FULL DISCLOSURE IN THE CONSULTING ROOM

A trip to the hospital is not something anyone relishes. Even a periodic checkup could be quite a chore and some would rather wish they were somewhere else than inside a consulting room.

Aside the long winding queues and clerical challenges that one faces ranging from having our names butchered, to having our dates of birth inaccurately recorded, we now have to come face to face with the person some people dread – the doctor with his assisting nurse who sometimes ask very sensitive personal questions; questions that leave one wondering whether these health professionals are not prying too much under the guise of conducting a thorough medical history.

As you would no doubt be aware, patients are encouraged to provide accurate information when seeking medical treatments so as to assist the medical professionals in making right diagnosis and consequently have the appropriate treatment administered. However, chances are that you are not too keen to let the doctor or nurse to know you drink six bottles of beer a day, that your last sexual intercourse was unprotected, that you secretly take Viagra or occasionally engage in recreational drug use. There is the fear of being judged and we would rather have our ‘sinful’ lifestyle remain a secret than tell a total stranger, even a doctor about them.

Some weeks ago, I was experiencing a terrible back pain and general weakness. I however thought it would blow away until I woke up on a Tuesday morning extremely warm to touch, with a blinding headache and a catarrh, at which point I didn’t need a soothsayer to tell me I needed to go to the hospital.

An agonizing two hours later I found myself in the doctor’s office. The doctor went through the routine drill: I presented my complaints, she did an examination and begun to ask questions. To one of these questions, “do you have a stomach ulcer?’’ I answered in the negative. In fact, I once developed an ulcer about five years ago (that earned me a visit to the emergency room at an ungodly hour of 1am). Fortunately for me, it healed up as quickly as it came and had never developed since then. Therefore, I felt it was insignificant enough to omit from my record.

After a series of tests including an x-ray she concluded I had malaria whereas the x-rays showed there was nothing wrong with my spine; instead, the terrible back pain I was experiencing could be as a result of my sitting posture or the type of chair I used at work. She therefore gave me a prescription for antimalarial drugs, some antihistamine for the catarrh which seemed to be an allergic reaction, some multivitamins and Flotac for my back pain.

I went home and religiously took my medication. Four days into taking them, I started having some severe stomach aches but dismissed them for hunger pangs since I wasn’t eating as much as I used to due to my illness. The stomach pain however persisted but I just ignored it, thinking it would go away after I was done with my medications. On the eighth day I realized it was no longer an ‘ordinary’ stomach ache but was now experiencing more severe pains which were only relieved by eating (a classic sign of an ulcer). The temporal relief would last for about two hours and I would be forced to eat as quickly as I could to ease the pain. I was now at my wits-end and was wondering what exactly was going on till it dawned on me that my ulcer was back.

This was however puzzling because I couldn’t recall avoiding food totally whilst being sick so where from this harsh intense stomach pain? Everything became clearer after deciding to recheck the leaflet that came with the medication. Flotac is a combination anti-inflammatory drug classified as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) which is used to treat gout, rheumatoid arthritis, dysmenorrhea, osteoarthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatic inflammation of the spine and pain syndromes of the spine. The doctor had prescribed it to help my back pain. Flotac however is contraindicated in people with stomach ulcer.

A horrible, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach greeted this realisation – I had caused another ulcer due to my failure to mention to the doctor that I had previously had it (no matter how brief it was). If I had made her aware of that fact, she would have prescribed an alternative and I wouldn’t have had to go through this needless pain. My medication was switched and after a week I finally felt well.

Lesson learned. My experience made me realize just how foolhardy it was not to take into consideration even the most insignificant previous medical condition. Not many are as lucky as I was though, to quickly come to the realization of the possible cause of their “follow up” illnesses. They either develop something worse from what their initial problem was or worse, die in the process of taking certain medications just because a vital omission was made while providing information to health professionals because they felt such details were insignificant.

Don’t repeat my mistake.