was fine, and sent me to a psychologist who grilled me for 45 minutes about whether I believed the tests or I "still thought something was wrong with me". I told her I believed the tests but that they were not the right tests yet. Pretty sure I didn't anxiety myself into losing 60 pounds in 4 months and losing my house, work and relationship... she declared I had "health anxiety". Oops, turned out I was actually developing LADA, a form of type 1 diabetes. I ended up at the ER later on and they said I would have died or gone into a coma in another 1-2 days.

We'll run this test, but your insurance probably won't cover it so here's the bill. How would you like to pay today?

Welcome to the US department of Veterans Affairs.

Remember all of those guys with Gulf war syndrome whose doctors told them they were faking it until they killed themselves? Ends up. They were exposed to nerve gas and doctors aren't trained in that. Oopsies!

The same is happening within the VA today. Too many of my friends have killed themselves.

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad and true. A few years ago I had the flu. Took me three weeks to be completely fit again. Then, like two weeks later, I suddenly got dizzy, I felt like vomiting, I was cold but sweated like a pig. I thought I was going to faint. I laid down and slowly felt better. But it came back every ~30 minutes. Over the day it got better until in the evening I only felt exhausted. The next day I felt good again and went back to work. Around 9 in the morning, BAM, it hit again. I went to the physician and my systolic blood pressure went haywire going up and down between 90 and 180 within 5 minutes. He prescribed me something "for the bloodstream" without any clear diagnosis. It didn't do shit. I visited him I don't know how many times. Then I went to the next physician. And the next. I somehow kind of learned to live with it. One year later the third or fourth physician actually did some tests: You have a severe vitamin D3, B6, and B12 deficiency. Your immune system is fucked. Your stomach is fucked. Your metabolism is fucked. I finally got some treatment that actually improved something and felt significantly better but not good. Two years and ~three physicians later it turns out that my problems are somehow linked to my allergies: your immune system is fucked. There's some trial and error with different medications, at the end of which I actually feel better but still not good. Three years and another two physicians later the fuzzy diagnosis is that I had/have "long flu" (mind you, this is all before covid). It damaged my nerves and somehow mixed up my metabolism. There's a weird "cross-relationship" with my allergies. Now I take medication daily which lets me at least function and work. I still do not feel good. I haven't felt good since six years. But, there's an entry in my file from 5 years ago that I'm a hypochondriac, that won't go away, despite later tests confirming that several things were severely and factually wrong with me ...

My former cardiologist kept grilling me to lose weight, laughing in my face when I told him I was really active at work but still gaining. Turns out I was retaining water because the heart failure he blamed on my weight was a genetic defect that a few years later required a transplant.

Due to unrelated circumstances, I moved states between my last visit with him and the discovery of how much worse my condition was or I definitely would have had words with him.

I've seen doctors do so much stupid stuff. My former oncologist prescribed two drugs I was obviously allergic to, including one that nearly put me on dialysis for the rest of my life.

Another dumbass refused to accept that I had a bone fragment in the back of my hand. Forty years later I have a hand that has permanent bone damage.

Thanks, guys.

Alternative doctor irl: is just you being old

And also you should just lose weight, that will fix it

[Zoidberg] Oh, the hypochondriac's back! So what is it this time?

[Fry] Well, my lead pipe hurts a little.

|Zoidberg] That's normal. Next patient!

Cops in police dramas: we have to catch the murderer! Who cares about his rights, he's a criminal!

Cops in real life: I'm gonna shoot this black guy, idk he probably did something. Who cares about his rights?

Stress = I don't have a clue what's wrong with you

I paid 130$ for a doctors visit and another 130$ for lab work, only to be told, if it hurts you, don't eat it. It turned out to be a stomach ulcer. I lost so much weight before I figured out what was wrong.

But it's definitely not Lupus, that's for sure.

Or they run every test under the sun and then ignore, misread, or plain refuse to treat the results.

The blood work shows that your blood sugar is borderline diabetic, your kidneys are failing and the xray shows a fracture... your fine, go home.

Cause well, fuck your diabetes, we won't give dialysis until your number of 16 gets to 14 even though the normal is 60 and all the rest of what's off relates to your kidneys, and we can't do anything for that fracture in your sternum anyways, nevermind, that we didn't see it until you came back complaining of chest pain...

But it's never Lupus

Or better, "hmm, that's unfortunate I couldn't possibly know what to do from here, though. Better just wait it out."

Unironically, what doctors are trained to do when they don't have an answer is:

Ah, you're troubled by ? I can rule out , so you must have , let me give you