Do You Think I Should Fire My Dr and Star Looking for a New One?

Thyroid meds have many questions attached to them just by their very nature. Any side effects from a med should be quickly addressed,as it builds up in your system. Getting the levels right is difficult. I would Not be a happy camper.

You can always call your pharmacist who filled the med and will be very knowledgable about its side effects.

If you fire your doctor a new doctor is going to make you come in to talk to you before they tell you anything over the phone, so either way you are going to have to go to the doctor again. I would try one more time to get ahold of the nurse, otherwise go to the appointment and then look for a new doctor after you get this particular issue worked out.

I really think doctors are not getting paid enough, so they are finding ways to get more money. I think the insurance companies are taking all the money. Now many doctors are doing botox and diet plans that are paid out of pocket. The co-pays are only $15 (or so) out of your pocket and the doctor still has to pay the front desk people, rent and medical insurance.

Call the pharmacist for medicine questions. If the pharmacist tells you that you need to stop taking it because of a side effect, then make a doctor appointment to get a new medication. You probably can't get a new med without an appointment, so insisting you make one isn't really wrong, but I'd think they'd at least have told you that.

I don't know if I'd continue on with the same doctor or not. It would depend on other factors beyond the run-around you're getting from the gatekeepers. Do bring it up to him and make your decision based on his answer.

So, you're upset because your doctor wants to see you? Okay.

It's not a simple question. Drug allergies/interactions can be complex. I would be worried if the doctor did NOT want to see you.

If seeing your doctor when you have a problem is a problem, then by all means find some doc that will just diagnose you over the phone. I'm sure your current doc will be glad to see you go.

Neither of them know anything so they're not calling back.

Call the pharmacist.

Drug question, call pharmacist. He knows more than your doc.

You're making me grateful to have Kaiser. I call and email all the time with questions about medications our son takes. He takes a lot of different types of medications, so issues come up all of the time. It's never been a problem to get my question answered on the phone or via email. The only time we've had to go in to see the doctor about medication is if we're trying a totally new type of medication; never for a question.

Personally, I would find it ridiculous I'd have to take time off of work and pay our $30 copay to go in to have a question answered in 30 seconds. Either they think it's related to the medication or they don't.

That office/Doc probably wants you to come in again because you said you may be having a reaction to the medication.
Assessing that, and per what you say/your symptoms of the reaction etc. takes time. Doctors often have no time to make phone calls. Or they do it on their lunch break or after, hours, etc.
It may sound like a simple question you have, but being you are possibly having a reaction with that medication, the Doc probably has to re-evaluate you/the medication etc. and in light of what specific reactions you are having to this current medication.

Thyroid meds are very difficult to dose and there are several schools of thought on what to prescribe. Perhaps the doctor wants to discuss it with you more thoroughly and rule out other causes of your allergic reaction. I would be more concerned about office policy and not being able to leave a message for the nurse. If you explain it to the receptionist, how do you know she is going to adequately convey your question to the nurse or doctor. Each office is different- some receptionists are fully capable of relaying a message and some are not. Perhaps you should find out what the office policy is and then decide whether or not you want to find a new doctor. You might also check with your insurance company to make sure you are getting a provider on their network list.

It's possible to be allergic to anything.
What sort of a reaction are you getting, or do you feel your general seasonal allergies seem to be worse while you are taking your thyroid medication?
I've been on Armour Thyroid for a long time and I've been on Synthroid before and Armour Thyroid just works better for me.
But I do know people for whom the Synthroid works better for them.
Everyone is different.
I personally have never noticed any correlation between my thyroid medication and seasonal allergies.
Some years the pollen is worse than other years - some years I sneeze and some years I don't.
It takes several weeks of taking your thyroid med for your system to level out.
I would almost think you were not taking it for long enough to have make a difference one way or the other but it's possible to have a sensitivity to a drug or to one of the ingredients in the pills.
Perhaps you've asked a question that they are not sure how to answer.

Regardless - you have to have a comfortable working relationship with your doctor / doctors office.
Shop around for a new doctor if you want to - a good one is hard to find.
I've never had a lot of luck with call backs from any doctors office and I've had some doctors I've loved and some who were truly awful ( I did fire those).

If you need your medication changed then you need to be seen. A nurse can not change your medication at all, and a doctor should not do so without first seeing you. Also, the normal amount of time to wait for a telephone consult of any kind is 3 business days, so as for the call back you more then likely did not give them enough time.

For your immediate problem I would talk to your pharmacist and see what they suggest. If it's your seasonal allergies then it could just be a coincidence, something new blooming, wind picking up, etc. If you are experiencing hives or something and you're not getting a call back from the doc maybe the pharmacist can call and request an alternate. My daughter had an allergic reaction to amoxycillan and the doctor just prescribed an alternate over the phone. In that case it's not unheard of. I also had a situation where I was prescribed a medicine that would have had a negative reaction with another med that I had taken so the pharmacist called the doctor for an alternate. Good luck!

I would think the nurse should be able to answer simple questions about this.It is not like you are trying to change medications or something.

What was your specific question for the nurse/doctor?

I agree with what was said below regarding speaking with a pharmacist...makes sense to want to see you before trying to diagnose or prescribe....

I would like to add a suggestion for the future. I write (type) out my specific concerns--leaving out no details--and fax the message to my doctor's office. Then, I confirm that they have received it. Then, I wait. I make sure that they receive my concerns in MY voice, not as interpreted and then relayed by a third party. I let them know in my message what I would like to do--come in for a visit, get a new drug, whatever--and trust that they will consider whatever needs to be considered on their side before contacting me. Once I've confirmed their receipt, I give them a week to contact me regarding my concern. It rarely takes that long, just depends on what I want. It saves time all the way around. Neither I nor they wish to waste time on back-and-forth phone calls. I know that I am busy all day, and I assume that they are, too. Not only are they dealing with a full schedule of people coming in, but they also have other people calling, just like me.

No, I would not let what you've described be my reason for leaving.

Do you otherwise like this practice? Is the only beef with the "we won't answer questions on the phone, you have to come here for an appointment" issue? If you otherwise like them and if you trust this doctor's treatment of you, I would not dump them.

They may have legal reasons that the doctors and nurses cannot answer questions on the phone. If something goes wrong and you sue for malpractice, and the doctor or nurse is later seen as having "diagnosed by phone" -- that could be held against them legally, probably. It does not surprise me that they would tell you a doctor must see you in person. The doctor wants (and probably is obliged, to protect himself legally) to see you, take your vital signs, and eyeball you to order possible tests.. I do agree that we'd all prefer for them to sometimes just answer a darned simple question on the phone! But in our litigious world, they probably are covering themselves by not doing so.

Many pediatricians have some form of what our pediatrician calls the "nurses' triage line." Parents can (and should) call this line to get a nurse's help deciding whether a minor issue warrants an appointment, or whether the family can avoid a doctor's visit and just get advice on the phone. It's a huge help and prevents parents from running to the office for every sniffle. I guess that with pediatricians, more than with a general practice that covers adults or a specialist, there is a business interest in preventing the office from being too full of new parents who turn up when there really was no need.
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You could try talking to a pharmacist. They are very up-to-date on medications, possible side effects, etc. But, my husband, the pharmacist, says they could only speculate what might be happening. However, a doctor is going to want to see you to truly determine if it is a reaction. Not all drug reactions are "by the book." When we called our doctor's office about a possible allergic reaction our daughter was having, we were told to go to the ER right away.

Personally, I would talk to a doctor or a pharmacist over a nurse. The nurses can only ask what your symptoms are and pass that information along to the doctor. When I call our nurses' line they ask me a long list of questions that are on a flow chart and then tell me either to make an appointment to see the doctor, go to the ER right away, or not to worry about it. The last time I called to talk to a nurse about a slightly concerning symptom I was having, she told me I should call someone to watch my kids and call an ambulance ASAP. It was a total over reaction on her part. She took for face value what I told her, but didn't know my history. I went in to the doctor that afternoon and they found nothing that needed immediate attention. The majority of nurses are excellent at what they do, but, their medical training is not the same as a doctor's. Plus, more and more doctors are not giving medical advice over the phone without seeing patients because they want to cover their own backsides. How you describe your symptoms on the phone may be different than what the doctor actually can see.

I know paying again for what seems a simple question seems like a waste of money, but unfortunately that might be the only way (and the safest way) to get the right answer.

You might be allergic to one of the fillers in armour. I personally take nature-throid. There are several different brands (armour, nature-throid, erfa in Canada, wp, etc. check out the stop the thyroid madness website and they have a list of the different fillers. Hope this helps.

I take Synthroid so I'm not familiar with Armour. Could be that the two medications don't mix well. I'm not really sure what type of reaction you are talking about. Are they seasonal allergies or did your face swell up? I'm a little confused on that.

If you aren't getting answers from the doctor, I would go to my pharmacist and talk with them.

They are very knowledgeable and are happy to help.

I think some doctors when you are talking about reaction to meds want to see you in person to make sure everything is ok.

Since you just started the medication I would go in to see the doctor. It could simply just be your allergies are worse right now. I recently started thyroid medication and stopped because I thought it was causing me to feel nausea and dizziness. 3 weeks later I finally went to the doctor only to find out I had an ear infection that was causing the dizziness...not the medication.