Hi, catra121:

I called around for hours yesterday, but I could not find a doctor willing to take me as a patient, even if it is only for the scraped knee wound. What did I expect!? That doctors would just scramble to help me with this wound!? In my dreams!!! I think right now that I have lost trust in doctors, any doctors, forever. It is not that big a deal for them to help me, I am not asking them to go get the moon for me, but none of them would help me with my wound. Ha! Ha! How kind and compassionate they are! (I am being sarcastic here.) If I could read their mind, I am sure they must be thinking I can go to hell with my wound. After all, to them, it is "just" a scraped knee wound which will heal. If this wound was going to heal, it would have started doing so a long time ago. Tomorrow, I will have had this wound for a week exactly. It should have healed by then, but is not showing a single sign of healing. All the scrapes I had in the past, including knee scrapes, healed in a few days. This scraped knee wound should never have gotten infected in the first place. The Emergency Room doctor who first saw me after the work injury occurred and I took the best care we could of this wound, but nothing, absolutely nothing, positive is happening with this wound. Worse, the throbbing, which stopped a few days ago, came back yesterday with a vengeance. It was so painful I literally saw stars. Then the tears came. Afterwards, you could hear my baby and I crying together. I guess my seeing the stars is caused by the intense pain in my knee, which made me contract my body very hard, including my eyes. I also have to tell you (I forgot to do so yesterday) that when my primary care physician changed my dressing, it was stuck really hard to the scraped knee wound. What genius thing did he find to do!? Pull my dressing off really hard and really quick! I am sure you can imagine what happened to my wound after such a thing is done. I am desperate. I just do not know what to do anymore, since no primary care physician will help me.

Catra, I was wondering if you knew of the kind of specialists who take care of infected wounds, since absolutely no primary care physicians want to help me.

Quote: "He was all, "I GUESS I could take a culture and send it out.""

I kept the last dressing with the pus on it (the one my primary care physician made). I wish I could send this dressing out to a lab without a doctor's prescription (because none will give me any) so I could find out what is in this pus (MRSA or something else). Then I could go to my primary care physician with the results and tell him something like: "See! I was right! My scraped knee wound IS infected!" But, unfortunately, I cannot get a prescription. No prescriotion = no pus test, which means the infection will never go away. Gangrene will come and my knee will be amputated! Then, besides RSD, I will have phantom limb pain.

Quote: "He almost forgot and I had to insist again at the end of my appointment."

I wonder if he forgot on purpose, because he did not want to have these culture and test done. Maybe he was afraid you would find out you were right and he would find out he was wrong, because that would be a shame for him! A doctor is supposed to find out what is going on with his/her patient. Finding a diagnosis is "usually" not the patient's job. Doctors are not paid for doing nothing.

Quote: "I asked about being put on antibiotics and he said he really just thought it was an ingrown hair and that I shouldn't worry but they would call something in for me if it turned out it was infected."

He refused to prescribe antibiotics for your infected wound, the same way my primary care physician refuses to prescribe antibiotics for my infected wound. It is obvious pus is not caused by viruses, against which antibiotics are known to be ineffective. Pus is caused by some kind of microbes or another, against which antibiotics are very effective. So why refuse to prescribe them for wounds full of pus? I noticed many, many doctors do not like their patients to ask them for a particular prescription (antibiotics, for example); they like to take the initiative. Of course, if they do not take any initiative, the patient pays the price in terms of aggravation of the wound, pain, and suffering. It smells suing here (I mean me suing a doctor if I EVER find out there was a medical malpractice from his part.

I did not know a person could not have an invasive procedure with an active infection going on somewhere inside his/her body.

Quote: "And then my RSD spread after the block...can't be sure the two things are related but I have my suspicions."

All these doctors who destroy the lives of their patients this way should be punished by the AMA, which should take away their license to practice, so they do not destroy the life of another patient. Unfortunately, it is the fight of the iron pot (doctors and their good lawyers, whom they can afford) against the wooden pot (patients, often without lawyers, whom they cannot afford).

Quote: "Anyway...my point being that a poor primary care physician can actually do you a lot of harm if you let them."

I agree with you one zillion %.

Quote: "It appears yours is not willing to listen to the patient at all and take their concerns seriously."

True again.

Quote: "I always left hopeful no matter how dire the situation or how much pain I was in."

This kind of doctors are angels and since there are so few angels on this earth, I wonder if I will ever find one.

Quote: "If the knee is not better in the next few days then I would again consider going to the ER if you haven't found a new primary care physician."

I will do that. However, I hope I will not hear a comment from an Emergency Room doctor, such as: "Emergency Rooms are for life threatening emergencies, not for just infected knee scrapes. Go back to your primary care physician!" If an Emergency Room doctor tells me something like this, I am stuck because I cannot go back to my primary care physician, who will refuse to help me, just like he refused to do on February 15, yesterday. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this message, I have had no success finding a new primary care physician.

If the microbes from my infected knee wound can kill me, I should rapidly write a testament, so my two-year-old baby boy does not go in an orphanage, in which he will be just a number. I want my treasure to live with my police officer boyfriend, if I should die. My boyfriend loves my baby as if he were his own. I know my baby will have a happy life with him and this is all that matters to me, his mother.

Thank you so much for your compassion, understanding, and information. I will try again to find another doctor, but on a small island, there is not much chance of success. I failed already, like I mentioned in the beginning of this message. I hope this time will be different.