“My doctors diagnosed me badly, and that cost me everything. It took me years to recover my life.” Scott’s report – which is a doctor.
“I was fired from my job because of my erratic behavior, destroyed my house and started sleeping in my open cashier van, convinced that everyone around me was spies.”
Scott Standage is a doctor. Over the years, he has been feeling more and more sleepy And with a confused head during the day; Deep and constant fatigue, not even coffee relieved. At lunchtime, I didn’t eat – I slept. Falling (or almost) even during consultations.
There is a medical term for the symptoms I was feeling: excessive daytime sleepiness. And I was quickly approaching a serious situation, reports in.
A friend of Scott, a Sleep Medicine Certificate, offered him a night study in his lab. The results revealed Obstructive Apnea of Severe Sleep. The breath stops and resuming repeatedly during sleep.
Asked for a second opinion. The new doctor, in another hospital, told him that he had disturbance of periodic movements of the limbs – It is a rare condition, with involuntary movements of limbs during sleep.
Began to take Mirapex, a powerful psychoactive medicine that produces Secondary Psychological Effects in a small percentage of patients.
“Unfortunately, I was among these few unlucky,” he laments.
Symptoms got worse, the dosage was duplicated, He took another powerful tablet, Provil – who also had the dose duplicated shortly thereafter.
But the scenario did not improve. I was always wanting to sleep, it became a “Zombie outpatient”.
Started to have Visions, he had paranoia, was hospitalized in a ala psiquiatrica. “A well-meaning friend-becoming inexplicably passing through my cousin-presented a document to inform doctors that I was bipolar.”
Doctors accepted information as absolute truth. “So, suddenly, I had a new mental illness incurable. The diagnosis would be almost impossible to get rid of. ”
Started taking more medicines, Three powerful antipsychotics – beyond those already taken.
As a consequence of all these medicines, it had a serious psychose.
He began to feel that he was under surveillance, who was the target of malevolent forces, began to destroy yours casa looking for signs of espionage. And went on to sleep in your van Open cashier – because he thought everyone around him were spies.
He was dismissed. His erratic, unstable behavior pushed him away from medicine.
Wrong diagnosis
It was hospitalized eight times, transferred among psychiatric wings where it took 18 more medicines in total. You delusions They continued, would be diagnosed with incurable bipolar disease.
Your opinions didn’t even count. Because he was no longer a doctor – he was a mental ill.
But Scott continued to Doubt: Was it really bipolar? Doctors ensured that the diagnosis was right; The patient was that he would be in denial about his mental illness.
“As a doctor, I realized a little what was happening. I realized that the standard diagnostic procedures were not being followed.”
But, in fact, the Diagnosis was wrong.
Or rather the diagnoses: There was no disturbance of periodic movements of the limbs. It was not bipolar.
What made him so upset were so many medicine inadequate, and in such high doses. He went through 12 psychiatrists, none came to this conclusion – even after the “sick” himself suggested this hypothesis.
“Looking back, the cause of this catastrophe seems strikingly obvious: no doctor has dedicated himself to the fundamental medical work to perform a Full Differential Diagnosis – The systematic method used to identify a disease or condition, carefully discarding other possible conditions, ”explains Scott himself.
What he really had was such an obstructive apnea of severe sleepthe first diagnosis, early on. A problem that has not been treated over the years – and caused permanent damage.
Another error
Your situation only started to improve when… a Psychiatrist failed. Forgot to prescribe The powerful Mirapex and Provigil.
Scott was slowly recovering enough clarity to recognize what was happening. It only started recovery, lense and irregular.
It took a year (since its last hospitalization) but went back to work. With the help of my family, he rebuilt the house. It took even longer, but relationships with family and friends were being restored; But they are still “a work in progress.”
But today does not hide: “The damage caused was huge. My life, my career, my reputation – everything was destroyed because no doctor has taken the basic step of challenging their initial assumptions. ”
