Getting bloods done between two practices

Started 31 October 2024 · 24 replies · 261 hearts · read 3.9k times

BevanSwansea, UK · 31 October 2024

1.7 years ago

A question rather than an update: Getting bloods done between two practices

Anyone else here in my part of the world? I would like to compare notes.

My prescriber has been fine, genuinely. The problem is that I get nine minutes twice a year and there is no version of nine minutes that covers this.

Here is where I am. The medication side has been more or less as described, and the part nobody prepared me for is everything around it: what to say to people, how to plan a week, and how to tell the difference between a thing to endure and a thing to raise.

The thing that has surprised me most is how much of this is about other people rather than about me.

Not looking for a plan. Just company and whatever anyone has found.

TavitaApia, WS

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

DotFalmouth, UK

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

7me too 8

PetraFacilitatorMelbourne, Australia

What the opening post described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

If any of this has landed close to home for you while reading, our support resources page lists the kinds of services worth finding. No obligation and no drama.

OttiHarrogate, UK

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

GusStirling, UK

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

The thing that changed it for me was going slower, agreed with my prescriber. I am not suggesting you do that. I am saying the conversation exists.

NyreeChristchurch, NZ

Have you got anyone who can be with you when you do it? It made an enormous difference to me and I felt silly asking.

HollisBath, UK

For what it is worth, the trial data on this is thinner than the confidence of the internet would suggest. Worth knowing when you read the posts.

OrrinGlasgow, UK

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

It got worse before it got better for me, which I wish someone had said. About ten days of worse.

NoraDublin, IE

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

AriaAuckland, NZ

#10

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

OzrenZagreb, HR

#11

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

7me too 2

CallaWellington, NZ

#12

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

BramwellRipon, UK

#13

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

CatoAntwerp, BE

#14

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

BodhiByron Bay, AU

#15

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

BronwenBarry, UK

#16

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

MarenBremen, DE

#17

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

OttaviaBologna, IT

#18

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

7me too 3

TillyHereford, UK

#19

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

OzzyAdelaide, AU

#20

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

BevanSwansea, UK

#21

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

TavitaApia, WS

#22

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

PetraFacilitatorMelbourne, Australia

#23

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

I want to slow this down a little. There are four different answers flying about and they are all somebody's real experience, which makes them true and not necessarily relevant to the person who asked.

TamarPlymouth, UK

#24

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.