Help!

[liya771]

Hi everybody,

I was stressful for the last two days. My cousin a couple of days ago I believe she had a stroke or ????. I don't know for sure. But anyways, this is what had had happened. In the middle of the night she felled off of her bed bruised the right side of her face, eye, nake, hip and also urinated on herself. I don't know how long she was unconscious. When she wake up, she was on the floor lying .Thanks God, no major things happened to her. You know what I mean.
Well, when she went to ER, her doctor said "for whatever reason you pass out but you didn't have stroke" she continued saying "you are FINE". This lady is a cardiologist who is saying this things. What could you say to a doctor like her? For whatever reason, the doctor(cardiologist) is not relating all the problems my cousin experiencing to her heart problems. I don't get it.
You see, My cousin lives in California and I live in Atlanta, Georgia and the only way I can talk to her cardiologist is on the phone. First ,I have a big problem getting in touch with her and once I do, she is always in hurry so she doesn't even answer my quesions.
I was thinking of filing a compliant form but then I don't know how to do it.
If anybody have any suggetion what I should do, please let me know.
Thank you all of you for your support.
Liya

 

[Nancy]

Hi Liya-

I think when you first told us about your cousin, we all were fearful that something could possibly happen to her. I'm sure it is very, very stressful for you being so far away, and not really being able to do much about her condition.

Something is definitely going on with your cousin. You have mentioned some pretty severe problems in the past and now this. No one here can make much of a guess about what is going on, it could be very serious, a forerunner to some more serious problems, or it could be something else which is not too bad.

I find it very odd that her doctor( cardiologist) is just passing this off as NOTHING.

At this point, she really needs a complete and thorough workup with her Primary Care Physician. The cardiologist who is working with her is unresponsive at best, brusque, rude or just incompetent at worst.

Do your best to urge your cousin to make an immediate appointment with her Primary Care Physician. I certainly hope that she will get some good help.

She will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Take care.

 

[hensylee]

I agree with Nancy. If it isn't her heart, it IS something and needs to be looked into and primary care physician is the one to start. Sounds sort of like a seizure of some sort and that definitely needs attention. God bless

 

[liya771]

Echo result

Echo result

Hello,
I agree with both of you. When I was in California visiting her, I adviced her to see her primery physician. she did see her primery physician and had all kind of tests done beside her heart such as thyroid, blood glucose, and so on. The results of her tests showed that eveything is good. That is why I am very worried. As far as I know, the only problem she has is her heart.
Well, I comformed that today. I received her medical records and I couldn't beleive what I was reading.

This is what her Echo result says:

"A mild mitral regurgitition, there is moderate to severe tricuspid regurgitation, associated with marked right atrial enlargement, right ventricular enlargement, and decreased right ventricular ejection fraction. Mild to moderate aortic regurgitation. The left atrium is borderline enlarged. the left ventricle is borderline enlarged, with a mildly reduced overall ejection fraction of 45-50%."

Have I ever mentioned that she had mitral valve replaced in 1990 and she is on Coumadin since with history of several strokes.

I don't think I am over reading her echo result. How could a cardiologist would ignore her case? Please help me undersand this mess.
Thank you so much for your support. You can't imagine what it means to me as well as my cousin.
Liya

 

[Nancy]

If I remember the first posts you wrote on this, it was an insurance issue, where her insurance would only allow this one cardiology group and no other. Going out of network was forbidden. Am I right on that? There must be some sort of governing body for medical insurance groups in the State of California. Maybe some of our members from California can help. There must also be some kind of medical professional monitoring group at the State level as well. Every state has one.

The problem I have with that right now, is that she is in dire need of some kind of cardiology help and if you wait for a censuring procedure, it might take too long a time, and would take away from getting her the help that she needs.

Can she go into the Emergency Room of a hospital that does not use this cardiology group and try to get some help that way?

Other than that I am at a loss. I'm afraid that she will have to go out of network for help and it will cost money to do that.

I am hoping that some of our members that are familiar with California regs can shed some light.

But at any rate. She will have to go to the ER, if she is feeling poorly.

I am very sorry for her situation.

 

[jeferi]

Kaiser problems

Kaiser problems

Liya, I noticed before you mentined you were dealing with Kaiser for your cousin. I found with Kaiser you have to be very pro-active and persistent to get results. Getting past there primary care physicians to see specialists can be difficult. They sent me home 5-6 times with a case of infective endocarditis over a 4 week span before they finally said "you may have have to be admitted to find your diagnosis." which turned out to be a rare bacteria called "cardio bacterium hominis" only about 50 known cases of this specific bacteri infection recorded. After I finished a 8 week course of anti biotics i started having some strange vision problems developing with severe headaches as well. I was in and out 3 or 4 times before they did a cat scan and angio of my brain to dis cover I had a mycotic anyerism/oclusion of an brain artery which I was very lucky that didn't cause a serious stroke. So they hospitalized me again put me back on intravenus anti-biotics which I have now been on over 4 of the past 5 and a half months.
Now they say I need valve repair/replacement surgery for my mitral and after my angiogram of my heart last week they say I may need to replace my arortic valve as well. So anyway the moral of this story is to just go down to kaiser everyday and harass and keep phoning them until they do something. I went in and saw a weekend sub Dr. on a sunday who figured out I had a serious problem in just a couple of minutes after being put off by a few others.
good luck
Jeff

 

[Nancy]

Just wondering if anyone has had good care from Kaiser. There seem to be a few posts about their unwillingness to help patients, even with very serious conditions, and on other boards as well.

That's really unforgiveable! It's one thing to watch all the pennies, but to deny healthcare to folks who clearly need it, what are they doing in this field?