Iatrogenic Disease

What is an iatrogenic disease? It is an illness caused by a medical professional. They don’t set out to cause one, but sometimes they do, whether accidentally, or trying to treat a patient who they haven’t been successful with using other therapies. They try something that does more harm than good. I

I have been victim to being perscribed medications that are known allergens to me. The results were tendonitis, cdiff, and anaphylaxis. There is no excuse for this. Sometimes though the doctor really has no idea that what he or she is prescribing has an effect that will cause harm to the patient.

The absolute worst episode of this was during my pregnancy with my first child. I had an OBGYN taking care of me. I started bleeding , not heavily but enough to be worrisome, especially to a first time mother. The year was 1970. There was a pill on the market for 40 years called DES ( Diethylstilboestrol ). As a 23 year old, pregnant for the first time, when the doctor told me to take the pill, I didn’t hesitate. The pharmacist was dubious about the medication, but the doc prescribed it and that was that!

After the fact, there was a huge uproar about the horrible negative effects DES. The med was pulled from the market in 1971. It pisses me to this day that they KNEW when I was pregnant that the pill had no effect on preventing miscarriage, but such horrible side effects on the babies.

We have been so very fortunate that the side effects suffered by my daughter were milder than the conditions of others. Still, she suffered anatomical anomalies, and 2 pregnancies on bed rest. How could a doctor in the field of gynecology give that pill out to women when he had to KNOW what it did. There was 40 years of research!

It was because of that incident that I became a Doctor’s nightmare. I question everything, and still don’t always get it right.

A few years ago, I had some blood work done by the lab and sent to a cardiologist. The results came back wildly different from test before, especially my level of triglycerides. When I had my appointment he gave me a prescription for some super duper new med that would cut the numbers in third. I hesitated and asked him to repeat the test since it seemed so odd to me. He wouldn’t and didn’t. I took the prescription and never filled it. I went to my Primary Care to requisition another blood test, just to run the triglycerides. She did, and sure enough the numbers came back in the normal range where I had always been. I said nothing. Three months later, back at the cardiologist after blood was once again drawn, he looked at me and said, “Look how well the med worked! Your numbers are great!”

I told him, I never filled the script because I knew the numbers were wrong. He dismissed me from his practice. Yup, I was dismissed because HE was wrong. I was told that had I taken the meds, it would have made me very sick. Lesson is QUESTION EVERYTHING!

My husband was given a medication to help treat his back pain. Diclofenac is a drug that is a short term med. Unfortunately, this doc kept giving it to my husband for a year. It specifically says, NOT FOR LONG TERM USE.

As a result of the medication, my husband now has stage 3 kidney disease. His back is no better, in fact, far worse.