Medical Records

Posted by intendtorecover @intendtorecover, Nov 21, 2022

Be sure to read your medical records. I read mine and was disturbed by how my medical record was documented.
After taking Effexor for ten years to treat fibromyalgia, I stopped taking to. (I did so over a two or three week period) As a result I spiraled into depression with a side of anxiety. I'm finally recovering after a year!

At the suggestion of my primary care doctor, I did a consultation with a pyschiatrist, to determine if I needed medication or other treatments.

After seeing her via zoom, I went on and read the report. Nowhere in it did she state that I started taking the pills because of fibromyalgia and that I never suffered from clinical depression. So the charge reads as if I had a history of depression and anxiety. This upsets me because it was the medicine that created the onset of my depression AND anxiety. This means that there's no documentation regarding the link between discontinuing
antidepressant for a patient who was not depressed.

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Depression & Anxiety Support Group.

Jennifer, Volunteer Mentor | @jenniferhunter | Nov 21, 2022

@intendtorecover I understand why this upsets you. I think doctors cover the bases by stating conditions so they can't be judged for missing a diagnosis, so maybe they overstate something. I am a spine surgery patient, and it took me a long time to face my fear of having the surgery, and at one surgeon's consult, I was very nervous and my blood pressure went up to 170. He didn't tell me but he wrote in my records that he recommended to see a psychiatrist. Maybe he thought I needed sedation to calm the fear, however he was a very pushy doctor who wouldn't take time to answer my questions, and just wanted to jump to surgery after telling me I had significant spinal cord compression and he caused the escalation of the fear. That would scare anyone, and after that my fears were enough to cause panic attacks for 4 months. I did learn how to unravel all of that without medication and I did well going through surgery. I had carpal tunnel surgery once and the doctor wrote how pleased I was with everything without even asking me about it, so it was just a generic script to pad the approval of the surgeon for the insurance company. When I went back because my hand was turning blue because the surgeon missed that I had thoracic outlet syndrome, he wrote in my records that I was a malingerer. No.... my hand was actually blueish purple and cold to the touch and tingling. He took my pulse and said I was fine. He didn't want anything to do with me after that, so I found another surgeon who diagnosed the TOS and sent me to physical therapy.

A counselor psychologist may be able to help you emotionally with that and feel better about it and without medications. You can always talk about it as a side effect of the medication, as there are medical codes for that.