Be Positive!

From my experience the best thing you can be a supportive!  If she takes action against the doctor's misdiagnosis, back her up with support.  If she is falling apart over it, she needs some counseling to help her sort through the issues and decide what she needs to do for herself. Your role is to be the listener.  For me the best support is to listen and let me make the choices!

Certainly this will make her leary of doctors, but she must be her own best advocate and she needs to know her disease well!  I wrote a blog about being your own best advocate and I described why it is so important.  I keep my endocrinologist and my CDE (diabetic educator) separate, that way my healthcare team keeps each other in check and they also keep me in check!  

Often we rely solely on the doctors to make all our decisions.  From personal experience that was a huge mistake.  I almost died because of something stupid, all because my doctor chose to see me as a one issue patient.. diabetic!  I was having symptoms of extremely high blood sugar numbers.  It went on for months.  My endo at the time remarked that I didn't take care of myself.  I was agast at the comment!

A couple of months later, I spent 3 days in and out of an ER with a misdiagnosis! My husband and I made the decision to go somewhere else.  I was vomiting so hard in the car and he called for an ambulance. I went to a different hospital and it took them less than two minutes to decide I needed my gallbladder out immediately!  (The case was so clear I was interviewed later over the situation.)

When I was in my follow up appointment with the surgeon, he told me that the high numbers were an indicator of the amount of bile the liver was excreting and no one was thinking outside the diabetic box.  After my lengthy conversation with him, I fired my endo and hired Integrated Diabetes Management for my endos.   Gary and Judy, my CDEs, have been outstanding!  I work with them remotely from DC, they in Philadelphia, and I have a new young endo who is fantastic!  

She needs to be proactive with her healthcare choices and you need to cheer her efforts!

Hope this helps!

Ann... thank you so much for the reply... yes, it does help me... i will keep my ears open and my mouth shut... i will be supportive... today i'm meeting her at her endo...  i'll keep you posted... thanks again... jane