Thanks Teresa, Most VAMC’s are closely facilitated with generally great medical facilities. As an example two that I have used are near or across the street from Duke and Yale. There is a strange sense of confidence until I realized that the personnel from these wonderful medical facilities are employed by residence and some have supervisors that they consult with, sometimes while they leave you waiting in the exam room. So the so called confidence is a false confidence because they encourage the residence to go back to the room on their own and do what they are being thought what doctors do. Furthermore after a few close calls I almost had a miniscus surgery from a very confident doctor who told me that I would be his first which still almost happened except for an emergency in Florida with my Dad that I left to be there and cancelled the surgery. That was almost 10 years ago and I still haven’t had the operation but still walk about 5 miles a day and rarely use topical treatments to sooth some pain.
At Yale I was an in patient with stomach pains. After a few days of IV and laxatives I was felling much better. In walks a very tall attractive doctor with a pack of students following her. After greeting me and asking how I was feeling she proceeded to talk with the students: Mr S presented in the ER a few nights ago.... I felt like a cadaver but when she told the students that I was “ a classical case for gall bladder removal “ I interrupted and mentioned that I lived in California for 15 years and I’d like a second opinion for an alternative option. There was this brief but pregnant pause as she turned to the students not to lose a REAL LEARNING EXPERIENCE and told them that they will likely run into people from California who always have unusual offbeat ideas about how to doctor. In my mind she turned the pack around and walked them out of the room. She did however wish me “ GOOD LUCK “ I honestly think that wishing a patient “GOOD LUCK “ is thought in medical school. And if you think about it “ LUCK “ itself is a word that goes against the “ SCIENCE OF MEDICINE “ unless of course you get your medicine from a Native American medicine man or snake salesmen, or any other number of “ quack “ which is originally spelled kwak short for kwakzalver which is Dutch for a person who practices with home remedies. So hot tea with honey, lemon, and a shot of whiskey is quackery as are any of the remedies Grandma used give you if you were sick.
Of course I’m creating another epically long post talking around your suggestion which I really do appreciate Teresa and I do not want to discourage others from telling me what they think or know. Obviously someone might know something that the traditionalist doctors don’t know or certainly they would not practice. I had one person recently tell me to eat caviar because it is very high in vitamin D. I’m trying it even though I recall trying it in the past and I wasn’t an immediate fan.

I did have a very interesting conversation with an administrator at Cleveland clinic. She listened to everything that had happened and directed me to a doctor who had a special interest in the importance of Vitamin D
I found a doctor who now wants to see some of my records but he also wants me to write a narrative of what’s been going on with a time line. I think he found the right person to write “ a narrative “ 😃 So we’ll see where this goes. BTW, I still have my gallbladder
Thanks again Teresa! I really appreciate your willingness to reply.

Afternoon session < g > I was reading that article again and realized that my body was talking to me and the doctors as well. The docs listen to my body as much as they listen to me. Two years ago my back pain and joint pain moved to another level. One doc ordered a full spinal MRI and similar to last years call from the VA before I got home requesting that I call back immediately. If the phone number is not a well known VA number it’s for a specific person or dept. as this number was. It wasn’t about my spinal MRI per se it was about something else concerning picked up by the MRI it had to do with nodules on my thyroid and salivary glands. They wanted to biopsy them and they did and it wasn’t cancer so that was the end of that, however all of my PCP’s Mentioned hard swollen glands for too long to remember. They did nothing although I was told once that one thyroid blood test was always normal.
Ironies or ironies there’s been an odd history of what the VA doc calls “ anomalies “. So for instance I was being poisoned by my well water and I recall arguing with my doc constantly because he said there was nothing wrong with me except all illnesses were in my head. After a year of this arguing he calls me one day with good news/bad news They finally detected very high levels of ammonia in my blood which was making me blind and crazy as a loon. The so called “ good news “ was that he found out why it never showed up in my blood test. The VA process/protocol dictated that if liver enzymes were normal they through out the ammonia test. My question to the doc was this: if there was no ammonia test in the blood test would you not ask why not or where it was? He admitted that after a year of watching me go crazy he asked the lab and they informed him of their rules. He said he didn’t notice because he was expecting a red flag notification which never occurred because the test was never done. That may have been the first time he mentioned “ anomaly “ saying that most people with that high a level of ammonia in their blood would have it show in the enzymes.
I don’t know for sure but this has happened to me so many times I can’t say exactly. Although it may not be related I’ve always had what they call paradoxical reactions to medications Zoloft for instance should take two weeks to show effects. Within the first fifteen minutes of taking Zoloft ( on my birthday no less ) I was becoming Frankenstein’s monster and had to lock myself in my house for three days. I couldn’t answer the phone or the door or go out in public. Similar with Paxil but at least I wasn’t homicidal. But I had no appetite, my body temp dropped that my teeth were chattering and while in Fl during the summer I wore winter clothes and gloves and sat in the sun trying to stay warm. They finally told me to stop taking them when I didn’t eat for a week. I noticed in the article you posted that lithium was mentioned. I took that for a week and though I would never recover I became “ dumbfounded “ as I called it. My brain drained and I didn’t know anything I couldn’t speak.
Stress now triggers the brain fog, blurred and double vision and my pains are new and so bad I can hardly get out of bed in the am. I’m now recording it all because saying it seems to have no affect on the doctors.
My emotions are all screwed up too and guess what, all family and friends are staying away. I feel like the twin towers on 911: most people are running away. I need my hero’s like in the Army who would never leave a soldier behind. Hero’s run towards the fight everyone else runs away