StemCell Therapy

Good self-advocacy in medical settings requires a complicated balance of confidence and humility.

Can I be honest with you? I dont always like my doctors.

It can be difficult to admit that.

The white lab coat, the bright office full of expensive equipment, and the many, many years of schooling to earn a prestigious degree all loom in my mind when I meet a new doctor.

I see these people through the aura of authority that they cultivated over years of education and practice. Even if I feel uncomfortable with my treatment, it can be hard to give myself permission to look past that glow.

Combine this with whatever powerful emotions I might have about my appointment anxiety, fear, hopefulness and I can become disoriented. I often feel small and uncertain about what I need or want in relation to the health concerns that brought me in.

To be fair, its not just the doctors. I also dont always like my treatments.

Have you ever been prescribed a medication, maybe for pain management or to control symptoms, that you felt ambivalent about?

Maybe youre concerned about possible side effects. Maybe you heard of another option, but its not available because your insurance wont cover it.

Or how about undergoing a new procedure? In non-emergency situations, for exploratory, preventative, or treatment reasons, the choice to put on the hospital gown can be a hard one, even if you know its for your long-term benefit.

Healthcare choices often involve trade-offs. There are risks, benefits, potential side effects, and alternative care options to consider.

Ideally, your doctor should be a compassionate and knowledgeable guide through these tough decisions. Many are. But others dont always have the time or training to do this in the best way possible.

Whats more: At a personal level, we might not always connect well with our doctors. This isnt necessarily their fault. Underneath all that glow, theyre human, too.

Its not wrong to see your doctors as authorities. Theyve earned their credentials through years of study that you and I havent necessarily done, and theyve devoted their lives to caring for others.

We come to them for their vast knowledge in medicine and physiology.

Still, as patients, we have our own forms of knowledge and authority that are grounded in the lived experience of our bodies, our histories, and our hopes for the future.

We know best what pain we feel, what suffering weve lived with, and what we want or can tolerate for our futures.

Chronic pain and illness will undoubtedly change things in ways that are out of our control, but we can still have some decisive power in our health choices.

Sometimes, we have to advocate for ourselves to be able to access that power.

For me, I find that good self-advocacy in medical settings requires a complicated balance of confidence and humility: the confidence to understand and embrace the health choices I make and the humility to realize that Im not an expert in modern medicine even if Im an expert in my own needs.

It doesnt always go like this, but, in the best of scenarios, I want to:

Here are four tips Ive learned that may help you feel more empowered in the process.

This is definitely a knowledge is power situation.

Improve your understanding of your condition and the available treatments by consulting reliable sources.

Websites like Healthline are a great place to start, but also try looking for organizations and resources that are nationally funded or tied to reputable research institutions.

Use this information to ask questions and make strong choices.

Your relationship with your doctor should be collaborative, rather than hierarchical.

To be part of this shared-decision making, seek out doctors who will, within reason and the time constraints of their practice, engage your questions and your right to self-determination.

This is especially important, and often especially challenging, for patients who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) with histories of oppression and marginalization in their communities.

Research has shown that racial and ethnic disparities between patient and physician can affect quality of communication, with some evidence that unconscious bias on the part of the physician may be a contributing factor.

Medical and communications research has proposed ways that professionals can overcome this gap through good communication practices that focus on patient empowerment.

Medical concerns are scary. Chronic pain and chronic illness are anxiety provoking and distracting. Theres no way around that.

This can make it hard to focus and make clear decisions in medical settings.

That may be particularly true if youre a person living with a history of trauma or experiences of marginalization by authority figures.

Your discomfort here is like an alarm bell, letting you know you could be in danger. These fears may be realistic or unrealistic, but theyll make it difficult to be present either way.

Partners, friends, and family members can often help you process and untangle your fears and anxieties.

Sometimes, it may feel like youre leaning too hard on your loved ones or that they arent able to support you in the way you need. In this case, support groups, online communities, or even acquaintances or co-workers with similar experiences can be your most trusted allies.

A good therapist can also help.

While youre the authority on your own experiences and feelings, sometimes these can be misleading.

To help balance your feelings with your physical reality, find a way to keep track of your symptoms and interventions in real time by using a measurement thats as objective as you can achieve.

Memory can be tricky, and our emotions can have a big impact on how we experience our symptoms.

For chronic pain, try building a daily log that charts your pain morning, afternoon, and evening on a scale of 1 to 10. List any new treatments or other interventions you tried that day.

Even if you have trouble with this in the moment, looking back at your log can help you judge whether that new regimen of medication, morning yoga, or turmeric tea had any impact over the course of the week.

Health choices usually involve trade-offs, but we can participate fully in the choices we make. Dont be afraid to ask questions and make your own decisions.

Michael Waldon, LMSW is a psychotherapist, writer, and clinical social worker based in New York and California. He is trained in relational, psychodynamic, and somatic psychotherapies. Michael provides individual therapy to clients based in New York and coaching services to clients all over the United States. You can learn more through his website or at Tapestry Psychotherapy, where he maintains a practice specializing in anti-oppressive and integrative approaches to the treatment of trauma.

Continued here:
How to Advocate for Yourself When You're Living with a Chronic Illness - Healthline

This entry was posted on May 14, 2021 at 1:52 am and is filed under Preventative Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |