@Annb said "The trouble with medical specialists, I have found, is that if you don't accept their advice, they just give up on you and let you get on with it by yourself, when you still could do with some medical support."
I have been thrown out physically by the specialist out of his room in the early 1990s when I said I was taking a homeopathic remedy for my migraines. He told me never to darken his doorstep again or some such words...
My migraines were really terrible and they went on for days and days at a time, with visual effects, black and white vision, jigsaw puzzle type vision, and I was trying to find some way through that. I was being honest on what I was taking to try and help myself, but I did not expect him leaping out of his chair grabbing hold of my arm with some force and literally throwing me out of his room and slamming the dorm me. I sobbed all the way home.
I have had bad reactions from other specialists when I have tried to tell them what I was trying to do to help myself but I've always had a bad reaction from them but nothing as extreme as that migraine specialist.
It was if he took what I said as a complete attack on all his years he trained as a specialist, and was completely affronted.
All I said that day was that what did he think of me taking a homeopathic remedy to help me with my migraine, that was all I said, and he flew into a complete rage. I wasn't challenging him, I was just asking his opinion.
Consequently I have never felt able to be honest and to be able to tell specialists what I might be doing to try and help myself whether it is exercises, or whether it is diet, or whether it is some kind of alternative medicine.
Once, at physiotherapy I told the person who was showing me exercises, that I did isometrics at that time. She was absolutely horrified and said I shouldn't be doing that and that will give me a heart attack, and more ridiculous stupid stuff came out of her mouth.
I could go on with this list because I have been odds with the medical profession for years, for trying to help myself and not completely relying on them because they weren't helping me at all in the first place.
I have later on challenged things when they have been really obnoxious (I'm not going to go into details, because I could write a book on all this), this started around 2005, and my partner J helped me when he was still alive. And I also employed a Patient's Advocate at that time and it took two years of hard work to try and resolve a situation that a GP caused me. The Patient's Advocate went above and beyond his call of duty to help me, because he told me that there were a lot of other people in this area in the same position as me, and they were too scared to challenge the health authority.
And when the issue was finally resolved, it never really is finally resolved, but when it was resolved as far as it could be, then the Patient's Advocate explained how much I had helped other people because a certain practice then had to be stopped.
I am rabbiting on too much, as usual, but I do feel very strongly about all this. I really do wish J were still alive, because I could do with some support on things, and he supported me with everything. So, I do feel a bit alone at times.
I would like a peaceful retirement...
I think you're doing very well all things considered. It may not feel like it some of the time. And especially at the moment with the lack of GP's and other NHS stuff, and lack of pharmacists and medicine shortages, that we are finding out at the moment, I think that when we can, we need to do as much as we can for ourselves when it is possible.
Just maybe, we came to rely on the NHS too much, and its NHS medicines when there was a common sense alternative. Instead, we were guided towards the drugs companies route, where a cure was not in the drugs companies best interests, they need you to be on that drug for life.
Many people with diabetes on this site have come off Metformin and whatever drug they were on by diet/exercise etc.
I am aiming for that, but not got there yet. My arthritis doesn't help..
I think we do need to do more for ourselves when it is possible. But we still need the NHS and the Specialists for a whole pile of serious stuff, saving lives, operations and so on. The whole system became spread too thin. And I have no idea how this can be addressed, and something different created ..
I am going to shut up now, and go to bed. I have rambled on far too much...
I nearly deleted all this post...
Adding a bit :
In 2019, I attended a lecture where the previous head of the Health Board for this area, was advocating change to the NHS. He wanted people not to rely on GP's to prescribe something eg a prescription drug kind of cough medicine instead of common sense stuff that you can buy over the counter such as a simple cough linctus. He was going on about an over reliance on drugs from the drug companies when there were alternatives.
There was a whole lot more he said, but I couldn't catch/hear it all.
Anyway, catch you in the morning...