diabetes Depression Compounded

[geb]

Hello, this is my first post here.

I have been treated for depression for a little over twenty years now. I have had various success with therapies and medications and have been essentially stabilized for the past five years.

I left the USAF in '87 and was subsequently diagnosed with chronic depression. I was attending a large and prestigious state university at the time and had the opportunity to be diagnosed and treated by many of the most reknowned mental health and specifically depression-research clinicians in the country. While in college I took the opportuntity to learn as much as possible about my condition.

Approximately ten years after graduating college I found myself unemployed, alone, withdrawn and without many resources. I enrolled in the VA outpatient clinic in my area and was seen and treated by many fine clinicians in the past five years. I was essentially stabilized. The service related aspects of such mental health conditions are, understandably, open to much useful debate -- I'd rather not engage in that here.

About five months ago my primary doctor within the mental health section moved on and I was assigned another. Soon my depression was compounded. This has been the most disspiriting and demoralizing experience I have ever had while dealing with this condition -- and now it seems far from over.

As I noted, I've been diagnosed by some of the most highly regarded clinicians in the country at a world reknowned facility devoted specifially to the purpose of researching and treating depression.

I now found myself under the care of a doctor who took it upon himself to entirely overhaul my profile - in a disturbingly aggressive manner. He told me that I didn't need medication. Fine. I was fully willing to hear him out.

In the course of the next four months he proceeded from one enthusiastic declaration to another -- I was obsessive/compulsive. I was traumatized by something awful in my upbringing. My descriptions of some past experiences suggested to him evidence of manic behavior. I would benefit significantly only (in his opinion) through "two chair gestalt" therapy. I asked what benefit 45 minutes of "gestalt" therapy once each month would do for me and he responded that it was all he could offer. He just made the diagnosis, the rest was up to me.

He was so enthusiastic and excited that I kind of went along for a bit. He finally had me so twisted in the wind that I'd had enough and decided to change doctors. The last two visits with him were actually testy exchanges of wit and sarcasm in which he finally derided me for being stubborn. I was absolutely shocked and astonished by the exchanges I was having with a mental health professional. Im not exaggerating to say that he frightened me a bit. I havn't mentioned yet that he is the head of the unit that comprised approximately eight other doctors.

Now my depression is compounded. In my records now is a diagnosis for Obsession/Compulsion - suggestion of childhood trauma/abuse - manic behavior - and finally, given the testy challenge of wits that concluded our visits, god-knows-what suggestions on his part that I might be dangerous.

This is all complete nonsense from someone who very likely needs a good deal of psychiatric intervention himself. But right now I am truly worried. I have spoken to the patient representative at the clinic and have decided that this mental health unit is compromised enough to me by his presence that I'm moving my primary care to a neighboring city sixty miles away.

I was ready to go back to the patient representative tomorrow and request that any notes and comments contributed to my files by this doctor be removed. This, it seems to me, is only reasonable if I could make a clear case to the proper VA authority. I did some research online and have discovered that this is unlikely to happen. It seems that medical files may be amended but under no circumstances wholly deleted.

This is pretty unsettling. Diabetes, cancer, xrays, major surgeries, medication, etc.. Clearly such concrete and discrete information cannot be amended. But I am now labelled by some loose cannon with an oddly inspired mental heath diagnosis that will stick to me for the rest of my life?

I cannot believe that I have no recourse here at all. If anyone can help me with similar past experience and subsquent success at a remedy I am at your mercy. I am so dispirited by these events that don't know which way to turn.

Thank you very much, sincerely, for this forum.

[Pete53]

If you are unable to work you should be 100% and not 50%.

Welcome to Hadit

[geb]

I am not, fortunately, unable to work due to depression. I would not wish to be so classified unless it were genuinely so. I am presently employed. I am very concerned with the present situation as I've described it.

[Berta]

I think you should seek treatment and care for your depression any where that is independent of the VA.

Also you could file a complaint with the VAMC Director because if the diagnosis is wrong- and it was changed from depression -then the treatment from VA is most likely going to be wrong.

You certainly have the right to get this resolved-a good independent psychiatrict exam by a real doctor could help you considerably if the VA has in fact done things counterproductive to your disability.

Is your 50% for depression?

Do you feel they are trying to change that into something else to attempt to lower your comp?

If they pull that -you have full recourse to fight it and maybe this is not the VA motive at all.

Something sure does not sound kosher here the way this doctor has changed the diagnosis and your treatment.

If the director does not help- I suggest to contact your Congressman.

Tell your Congressman what seems wrong here to you and then tell the Congressman what an appropriate solution would be.

I would also try to check out this doctor's credentials. The VA has hired some doctors who should not be practicing medicine at all.

Therehave been deaths at VA hospitals because of that already.

[Torvald]

geb,

You've made the right decision in requesting a new doctor be assigned to your case. Particularly with depression, you need to be treated by someone you can completely trust and who can help ease your symptoms, not make them worse.

I know a little of what you've just been through. I myself have been treated for major depression for about 12 years. About 18 months ago, my pyschiatrist recommended that I go to a therapist he knew. Things started out well enough, but the therapist seemed to have a fixation on getting me to agree that all problems were due to poor anger managment instead of depression. Finally, one day when I was feeling so depressed that I had my wife accompany me to the appointment, the therapist lost his cool and kept badgering me. He would not back off no matter how much my wife and I begged him. I finally couldn't take it any longer and left in tears, but he refused to let my wife leave his office to comfort me. As a result, I nearly committed suicide in the parking lot and only stopped because I saw my son waiting for us.

Trust me - a bad, mean-spirited or overly fixated doctor can really mess up your head. For your own safety, you need to insist they assign somebody else to treat you for depression - somebody you can completely trust.

[goofycow]

geb:

Welcome to Hadit. Unfortunately, I am having the same experience with a shrink at my own VA. To read her progress notes on me, you would think I grew up as a low-life criminal. She described HER childhood to me. I came away with the impression that she has a LOT more problems than I do. However, this has helped to make my depression even worse. I have tried to address my concerns with my VA on numerous occasions but now I'm considered a trouble maker.

I hope you get the help you need & deserve. Just be careful when dealing with the VA. They do not have your best interests at heart.

Liz

[Pete53]

Liz:

My Mom used to tell me that the only person who would want to be a shrink was probably crazy in the first place.