How I got my gastro team and my GP talking to each other

Started 31 December 2024 · 23 replies · 249 hearts · read 2.3k times

AleksLjubljana, SI · 31 December 2024

1.6 years ago

A question rather than an update: How I got my gastro team and my GP talking to each other

Squeamish subject, so I am going to be plain about it and get it over with.

Something is going on and I would like to know whether other people have had it, mostly so I know whether to raise it or wait it out.

Before anyone says it: yes, I have an appointment booked. I would still like to hear from people who have had this, because I would rather go in able to describe it properly.

No advice needed if you would rather not. Recognition is genuinely enough.

BramberSteyning, UK

I asked for a slower schedule specifically because of my history and it was granted without argument. I had expected to have to make a case.

NoraDublin, IE

Somebody here suggested writing a one-page summary of my history to hand over at appointments, and it has saved me an enormous amount of repeating myself.

11me too 2

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal

Stepping in because a question about another medication has come up. That is a pharmacist question and it is genuinely one they will answer properly and quickly.

GethinMerthyr Tydfil, UK

What Nora described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

My team's approach was to change one thing at a time and wait, which was frustrating and correct.

BettinaGraz, AT

The thing I had to accept was that some of my questions genuinely do not have answers yet, because the studies did not include people like me.

10me too 8

BibiRabat, MA

I had surgery years ago and that changed the picture substantially, and I want to say that anybody in that position should be talking to a specialist rather than to a thread.

PosyChichester, UK

Building on what Bibi wrote rather than answering the original question.

Mine has been stable throughout, which I mention because the difficult accounts are the ones that get written down.

ÖzlemIzmir, TR

What I found was that my baseline was so unusual that comparisons to other people's experiences told me almost nothing. My own notes were the only useful data.

NyalaAddis Ababa, ET

Mine required one pause and one restart in eighteen months and both were planned rather than emergencies. That is a good outcome for a complicated gut.

BryherIsles of Scilly, UK

#10

I want to say clearly that nothing in this circle replaces the specialist who knows your history. We are company, not a second opinion.

EphraimBrooklyn, NY

#11

Building on what Özlem wrote rather than answering the original question.

My gut was already complicated before any of this and the general advice mostly did not apply to me. Bringing it to somebody who knew my history was the only thing that worked.

11me too 9

AleksLjubljana, SI

#12

Coming back to say we found a workable arrangement, slowly, with two teams and a lot of notes, and I have been stable for a year.

BramberSteyning, UK

#13

I read this twice. The second time was for the last paragraph.

NoraDublin, IE

#14

I had my existing condition reviewed before starting rather than after, and my gastro team were much more involved than I expected them to be.

BrackenHexham, UK

#15

My consultant was cautious rather than opposed, which turned out to be the right posture, and we went considerably slower than the standard schedule.

GethinMerthyr Tydfil, UK

#16

What helped was keeping a log that recorded both, separately, so that my two teams were not each hearing a summary of everything.

BettinaGraz, AT

#17

Something that surprised me: my long-standing symptoms improved rather than worsened. That is not everybody's experience and I did not expect it to be mine.

BibiRabat, MA

#18

Bettina has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

I would say get the two sets of clinicians talking to each other if you possibly can. Mine were not, for a year, and I was the messenger and I got it wrong twice.

12me too 4

PosyChichester, UK

#19

What I needed and could not find was somebody with my specific combination. This circle is the closest I have got and it has been worth a great deal.

ÖzlemIzmir, TR

#20

Bettina said something I want to sit with for a second.

The flare I had at month three turned out to be my usual condition doing its usual thing at its usual time of year, and I had blamed the medication for a fortnight.

NyalaAddis Ababa, ET

#21

The hardest part was working out which symptoms belonged to which thing. After twenty years I knew my usual pattern, and this was a new pattern layered on it.

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal

#22

I want to slow this down. There are five suggestions on this page and none of us knows this person's other medications, which is precisely why we describe rather than prescribe.

EphraimBrooklyn, NY

#23

I take other things for my gut and the timing of them relative to everything else needed working out properly with a pharmacist. Worth an appointment of its own.