Oh dear, my inaugural post here is going to be a doozy, hahaha!

Hi all, I'm Julie, and I hate my rheumatologist! My first rheumatologist was incredible -- thorough, caring, pro-active. He was a certified naturopathic practitioner, along with being an M.D.! He was a believer in diet and supplements as an important part of treatment with modern medicine and new therapies. Silly me, I thought this was the norm!

And then I moved. The rheumatologist in my new city was lazy beyond belief. He worked three days -- Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. He was horrible about calling in medication refills. I learned that it took about 3 weeks of pharmacy faxes and phone calls to get him to respond so I had to plan accordingly. If you were having problems, his office told you to go to the ER; he would not fit you into the schedule no matter what. People were complaining to the hospital who recruited him and he left town.

So, I was referred to another one about 100 miles away. I figured that he couldn't possibly be any worse than the last one. Wrong! He is condescending, arrogant, and sarcastic. He asked me questions and would mock my answers or interrupt me if I didn't speak quickly enough. At the end of my first appointment, he decided to take me off all of my meds and see what happens. He told me I can't have inflammation because my labs looked pretty good. Um, so why were my ankles and fingers swollen? He didn't bother to examine me beyond looking at my hands and feet. And he didn't look at any of my previous medical records.

I will be calling his office first thing in the morning because I have been in excruciating pain all weekend. He needs to hear what's going on and own the poor decision he made. I can't even take a deep breath because my chest hurts so much. I'm walking hunched over because of the pain in my spine. I had to go to an urgent care clinic last week because of the pain and they scheduled some MRIs for me tomorrow.

I hate this rheumatologist but he's the only one in the area right now. I'm not well enough to drive to Dallas regularly to see another one.