Doctor ADHD

I was terrified my symptoms wouldn’t be believed

Being a doctor, I know how appointments should go:

Listen to the patient
Validate their feelings
Ask more questions to clarify the symptoms
Ask for lifestyle factors
Reassure the patient
Give lifestyle changes

That’s how we’re taught to practice, to always try lifestyle changes before medications, and I’m a huge proponent of that!

I know I need to be smaller, it’s less stress on my organs and joints and unfortunately adipose tissue is not inert, it produces its own hormones and inflammation.

However, I KNEW this is more than just my size.

Fortunately, being a doctor, I also knew to emphasize my family history of my father with Brugada syndrome (an inherited heart rhythm disorder caused by a defect in the heart’s electrical system).

I also knew to emphasize my symptoms and that I had a positive autoimmune panel. I made sure to mention about how autoimmune conditions can affect the heart (which I’m sure he already knew but doesn’t hurt to remind).

He’s doing a full cardiac workup! With genetic testing, looking at my heart under physical stress (treadmill stress test), and looking at the structure of the heart and how it is pumping (echocardiogram)….oh and the holter monitor to watch the rhythm of my heart for two weeks because sometimes abnormal heart rhythms don’t happen during a single EKG (mine today was normal).

I’m so happy for all of you who are following along on this journey with me 💕

For new followers, my page is about being a physician with ADHD, so like someone with ADHD, I cover a lot of topics: ADHD, being a doctor, being a woman in healthcare/patient, autoimmune/inflammatory journey, relationships, my speciality kidney health, and sometimes memes. This is about me as a person with as much education.

If you’re not following yet, but interested in the above, come join the amazing community we’re building here. I hope we can all help each other and share our journeys.

Comment below what you’re curious about and I’ll do my best to answer!

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I have always advocated for my patients.

I believe women when they tell me they have symptoms.

I once had a woman describe an odd sensation of “pulling” in her chest that only went away if she held the left side of her chest. I’ll be honest, no textbook teaches that symptom. I ordered a CT anyway, she had a pulmonary embolism (a clot in her lung).

I always check autoimmune panels for my patients, full panels, my rheumatology rotation made me passionate to catch those “zebras” we learn about in med school, only to find out zebras are more common when you check for them. The nurses at my work playfully tease me to stop checking so many labs because I keep finding things.

I don’t check if the patient feels perfectly fine and there’s no protein in their urine, but if the patient has any protein in their urine (these means damage to the kidney filter, not eating too much protein) or they have joint stiffness that is worse with rest, unexplained rashes or fatigue, swelling, I will check and unsurprisingly I usually find something.

Now here I am, with the same symptoms my patients had I’ve been experiencing for years, and it took my female P*P to keep asking “what else?” For me to finally open up about my pain that has been ignored or brushed off since I was a teen. She checked the labs, she got me in with a rheumatologist (inflammation/autoimmune specialist) who actually listened and validated I’ve been having my condition since I was a child.

I’m just hoping the rest of the doctors who he referred me too also take me seriously 💕

Seeing cardiology tomorrow as my dad had Brugadas and sometimes my heart races for no reason. Here’s hoping they work me up instead of just telling me to be smaller 🤞🏻

What are some symptoms you’ve ignored?

Falling in love with a wholesome ADHD partner is waking up to their special interests 💕

He’s been raising bees for 5 years and can answer basically any questions about them. He doesn’t smoke them because he doesn’t like to confuse them. He knows how they’re feeling by the frequency of their buzzing.

I love this man and his hobbies 🥰🥰🥰

Our wedding is in less than 3 months 😮

I genuinely thought feeling this way was normal

Now that I’m getting positive test results suddenly I’m noticing symptoms I had that I always brushed off

My hands hurt when using any pressure, they feel tight and swollen

My loud crunching knees ache

My ankles often flare and hurt so bad I can barely walk and I’m nearly in tears when I try

My skin on my face with flush bright red and feel hot to the touch

All the times I feel so physically exhausted I can’t move

All these years I’ve been blaming myself for something I didn’t have control over

But I’m still telling myself it’s all in my head, that I’m overthinking it

A lot of high functioning people get very good at minimizing their suffering

Especially women
Especially healthcare workers
Especially neurodivergent people

Has anyone else experienced this before?

I appreciate all of y’all who have been supportive in my journey to diagnosis of an autoimmune/inflammatory disorder. I’ll keep posting updates as I find more because I hope this helps others advocate for themselves when they don’t feel like things are right 💕

The physical exam signs that I had inflammation that my rheumatologist immediately clocked 😮

My adult acne and redness of my face. I thought I just had a ruddy skin texture because I was Scottish decent 😂 he told me a lot of adult acne is inflammatory if not hormonal (and I’m already on spironolactone for the hormone part)

The lacy redness of my arms and legs, also known as Livedo reticularis. Sometimes this is seen just because you’re cold so don’t freak out if you see it when you’re outside! But sometimes it can be autoimmune. It’s so funny because when I was a med student another med student pointed out my skin but we didn’t find anything about autoimmune at the time

My feet and ankles??? Tbh he didn’t get specific here, he just said “yep arthritis, you’ve had it since you were a kid” and then he pointed out the callous on my foot and said it’s a sign. He also felt my knee and was like “yep inflammation”

I’m just so shocked I was suffering for years and since I was a kid I’ve been telling doctors things are wrong and no one checked anything 😭 to be fair rheumatology has come a long way in recent years so I’ll give the doctors of the 90s grace

Rheumatologists (and podiatrists lol) sound down below and tell me if you think he got it right.

If you have an inflammatory condition did you have these signs too?

When you are raised in chaos and trauma, calm and peace feel like a threat.

Our hypervigilant brains are looking and searching for danger and if they can’t clearly find reason, it’ll create one.

So it makes perfect sense that once your life is actually going right, it feels so wrong.

Even in my own life, I finally am an attending physician, I’m getting married in 3 months and I’m renovating a 100 year old home and I feel like I’m disassociating.

I’m thankful for everything I have but it’s stressful going from a kid on free lunch and living in apartments to homeownership and going from abusive parents and partners to now the sweetest man in the whole world with an Amazing family I’m joining…it’s surreal.

I highly recommend EMDR or Brainspotting which can help you process trauma a lot better than talk therapy alone and find a trauma informed therapist

On this Valentine’s Day, we neurodivergents are here to celebrate those who love us for exactly who we are!

Others may call you:

Too dramatic

Too loud

Too sensitive

Too weird

If someone makes you feel like too much, tell them to find less

The right person will absolutely love you the way you are now, you won’t have to change or shrink who you are as a person.

I’ve definitely dated people in the past that if I had made a face like that they would ruined the rest of the day, punishing me for “embarrassing” them.

If that sounds similar to your situation, start planning your escape.

Now that I’m with my love, I can’t believe I wasted time stressed over people who aren’t right for me. It’s not a personal failing, we’re not all meant to be the perfect partner for everyone else. Be true to yourself and someone will love you for who you are 💕

If you’ve found that person, send them this 🥹

Did you know that chronic kidney disease can be from age?

After we turn 40, we all start losing about 1% kidney function naturally as we age.

The good news is that kidneys can keep functioning well enough until around 10%, so if you’re 85 and at 55% functioning then you likely will never see that dialysis machine.

Please keep sending these consults though, especially if there is a change in creatinine or protein in the urine, your friendly neighborhood nephrologist will work up the patient to make sure nothing is missed.

These are my favorite appointments as a kidney doctor is letting older patients know they just had a lot of birthdays! I will make sure their medications are optimized and they get all the right information, but I love being able to take that stress away from them.

For those who don’t know, hemodialysis is something we do to clean the blood of toxins when kidneys are not working well enough on their own, making the patient feel sick, this usually happens around 10% functioning.

What else would you like to know about kidney disease?

I wish I knew how this takeover happened, where we now live in a world where MBAs/private equity has the audacity to call physicians a cost (when it’s our billing and decisions making money for the hospital), while they pay themselves 10s of millions in bonuses, each.

I’m going to assume doctors then were too busy working 80-100hr a week to fight, and honestly, we didn’t go into medicine for money so when people showed up and said they’d handle the business side and “allow” physicians more time to see patients, those doctors were likely thrilled.

Now healthcare is being run like Red Lobster or Toys R Us, they close down entire floors of the hospital because they don’t want to pay for staff, then act shocked when profits go down and use it as an excuse to fire physicians. Then they start buying cheaper and inferior supplies, less staff, don’t fix broken equipment, while still padding their pockets. Then when the money dries up (or the hospital doesn’t make record breaking profits) they close down the hospital leaving patients out in the cold and forced to go to other surrounding hospitals which are also experiencing short staffing and overwhelming the system.

The same private equity that got Joann fabrics closed is closing clinics and hospitals near you so they can make a quick buck.

And with insurance companies paying physicians less and less, physicians who are private can’t afford to pay their staff or bills.

As a physician in the US I lost my health insurance because the company was going to increase our premiums 40% this year and said they’d increase another 60% next year. Mind you, they’re making record breaking billions in profits.

I’m not sure how to fix it, but something has to change.

If I’m ever sick, PLEASE take me to a teaching hospital!

Here’s why:

If you think “well they’re students, they’re going to make mistakes!” Resident physicians are CLOSELY monitored, every single decision we make we double check ourselves on the latest up to date research, we then have to ask our senior residents, and then we round with attending physicians where we have to explain every single thing we’ve done and WHY we have done it. They don’t let residents just run wild with no supervision, it’s actually extremely close supervision.

And remember, residents are graduated physicians from medical school who already have 4,500hr of clinical experience before graduation.

The good thing about residents is they see every patient with fresh eyes, every new case is a mystery to solve, and their passion to help patients is still bright and alive and not ruined by this healthcare machine private equity has destroyed.

Same goes for nursing students who are working closely under other nurses.

You want people who are excited, and a little nervous, to take care of patients to be on your side.

And since residents have to see less patients than attending physicians, they get to spend more time deep diving into charts and past hospital visits. They’re able to pick up on things that can be missed.

And we can’t forget our med students who get to have plenty of time to ask ALL the questions and get ALL the history, which can change management.

Would you want to go to a teaching hospital?

For non-med peeps:
Med student: a person currently in medical school, has passed 1 or 2 of their licensing exams (8-9hr exams), and who has had training in how to interview patients before being able to see patients at the hospital

Resident physician: a person who has graduated medical school but still is in training for 3-10 years depending on their specialty. An intern is a first year and the senior resident watches over them.

Resident on consulting service: a resident who is on a month of a particular specialty (like cardiology) to learn about that specialty

Attending physician: a physician who leads the team of residents who has completed all their educat