Having experienced THREE situations in our family in the last year where
the MDs refused to believe the patient:

My father in law had heart surgery - he kept reporting pain and difficulty
breathing about 2 weeks after the surgery - it took 6 months and the fear
of lung cancer to have repeated surgery and find a calcified hematoma
behind the heart and pressing his lung.

My sister in law donated blood - she reported a great deal of pain and
swelling, color changes in her hand.  Now, a year and a half later she has
suffered nerve damage, has pain from 4 - 7 in a scale of 10, which has
caused a great deal of problems with husband and family (try to be pleasant
when you're in pain and have no sleep).

My niece had surgery for a tubal pregnancy - reported a great deal of pain
afterwards - only after being Air -Evacuated due to heart arrythmias did
they find a baseball sized hematoma in her abdominal muscle!  (this just
happened last weekend).  The specialists said the lack of pain control was
the cause of the heart problems.  Once she was believed and her pain was
managed appropriately, her heart problems disappeared.

No wonder there is so much communication difficulty - patients are ignored,
so they start believing their symptoms are "in their head" - nipple pain,
breast pain, etc.  OR they don't believe people will listen so they don't
report it (I have had to BEG moms to TELL me if the assistance I am
providing is helping or not).  Some sit stoically and let the baby nurse
even when I am SURE they are in pain.  Others seem to think: Well, it's
SUPPOSED to hurt, so I don't want to cause trouble.   

Just yesterday I helped a mom reposition her baby 5 times - when we got to
the position that I thought looked the least painful for her - she looked
at me, amazed that it didn't hurt.  It was THEN she admitted the other
positions HAD been hurting, but she didn't want to sound "stupid".  It sure
would have been easier if she had let me know each time it hurt - I would
have helped her get the baby off quickly instead of observing for a while
to get "hints" that it didn't "look" right!


Jeanette Panchula, RN, IBCLC
Vacaville, CA

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