God I wish that were me. Literally every single person in my family has a thyroid disease and my doctor still claims my symptoms are "just anxiety" and refuses to test me

turns out doctors will test your thyroid if you have literally anything except a thyroid problem

You guys know you can switch doctors or demand that they indicate in your chart that they are refusing to test you, right?

I spent my entire adolescence going around to over 30 different absolutely clueless specialists more than half of whom insisted on testing my thyroid function despite being able to see in my records that it had already been tested a dozen times but thanks I guess

"Just switch doctors and make demands "??? In this economy???

Learning to advocate for yourself at the doctor is one of the biggest hurdles of early chronic illness. Here are some things someone could practice saying (practice with family, friends, or other safe people who will play this out with you):

“my thyroid function was checked recently. That information should be accessible to you in my chart. If it isn’t, please let me know so that I can get you those results. In the meantime, what else might be causing my symptoms?”

“Ive explored that avenue with other physicians. what else might be causing my symptoms?”

“I’d like to test ____. Can you order that one?” [if they say no] “Please note in my records that I requested that test and you declined to order it. I’ll wait here while you do that.” [then, ask the nurse for an after-visit summary that includes the doctor’s notes to check that they did it]

When in doubt- bring a friend!! There’s no reason why doctors appointments have to be solitary, and a friend can help you remember stuff you wanted to say, remember stuff the doctor said back, be brave and advocate for yourself, and if necessary, advocate for you.

I’ve recently had to explain “I have been suffering from anxiety/panic attacks for more than 20 years, so I know what those feel like. This is new.”

It worked, though.

Write things down before and during. Bring notes on what you need to talk about. Take notes on what the doctor is telling you.

If you request your records they have 30 days to comply or it’s a HIPPA violation. They can charge up to 10 cents per page for printing cost.

It can also be difficult to self-advocate if you have mental health problems on record. I know I’ve had doctors who pointed to my diagnosed anxiety disorder to claim I was just a hypochondriac when I was so sick it was hard to WALK.

One thing that seriously helps:

If you are having physical problems misconstrued as mental illness and have a good therapist or psychiatrist, ask them to vouch for you in writing.

My psychiatrist writing me a note that said, “actually my professional opinion is that this person’s anxiety is well-controlled, please take that into account and FUCKING BELIEVE HER PLEASE”, and he was listened to more than I was.

If you can get other professionals on your side it really is helpful.

Is it deeply fucked up that some doctors won’t trust that you know your own body? Yes. But in the moment, trying to find other ways to get yourself heard can be a necessary sacrifice. Do that first and lodge any complaints later — ESPECIALLY if you think you’ve been discriminated against or dismissed base on race/age/gender because that happens a ton.

And ALWAYS keep a paper trail.

EDIT: Even if you’re not dealing with illness actually I’d love if people would rb to spread it. Self-advocacy is hard and working needlessly difficult systems to get vital help all alone can be a deeply demoralizing experience.

Reminder on the anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre, please don’t share the photo of Spotted Elk frozen and dead.

@sunspira

This is a really good point!

amazon’s entire schtick is to run other businesses into the ground by undercutting prices then ruling over their peasant customers. 

FedEx just refuses to deliver to my house. It’s too rural. They just won’t do it. The USPS is gutted. If I need supplies or food or any emergency anything, am I going to risk the package being destroyed or never getting to my house, or grit my teeth and go with the chaotic evil monsters who will nonetheless give me the food or medicine I need? 

And guess what? Amazon is directly and indirectly responsible for both the state of FedEx and the state of the USPS. They were allowed to create a monopoly and they were PREPARED for the further gutting of the USPS we’ve seen in late 2020. In my rural area, with a pandemic on? I think people don’t understand what I mean when I say I have no choice sometimes, the same as I have no choice but to buy Comcast internet even tho it’s overpriced and unreliable. 

It. Is. A. Monopoly. By. Design. We’re being given no choice. The solution isn’t to attack the consumers; it’s to force the government to undermine the company and to actually support its citizens with things like the USPS. 

Ethical consumption is a luxury afforded to the rich.

In order of appearance (on Earth): Thomas Hobbes. Voltaire, JS Mill, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Friedrich Nietzche, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Pierre Bourdieu

For some more modern boys, umm: Stuart Hall, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Homi Bhabha

like, the post-colonialists and the neo-Gramscians, although I’ve only read Fanon and Cesare secondhand unfortunately. 

local leftist who has based their entire identity around pointing out and opposing the flawed system says “the system is probably gonna work for us in this case. this time it’s probably gonna be really good for us actually. i don’t get why criminalized and vulnerable people aren’t excited for this”

local leftist who thinks “protecting ‘innocent’ women” is more important than the ability of women who dare to exchange sexual services for money to avoid homelessness and starvation

feminist anti prostitution movements also demand social services to be put on place so that women dont have to resort to prostitution

also, ever heard of the nordic model?

none of you actually look into the opponents side. cause one of you will call protecting women from being abused terf rhetoric and start a fear mongering. you hear the word “swerf” and plug your ears.

i just want to remind all of you that youre fucking mad over porn sites creating a verification system so that rape videos wont be uploaded.

I live in Scandinavia you braindead fucking idiot

I live under the nordic model and I can tell you clearly it fucking sucks, sex workers here despise it and have consistently campaigned for a reform of the entire thing because of how horrible it is for them. this model makes it more difficult and risky to do this work, there’s a huge issue of police r*ping sex workers, there’s a huge problem with girls not feeling safe reporting bad experiences, assaults, rapes, trafficking, there’s a huge issue of johns also not feeling safe reporting bad experiences, assaults, rapes, and trafficking that they see, precisely because it so often falls on deaf ears with the authorities and frequently means their entire livelihood gets taken away, and in the latter case, you literally get imprisoned if you’re a john and try to bring concerns to anyone if you’ve seen a girl be mistreated or who may seem underage, for example. these are not issues you have to dig deep to run into, you’ll hear it from a lot of sex workers who’ve worked in countries with this model in place.

as for the thing about ‘feminist anti-prostitution policy’ norway has one of the most robust welfare systems in the world and a strong economic safety net and it turns out that this means fucking nothing and won’t stop anyone from doing sex work - it makes life a tiny bit more cushy for people at the bottom rungs of society but not much more and it does not stop them from seeking that kind of work to earn more, nor does it eliminate it, and by this point in the year 20 fucking 20 i shouldnt have to explain how prohibition is a shitty model that doesn’t work and “just throw money at them” will in fact not solve the problem even if it keeps them out of absolute poverty.

i’m also just gonna copy/paste most of my other response because you made some snide post earlier about me - you seem to think the only reason i oppose this bill is because i’m a “coomer” who just wants to watch ‘child r*pe’ which is a fucking insane accusation to make against someone and it’s incredible that this is the immediate place your mind goes. so just to be clear: this proposed bill literally has loopholes allowing for legal child porn, this is something plenty of people have pointed out, this is one of several reasons that i am INCREDIBLY OPPOSED TO THE BILL, which is something your stupid ass would know if you decided to “actually look into the opponents side” which you just whine that “no one does” on here. (big surprise the dipshit terf n swerf is projecting lolol) you’re the one whose actions seem consistent with wanting those things to stay legal, i’m here trying to get people to oppose it because it’s obviously wrong and harmful to women. you’re not protecting anyone from being abused you’re facilitating and yes you’re spewing pure TERF and SWERF rhetoric. 

to quote my earlier post: did you know this bill does in fact leave open loopholes for child porn to be legally uploaded and i’m basing my criticism of the bill off everything i’ve heard SWer friends say about how it’ll impact them? did you know that this is like both useless at fighting the things your dumb ass thinks it will AND is in fact allowing for the very thing you think it wouldn’t allow for? the one thing you’re saying is good about this bill is something it literally does nothing about and if anything, enables. so yeah this thing isn’t doing shit about anything you claim to care about but it IS clearly very very good at getting prude idiots like you on board with harming women though. but yeah no, i’m sure with the US’s history of treatment of women’s rights, this bill is gonna be wonderful and nothing will go wrong and the countless warnings you’re hearing from SWers with actual experience are all just lies planted by evil ‘coomers.’ you sound like you really deeply understand this issue and definitely aren’t driven by the same insane hate of sex work the old men who made this bill have lol