"Lack of Respect and Patient Engagement at Stratica Dermatology"

I had an appointment with a doctor at the clinic and I was appalled at the quality of care. There was almost no history or information taken from me, angry responses to questions, a clear lack of knowledge, and no patient education or engagement.  

The doctor did not ask me any screening questions to rule out other diagnoses or take a history. Reception gave me a form before my appointment asking very limited information, and even that was not looked at I was told I should finish filling it out AFTER my appointment. 

I have photo records of my skin condition that I have been dealing with for almost three years. The doctor very briefly glanced at the photos before simply saying “yes those are hives” and prescribing me medication. When I asked questions about diagnosis, the doctor responded angrily and impatiently, to the point where I left the appointment crying. There was zero patient engagement or patient education. Not even a basic handout. 

Eventually I was told I had idiopathic chronic urticaria. I was already diagnosed with this and it did not align with my symptoms. Before my appointment I looked at my medication record on my Connect Care account to see if there may be a connection. I discovered a very interesting timeline. The very first time I got a breakout of hives was about 10 days after starting on a 5-day course of an antibiotic. These hives continued to show up every single day for months, although slightly less intense after the first several days. Since that initial incident I have continued to have hives almost every day. I also had four severe hive and swelling breakouts where I was very weak, dizzy, and in pain. It turns out those outbreaks were also between 9-13 days after beginning the 5-day course of the same antibiotic. To me this seems like some sort of adverse drug reaction with lasting damage, such as drug-induced autoimmune disorder.

I explained this to the doctor, who did not seem knowledgeable about the topic at all. The doctor told me that if I got a reaction to the medication, then that was an allergy and the chronic hives were a completely separate and unrelated thing. I asked if my strange reaction to an medication could have been a different type of adverse drug reaction (eg. drug induced pulmonary disease which seems to fit my symptoms), I was told in an angrily tone that is the same thing as an allergy without any explanation. The doctor could not tell me how they ruled this out and refused to let me tell them about any symptoms that were not specifically on my skin (eg. weakness, joint pain, etc), which is a huge issue because a lot of skin conditions are caused by broader illnesses.

Eventually the doctor gave me a standard autoimmune blood panel order to appease me, although this had already been done by my family doctor.  The doctor told me I had to wait until I had another outbreak like the one I had with the medication, which did not make sense because I am continuing to have milder symptoms and I am concerned about lasting damage.

I find it extremely difficult to believe that these ongoing hives, along with various other debilitating symptoms that align with autoimmune disorders, are not related to the medication events. I did not have any hives whatsoever before the medication and it happened directly after without any break.