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From: Becca
If anyone can comment, then _please_ do, things are getting really desperate for me.
I was diagnosed with severe vasovagal syncope after having a tilt test done in October, where my blood pressure dropped unexpectedly and my heart rate slowed down a lot. I then wore a 24 holter monitor and had several VE beats and tachycardic response (whilst doing _nothing_) my consultant says this is all normal.
Anyway the tilt test made my symptoms astronomcially worse than before.
My life has since been completely ruined by this condition. The consultant who sent me for the test and diagnosed me has told me, my GP and prospective employers that it is a condition that only 'silly little girls' and the 'severe mentally ill who need locking away in a mental hospital' get. He has said that 'when I decide to grow up and stop it' my symptoms will go away and I will be 'normal' again.
I live alone and I am not able to work (because of this consultants comments) I am looking at being thrown on the street - literally, my landlord will not accept people not working, he considers them to be 'lazy' and doesn't accept I have a physical problem. I have nowhere else to go.
I cannot get work, not because I collapse so much, but because he says I am doing it to myself. I don't get enough warning to sit down I just collapse, so I can't even head it off.
I have to walk round with other people and carry a stool and make sure I sit down to rest every couple of yards (I get tired very easily now and just loose consiousness) I have had a echocardiogram done but he says that was fine and therefore proved it is a 'severe psychiatric condition'.
I don't know what to do.
My friends keep saying I'm not mad, but he says I 'must be'. I don't know who to believe. I swore I was not making myself collapse, but he said I was a 'dellusional liar'.
I have collapsed so many times. I can't do my sports or shop or anything anymore. I've collapsed in roads, down stairs and even been robbed whilst unconsious. There is no way I could cope with living on the street.
I honestly don't know what to do, I've been given some medication (beta-blockers) but because of getting severe stomach pain (which makes me collapse) when taking pills I cannot tolerate a higher dosage and he has now discharged me anyway, as he is a 'physical doctor not a mental one'.
The only option I am being given is a mental hospital, to be locked away until I admit I am doing this because I want some attention. In the consultants opinion I am 'too fat, ugly and disgusting' to be happy and enjoy my life properly.
Incidently, I am the correct weight for my height (I do NOT consider myself dat ugly or disgusting and informed the consultant of this but he said I was 'dellusional') and I'm 26 years old (so 'silly little girl') is not appropriate.
I was until the tilt test considered to be 'up and coming' in my profession, but now since these comments about my mental health I am being shunned (as I am considered to be 'mad'). Even my family won't have anything to with me anymore because they don't want someone 'mad' in their family and keep telling me to 'just admit you are pretending'. But I am not I swear I am not.
Please, please offer me some advice. I cannot afford to see another doctor financially. I cannot face being called names again either.
Becca.