I asked one of our patients if we could share her story. Here it is in the words of her son.....
My father, who was about 80 at the time,
was prescribed the wrong antibiotic by his GP and by the time the mistake was
discovered, he needed to be hospitalised with pneumonia. He managed to pull
through and the GP admitted his mistake.
Later my father, after years of complaining he
was tired all the time and numerous visits to the same GP was diagnosed with a
thyroid deficiency. So the doctor prescribed T4 and kept on increasing the dose
and then informed him that he was on the maximum permitted dose and it still
wasn’t working.
So I did an internet search which was relatively new to me at
the time and found he was taking the medication incorrectly with meals and
suggested he take it on an empty stomach. On the next visit I found his hair
was falling out and he was suffering all the symptoms of an over active thyroid.
Later on I went through his list of
medication and doing internet searches found he was taking one medication to
lower his blood pressure. This did not make sense as he suffered from low blood
pressure. Apparently a specialist had prescribed it after a minor heart
operation and the GP was reluctant to change the medication.
My mother, who was 11 years younger than my
father, was in relatively good health until she reached 80 and she decided to
go on a holiday to Europe. Her legs kept
swelling and she had mentioned it to her GP at the time but he dismissed it. I
was concerned about her travelling on long flights and the possibility of
suffering DVT, and as she was leaving in
a matter of days, I suggested that at
every opportunity she lie on the floor and put her legs up a wall to drain the
fluid out of her legs. I don’t know how effective this was but at least she
didn’t suffer any health problems on the flight.
Her GP at the time, who liked to make
weekly appointments for all his elderly patients had moved his surgery a further
5 km away from my mother’s house, close to a retirement village, and as a
result of this she changed GPs. It is not hard to see why the government wants
to introduce co-payments as some GPs could be seen to be abusing the system.
On returning from Europe she found she was
suffering from fluctuating blood pressure. At times her systolic blood pressure
would be over 200! She consulted her new GP several times and was assured that her
“average” blood pressure was OK. I am a professional engineer and I know what
bursts pipes, and it is not average pressure, so I consulted Dr Google and
found several stories indicating it was a serious issue. So after a few more
visits and a print out of these internet sites the GP referred her to a heart specialist who placed her in
hospital and removed ~ 4 kg of fluid from her.
Well the specialist and hospital did a good
job in removing fluid and placing her on new drugs to lower her blood pressure,
but they were not the ones recommended by an English professor on Dr Google.
After she was discharged her systolic blood
pressure was a little better but the fluctuations were continuing for example 193/60 at 7.15 a.m. and 124/42 at 9 a.m. When her diastolic blood pressure fell into the 40’s she would need
to go back to bed. She also had a fall
due to being lightheaded from the low diastolic pressure which did some damage.
The article by the English professor stated that the drugs she was on would
lower the diastolic blood pressure! Who am I to tell the heart specialist he
was wrong.
So my mum visited her new GP and told him
her problems. He was reluctant to change the medication prescribed by the
specialist – this appears to be a common problem with many GPs, that is, they
are reluctant to change medication prescribed by specialist. Also he told her
she has the blood pressure of a teenager – that was the last straw – we had had
enough!
Honestly, this was no life for her, we had
consulted two GPs and a specialist, and to me it appeared she was on the wrong
medication, I was at wits end; do I drag her around to another GP? In desperation to get a second opinion,
probably from a specialist and fast, I went looking for an online solution and found
GP2U who was also offering much faster specialist consultations than we can normally
expect.
As it turned out the GP online Dr James
Freeman was happy to treat her directly and changed her medication to the one
recommended by the English Professor. She
has recently found a new GP near home who referred her to another specialist
who has carried out more testing and continued the medication prescribed by Dr
Google and Dr Freeman from GP2U. Her blood pressures are now within acceptable
limits for her age 158/66.
I found the GP2U online service to be very
professional and useful especially for obtaining a second opinion, He also
seemed more knowledgeable and was willing to share his knowledge via online
articles.
I know a lot of GPs don’t like Dr Google
but one thing is certain, Dr Google is not going to go away. He is going to
have a bigger influence on GPs work, as computer literacy increases in the
ageing population.
I now consult Dr Google to check all prescribed
medication to determine if it appropriate for my or my family’s condition and that
it is being taken correctly.
Bill Myers
October 2014
If you have a medical problem don't just diagnose yourself online, see a real doctor by video conference and get diagnosed online at GP2U Telehealth.
