My 17 yr old daughter has struggled with stomach problems her entire life. We felt we had managed to control the majority of her pain with natural products (aloe, vitamins and change of diet - based off of a allergy report). However, 6 months ago our daughter started experiencing extreme pain in her back and lower right side. She had a plethora of symptoms. Heavy non-stop menses, constipation, completely backed up bowels, night sweats, fever, bladder issues, pain in back, blood in urine, pain in abdomen, pain in pelvis, etc. We went through all the routes we knew best, pediatrician, a couple stops at the urgent care for a shot of an anti-inflammatory (which helped very little for 3 - 5 days - pain was still present). We saw a Chiropractor, a massage therapist, her GYN, they ruled out anything with the uterus or ovaries with an ultrasound. So, our last resort was a gastroenterologist.
We were scheduled with Dr. Riley and we couldn't wait to get some answers to a very long and… exhausting search for the root of our daughters’ pain. After filling out a long tedious history report, Dr. Riley walked in sat down, looked at us and said, "well I see you had a lot of people fill out this report". I thought to myself, No, Aleia and I filled it out, I ran out of ink, that is why you see two different pens. Then he looked at us and said, "what do you think is wrong?" And I am thinking to myself, is he for real? We told him that we were hoping he could tell us. I explained everything we have exhausted and that he was our last resort. He verbally berated us for the doctors we had seen, saying their tests and techniques were basically a waste of money. Then he asked our daughter to explain what she was experiencing. He kept interrupting her and telling her that what she was saying wasn't making sense. Our daughter then broke down in tears (which of course made me cry because I know how much she hurts, and she is desperate for answers). He then said, "if you think she has some form of cancer, she doesn't" (which of course was a concern due to our very strong family history of genetic colon cancer). He didn’t ask us if the family cancer was genetic or not, he just said it didn’t matter that everyone on her father’s side had it, it only mattered if Brian and I had it (then WHY DO YOU ASK ME FOR ALL OF MY FAMILIES HISTORY). Not to mention, my husband has had polyps and must have colonoscopies every year. Dr. Riley didn’t let us tell him that and quite frankly, he made it clear that he didn’t even care what our history was.
He didn’t bother to ask ANY questions that might have helped him develop an appropriate diagnosis. He knew NOTHING about her menses, her bladder issues, fever, night sweats… etc, He simply said, we don't need to do any tests. Let me feel your stomach. I think you need to take an antidepressant, a nerve blocker, some MiraLAX and you both need to seek psychotherapy. WHAT????? Did I just hear that? He handed us a bunch of paperwork and left the room. My daughter and I were dumfounded. The paperwork he gave us said her diagnosis was XXX but only if she didn’t have any of the organic symptoms… if which she had nearly EVERYONE of them. But, he didn’t bother to ask any questions that would have given him the answers he would have needed to help us find the root cause. WORST DOCTOR EVER!
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