Doctor: "Are you pregnant?" Me: "No" (explain why) He does a test anyway

At 41 I guess I'm not smart enough to know my own medical history. This happens ALL the time.

ER, 13 hours. In horrible pain. Multiple X-rays. Ultrasound. CAT-scan. Blood work and urine.

Still don't know. More test to follow.(GI series and colonoscopy)

BUT what really ticks me off is being asked if I'm pregnant, or if there is a chance of my being pregnant...AFTER I explain I can't get pregnant - they perform a test anyway.

Why?

Is it the money? Do they get dollars for every pregnancy test performed? I don't pay for health care (military)...but do they get more money in the budget if they perform pregnancy tests? Is it because I'm female and they think I couldn't possibly know? I don't know...but it really ticks me off.

Please check for appendicitis. My Dad (72) had an appendicitis attack last year and they misdiagnosed it. It started to rupture and he had the surgery to remove it and is okay now. But then a friend of mine (in his 40's) had the same thing happen to him a few months later. It's crazy...don't doctors know what appendicitis symptoms are anymore?

That really is insulting that the doctors acted that way to you. Maybe they assume some people lie due to past experience. :shrug:

Take Care!

but since my white count remains elevated they want to do more tests.

Even when I'm not in pain I get ticked at having to take a pregnancy test. I understand malpratice - but it's in my records that I can't get pregnant, yet they always perform one. I've even been given that "look" that suggest that I could be wrong.

Just after I got my undergrad degree, a friend's father died of sepsis after his appendix burst. He had been to the ER twice in the days before, and was told both times that he had the flu and to go home and drink plenty of liquids.

I had a breast biopsy and I had to wait two hours for a pregnancy test. Pissed me off big time since my husband had a vasectomy years ago. So, I go in today to have my lumpectomy. I went two days ago and had a pregnancy test so I could get in and out of surgery quicker and not delay for the damn pregnancy test. Nope, they wouldn't accept that since it wasn't in the last 24 hours. :argh: They tell you to not drink anything for 12 hours so it's not exactly easy to produce a specimen. I told them I refused to give a specimen. I was pretty angry. I just quit arguning and tried but eventually added some water to just get the specimen. I'm 47 and there is no way I'm pregnant.

Hope everything goes well.

I just needed to rant. It's seems wasteful and time consuming - not to mention aggravating.

is standard procedure for any woman who is of child bearing age and has a uterus. The reason is that many tests and procedures could harm a fetus and the medical folks would then be liabile. Once when I was working in the second shift lab, a young teen came into the ER and was given the standard pg test. Her mom was foaming at the mouth about the "insult" of this. You guessed it, it was positive. They made us repeat the test twice, always positive. I often wondered what happened to that girl. (I think she was 14.)

in her mother's presence? I hope not, especially if mom was really so adament in her determination to speak for the daughter's personal life (which doesn't speak well of the parent-child dynamics in this family).

On edit: You're right about automatically running a gazillion tests to minimize the hospital's liability. It's one of many unfortunate practical upshots of this country's litigiousness.

probably the answer.

I was home sick from school one day when I got a call from my new doctor's office reminding me of an appointment I had the next day. I thanked them for the call but asked if I should reschedule it because I wasn't sure if being sick would effect the blood work and urine. The receptionist put me one the phone with the doctor and she said it would be fine. In fact it was great timing she said because then I could find out why I was sick. So I go in the next day and after seeing me for less than five minutes she's convinced I'm having an eptopic pregnancy. I let her know it wasn't possible and she stares me down and says, "You can't tell me you haven't been up to something." I told her that just because I had bigger breasts than her didn't mean I slept around. She left the room for almost an hour. When she comes back she said that she had the lab take my urine and run a pregnancy test and it came up negative. Then she tried to lecture me on how that doesn't mean anything because it could just be early in my pregnancy and if I didn't have an abortion immediately I would die. Needless to say I never went back to her.

That also happened to a roommate of mine when she was 16.

least once a year.

Student goes in with indigestion--pregnancy test
Student goes in with abdominal pain--pregnancy test
Student looks a bit thicker around the middle than the doctor thinks is normal--pregnancy test

You'd think they'd rule out ulcers or appendicitis or other conditions first before assuming pregnancy.

One of my students told the doctor, "If I'm pregnant, then there are going to be angels singing over the hills in nine months, because I'm a virgin!"

Back when I was in my twenties and in graduate school, I got a crippling attack of spastic colitis (couldn't stand up or lie flat) and was taken to the emergency room at Yale-New Haven.

The first question was, "When was your last period?"

I'm sure that if I hadn't said, "I'm in the middle of it," I would have been given a pregnancy test.

They injected a sedative and a muscle relaxant and I immediately "uncurled." It was a psychosomatic attack brought on by a unique combination of stresses.

Whoa - she was a real winner wasn't she?

Sorry that happened to you and your roommate.

and that the you are feeling better today. :hug:

All the results from those tests are back and that's why I have a new sig line. "I have a happy pancreas" That's what the doctor said of my pancreas. He called my liver normal - not happy. sigh.

The next set of tests are not until the 1st week in September. It's the quickest I could get in with my primary "clinic" (military)

Sounds like a holiday for IHOP devotees. Glad to see the banana is back! :hi:

I like your new one, though.

Oh. My. God. do I hate the pregnancy test bullshit. Luckily my current clinic seems to accept the word of a woman in her 30s. It's one of the reasons I stay with them despite some other things I don't like about it. Prior to that, every time, I mean EVERY time I went to a doctor there was the inevitable and extremely annoying delay while I waited for the pregnancy test to come through that confirmed that NO, I AM NOT PREGNANT AND THERE IS NO WAY THAT I'M PREGNANT LIKE I TOLD YOU ASSHOLES WHEN I GOT HERE!! :argh:

It's like every woman is a teenager who is lying about her sexual activity. Not that I think teenagers should be treated like liars either. Some say it's a liability issue, that maybe they could give a pregnant woman who didn't tell them something that could harm her fetus. But I was forced to take pregnancy tests in military clinics too. I was active duty and couldn't sue my providers if I wanted to. So I think it's just a matter of them making assumptions about certain patients.

They know it's not possible but they insist anyway.

I only got medicine for the pain after the test came back - which just ticked me off even more.(cause I was hurting bad)

"Is it possible you're pregnant?"

No, as you can see in my records, I had my tubes tied. I also tell them I'm in a lesbian relationship, just to shut them the hell up, even if I'm not at the time.

Why is it even a question?

That's all I can think of. Hey, my Happy Pancreas post was a lame attempt at a joke. Sorry. I'm glad your pancreas is happy tho.

Do female doctors do this as often as male doctors? I haven't been to a male OB/GYN since college. In the middle of an exam he asked me if I was having regular orgasms. :eyes:

I even drive to another city to see my doc, because there were no female docs in my area when I moved here.

I usually have a female doc but this was after hours. In my experience, the female doctors have been a lot better about crediting me with a brain.

emergency room. I was ambulanced in after fainting from extreme pain while in line at the bank. When I arrived the doc asked whether I could be pregnant. I said no. He believed me (so did I) and pursued other possible problems. One hour later as I lay on the gurney, I looked at my abdomen and it was expanding. I said "Look, I think something's wrong!" The doc freaked and called in the troops. They quickly brought over papers for me to sign and put me under. When I woke up they informed me that I had been pregnant--an ectopic pregnancy and that it had burst the tube. I'd lost a lot of blood and almost died.

So, I do have some sympathy for the doc who went ahead and did the test.

I seem to recall it is standard Military procedure. Thinking back to the clinics on base, it was a regular thing for me, even though there would have been a Star in the east and rich men from India at my door....

I was stunned that my local hospital did not do a test and took my word for it when I had surgery in July. But then again, Boulder's ... different.

I may or may not have surgery (gall bladder). I'll know more next week.

Just saw this.

Thank you!

Even when I have a perfectly good explanation for why I'm 100% sure I'm not knocked up (usually that I haven't had sex that cycle) some doctors still want me to pee in the cup. What the hell is the point?

My current care provider has never asked me to give a specimen, but I don't know if that's because she's more confident in my ability to assess my risk of pregnancy or just because she's never felt the need. Certainly she's never had to write me a prescription so I'm curious to see how she'd respond if I did need one. I'll ask her next time I go in for my annual exam.

I'd like to think she'd take my word for it, but sometimes the HMO makes her play the defensive medicine game and she clues me in that I can choose to decline but she has to offer. For example they require all kinds of STD tests be administered to women my age and she has to have me sign a zillion forms to cover her ass when I decline them because I'm not at risk.

As a teenager, I had a doctor make me take a test when my boyfriend was across the country and I hadn't got any for months, while I was on my period. Sooooo not pregnant. Stupid CYA medicine. :banghead: