[msarkie]

Believe it or not, I was able to self-refer to Mayo and get an appt in just over a month! I flew up here to Rochester on June 29th and have been here seeing docs and having tests ever since.

The internal medicine dr I saw at the beginning was fabulous - he spent 2 hours with me going over every symptom I had, and set up appts with specialists for me. He asked if I wanted to see a regular neuro or try to get in to see the MS specialist, and I opted for the MS specialist. Now I'm cursing myself for an idiot.

Are we allowed to name names? The MS specialist I saw is supposed to be all that and a cherry on top, but he was cold, dismissive, condescending, and insinuated that I was just trying to play the system for disability benefits. He spent maybe 15-20 minutes with me, with incomplete records, no MRIs more recent than 2011, and a half-hearted neurological exam, and then proceeded to inform me that I have no neurological disorders AT ALL. Not MS, and not anything else either.

I tried to talk logically with him at first, but I could soon see that his mind was already made up. I didn't fit into his neat little box of what MS was supposed to look like, therefore I could not possibly have MS. And the instant he heard I was on disability, he stopped listening to a word I said. You could just literally see the switch flip.

What really made me furious was that he had no suggestions for other diagnoses or further tests, he just dismissed me completely - and then told me that he never felt bad about telling someone that they didn't have a neurological disorder. Well, yay for him! I guess I must be cured now!

So basically the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent over the last 9 years, all the MRIs, the spinal tap, the injections, the 25 different rxs - I guess that's just all in my head! I very nearly lost the fragile grip I had on my temper, and he will probably never know how close he came to being strangled with his stethescope.