Endo Appointment Anxiety

http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/endo-appointment-anxiety/

Going to the doctor"s office can often be a nail-biting experience for those of us with diabetes.

Visiting our endocrinologists and diabetes specialists often brings an anxiety that"s tough to describe, but today our fellow blogger and team member Rachel Kerstetter is going to try. Rachel"s been living with type 1 for more than 5 years now, and she helps us out on the social media front at the "Mine while also maintaining her Probably Rachel blog.

Take it away, Rachel...

Endo Anxiety by Rachel Kerstetter

I just had an appointment with my endocrinologist and I"d be lying if I said I wasn"t at all anxious leading up to it. I became even more anxious about it when I left a client meeting and found a voicemail from the endo’s office informing me that my appointment had been canceled and rescheduled… for 11 days earlier! Meaning I had to rush to get my bloodwork and get my data in order.

I don"t particularly like going to the doctor -- any of my doctors. As a chronic worrier, there"s always some worst-case scenario in my mind before I set foot in the doctor"s office, even if it"s a regular appointment.

With my primary care physician, I worry that he"ll find something unexpected in my blood work, like when my vitamin D levels came back really low and he put me on a supplement... except in my head, the next time is something more serious. At the ophthalmologist, I worry that he"ll find another bleed in my eye like they found 3 years ago... even though my eyes have been clear ever since. I even worry at the dentist that they"ll find something wrong or a mystery set of wisdom teeth that will need to be removed (I"ve already had two wisdom tooth extraction surgeries!). The only doctor I don"t really worry about seeing is my gynecologist. I think because I know EXACTLY how that appointment will go.

I’m not alone in my anxiety. In my completely unscientific Twitter poll, 59% of the 82 people who voted (... so 48.38 of you?) feel anxious about endo appointments at least sometimes. The rest of you feel fine, which is great.

But back to me. Why was I anxious about my endo appointment? There were a variety reasons:

• At my previous appointment, the nurse came out to get me while I was shoving a handful of glucose tabs in my mouth because I"d gone low. I was shaking and panicky. At least I was in a good place to be low. When I told her I was low, she got me juice. I ended up high by the time I left.

• I only see my endo twice a year, so I worry that we"ll miss things that have happened in the first few months after my last appointment. I also worry that she"ll recommend switching back to appointments every 3 months.

• I worry that my A1C will be good enough in her mind, but not good enough for me. My personal goals are more stringent than clinical goals, so sometimes I feel that my care team is just checking the boxes and not taking my aggressive goals seriously.

• Most of the time she focuses on where my numbers are low and I feel like she ignores where they’re high. As a guilty rage boluser, I can account for more of the lows than the highs.

• She"ll probably want to talk to me about having babies again. Every time I see a doctor, any doctor, they want to know if I want to start having babies. It feels like pressure. I know that it"s my stage in life, but I get a ton of pressure from other sources when it comes to the kids question, so it feels like piling on and I dread it.

• I don"t know what to tell her. I wonder if I should launch into other little ailments or if I should make an appointment with my primary care doctor to talk about things like allergies and the lot, or if those things are relevant to diabetes.

• Maybe this is the appointment where they"ll want to change my medications. Last time I changed from Novolog to Apidra, it was a hassle with my insurance that left me pleading with a nurse to help me because I only had 6 hours of insulin left in my pump.

I probably shouldn’t be worried about all of these issues, but somehow going to the endocrinologist feels less like a medical exam and more like a midterm exam of how I’ve been doing managing my own disease. That got me thinking about whether or not I’m working with the right doctor.

Brad (my husband) took me to the lab on Saturday morning for our biannual the blood draw followed by breakfast. It wasn’t very busy so they called me and another person back at the same and the phlebotomists just randomly picked cubes. Mine was checking for a vein and asked what my medical ID was for. When I said type 1 diabetes she exclaimed, “Hey me too! Do you have a Dexcom?”

She showed me her Apple watch with her Dexcom graph and we chatted about pump sites, CGMs, artificial pancreas systems. Then she asked me a strange question when I was done: “Do you like your endocrinologist?”

I said that I guess I do, but I’m seeing whoever could get me in when I was first diagnosed. My endo sees mostly type 2 patients and has told me that I’m her only patient that uses a Dexcom. I had been telling Brad the night before that maybe I should find a new endo, who has more experience with type 1 patients. I may start doing some research into endos in my health care system to see if someone else may be a better fit.

In the end, my appointment was quick and unremarkable. I didn"t need to be anxious, but I also don"t feel like we accomplished much. I"m thinking it would be nice to have more of a rapport with this doctor.

So, DOC friends, we put the questions to you: Any anxiety for you when it comes to upcoming appointments? And how might that relate to whether or not you like your doctor?

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn"t adhere to Healthline"s editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline"s partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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