Gotta love them there doctors. Showed up to Zach's appointment and asked the receptionist if we could get a copy of his lab results. She had me start to fill out some sort of release form, as I turned in this special little form, she told me there was nothing to give me, they had not received copies of the test results.
So I sit down in a stupor and feel my adrenaline rise - this is the whole point of the visit - so why are we here? I scramble for my phone thinking I will call the lab - but I have no idea what the number for Upstate is. I then figure I will call someone to look it up on the Internet for me and as I am working out my scheme in my head, a nurse calls us back. We go back to a small room. We wait. 15 minutes pass, and finally a NP comes in and talks. Yup, there are no results. She leaves. We wait some more. After an HOUR AND A HALF the doctor walks in and apologizes. Just as my head was about to spin around, a secretary walks in with the results. The doctor says everything looks fine. Take these pills when his skin gets a rash and stick these drops in his eyes when he sticks his fingers in them, and go see a GI doc about the puking and food stuff.
I don't know about anyone else, but this is not only unprofessional, it is incredibly disrespectful. Zach was very irritated about being stuck in a small confined space for a long time for so long. In my job, if I had a meeting and I went into it unprepared like this, I would get roasted. How much did this cost our insurance (and ultimately us)?
I had a feeling the results would be negative - the research I had done indicated that the type of sensitivities kids on the spectrum have with food are not testable using the conventional IgE tests conducted by most traditional allergists and doctors. You probably recall the post I wrote after the initial appointment with this same doctor that discussed this IgG vs. IgE thing. I have no biology background and have not done the thorough research to really understand enough about this.
SCIENCE BIT OF THE DAY by Simpleton Leanne
What I do know is that IgG is the most abundant immunoglobulin in the body and there are four subclasses (1-4). IgG4 seems to be the particular subclass of interest. According to various published articles, some say it has a benefit in diagnosis, some do not. Diangosis of what is yet another story. My gut feeling from the preliminary research I have done is that IgG may be a valuable test for kids on the spectrum, however, enough is not known about the test and there appears to be a problem with several of the labs that conduct the test. If we did this, I would want to be very careful about who I let run the lab work.
So why am I going to these appointments? Sometimes I am not even sure. I know there was a difference when Zach started the diet in both his GI issues and his lessening of autistic symptoms, better eye contact, vocabulary, etc. I wish doctors wouldn't poo poo this stuff and would concentrate a little more on why it may appear to work. If I ruled the world...
1 comment:
In my uneducated opinion, you should complain both to the patient services (if you have something like this) in the place this doctor works and to your insurance company. I am really irritated if I am made to wait for 15 min, but an hour and a half is ridiculous. I am sorry that it was all essentially for nothing, but you have a gut feeling that the diet works, so I think you should stick with it. (((Hugs)))
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