I am sorry you encountered resistance and ignorance in your health care professional. I hope you were in a position to express your disagreement either through diaglogue (if it was a care provider you wished to continue care with) or through seeking care elsewhere (if it wasn't).
I always encourage people, including current clients/patients of mine not only to communicate directly with their care providers if they have a concern about their care, but ALSO to write a letter or contact the practice manager with feedback. (?Sometimes? ?Often?) Care providers pay attention to positive and negative feedback, especially if it comes from a practice manager. IMO, it is important to let them know if you are leaving the practice, because medical groups are a BUSINESS and they do pay attention to the bottom line. Sometimes too much, unfortunatly.
I have had patients affected with Whitlow (hand infection) and one with very severe recurrant face infections that were difficult to control/treat, as well as recurrant genital or oral outbreaks. It's difficult to see patients I care for (and care about!) have to navigate the waters of this virus: from the physical discomfort/pain, the psychological/phyche ramifications (not the least of which is the self-judgement which can be more harsh than what society doles out)as well as social fallout. It's gratifying to see them over time and see how they (usually/hopefully) adjust to the diagnosis and continue to have meaningful, satisfying, engaging, EXCITING sex lives!
Prevalance rates are tricky. I usually quote a 60-80% figure but discuss the difficulty in acurately pin-pointing it. Suffice to say, research indicates that greater than half of sexually active adults have some sort of HSV.
Thanks for your thoughts! As I said above,
"probably more information than you were looking for, but sexuality, safer sex and women's health are topics near and dear to me!" :)
i think mostly my HMO deals with people who are in the car care mode of "fix it", they don't want to know why or how...
now with my car, i want to see the parts and hear the complete details, including if there's rust, and preventive and pro-active things. applies to my body. sometimes it takes the doctor a little bit to "wake up" as they coast too often without having to talk. the guy i have is/was a teaching doctor, so he actually seems delighted to converse with someone, even the lay person, who is making SOME effort :) i've learned more than a few things... and sometimes challenge them :> which hopefully makes their day better too.
when i explained to them at the time i was planning on entering a long term r-ship with someone, and we wanted ALL the tests just for peace of mind, he explained that some of the tests might NOT give us peace (like HSV), because of prevalence rates, lack of clarity on what results MEAN, etc, etc. after all that, he took multiple-samples, send them off, and i got a detailed letter sometime later with lots of negatives, plus the usual eat better, sleep, drink water, ... :)
and information is good! i have an perhaps more than selfish interest in those near and dear to me as well. myself included :>
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aroraborealis) wrote2011-02-16 03:31 pm
Re: my $0.02
I always encourage people, including current clients/patients of mine not only to communicate directly with their care providers if they have a concern about their care, but ALSO to write a letter or contact the practice manager with feedback. (?Sometimes? ?Often?) Care providers pay attention to positive and negative feedback, especially if it comes from a practice manager. IMO, it is important to let them know if you are leaving the practice, because medical groups are a BUSINESS and they do pay attention to the bottom line. Sometimes too much, unfortunatly.
I have had patients affected with Whitlow (hand infection) and one with very severe recurrant face infections that were difficult to control/treat, as well as recurrant genital or oral outbreaks. It's difficult to see patients I care for (and care about!) have to navigate the waters of this virus: from the physical discomfort/pain, the psychological/phyche ramifications (not the least of which is the self-judgement which can be more harsh than what society doles out)as well as social fallout. It's gratifying to see them over time and see how they (usually/hopefully) adjust to the diagnosis and continue to have meaningful, satisfying, engaging, EXCITING sex lives!
Prevalance rates are tricky. I usually quote a 60-80% figure but discuss the difficulty in acurately pin-pointing it. Suffice to say, research indicates that greater than half of sexually active adults have some sort of HSV.
Thanks for your thoughts!
As I said above,
"probably more information than you were looking for,
but sexuality, safer sex and women's health are topics near and dear to me!"
:)
Re: my $0.02
Re: my $0.02
now with my car, i want to see the parts and hear the complete details, including if there's rust, and preventive and pro-active things. applies to my body. sometimes it takes the doctor a little bit to "wake up" as they coast too often without having to talk. the guy i have is/was a teaching doctor, so he actually seems delighted to converse with someone, even the lay person, who is making SOME effort :) i've learned more than a few things... and sometimes challenge them :> which hopefully makes their day better too.
when i explained to them at the time i was planning on entering a long term r-ship with someone, and we wanted ALL the tests just for peace of mind, he explained that some of the tests might NOT give us peace (like HSV), because of prevalence rates, lack of clarity on what results MEAN, etc, etc. after all that, he took multiple-samples, send them off, and i got a detailed letter sometime later with lots of negatives, plus the usual eat better, sleep, drink water, ... :)
and information is good! i have an perhaps more than selfish interest in those near and dear to me as well. myself included :>
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