Good news from a doc!

[Pulp]

Back in September my NP ran a check up blood test on me. Cholesterol, A1C, and stuff like that. Turns out my testosterone is about 100 times higher than normal. We wait a month, test it again, still about 100 times higher than normal. She recommends an appointment with an endocrinologist, who I finally got to see last Monday. He is wondering why I came. I told him high testosterone. He says it's normal. I say, "6 is the high end of the scale, and mine is 650, that doesn't sound normal to me." He looks at the chart again and says, "This scale is for a women. Your level is right in the middle of the scale for men." "Good grief" thinks I.

I reckon I'm gonna have to have a talk with my NP, maybe she's never noticed I'm not female. Maybe have her do a hernia check or something like that. Perhaps she'd notice then that there are things down there that sorta rule out being female.

Back in September when we got the first results, my wife called our daughter who is an RN, and asked what could cause the high testosterone. Daughter says, "Could be a tumor." I already knew that could be a cause, but never mentioned it to my wife as she already worries about too much stuff anyway.

I never really believed my level was high anyway, since I haven't been starting bar fights and stabbing people and other violent things normally associated with high testosterone. I mentioned that to the endocrinoligist and he agreed that high testosterone does sorta increase aggressiviness. I'm about as aggressive as a mouse on valium.

So anyway, I'm glad to report that I, at least in one way, am normal.

 

[aviator41]

Seems to me that some details (like you not being a wemenz) got overlooked. I guess that's why they call it "practicing" medicine... I think she needs more practice - as you eluded to - identifying sex in humans.

You didn't wear a dress to the doctors office did you?

 

[okietool]

The acid test would be:
Take her golfing and see if she lets you hit from the women's tees.

 

[TerryMiller]

Well, good news on being "normal(?)." Since we lost our long-time (20 years) primary physician, we changed over to a new doctor in the network for the Mercy system. In this case, the new doctor was also a woman. In fact, she is a very nice looking, young woman. Enough so that when I go, I make it a point to always look her in the eye when conversing with her so that I don't get seen "checking her out."

The last time I was in to see her, she ended up closing her lab coat and holding it closed with her hands. It seemed kind of disconcerting to me after I thought about it, so the next time I go see her, I'll have to see if she does it again. If so, I guess I'll have to ask her if I'm making her uncomfortable by looking her in the eyes. Do some folks not like that?

Or, are lady doctors just strange?

 

[1911Sooner]

Well, good news on being "normal(?)." Since we lost our long-time (20 years) primary physician, we changed over to a new doctor in the network for the Mercy system. In this case, the new doctor was also a woman. In fact, she is a very nice looking, young woman. Enough so that when I go, I make it a point to always look her in the eye when conversing with her so that I don't get seen "checking her out."

The last time I was in to see her, she ended up closing her lab coat and holding it closed with her hands. It seemed kind of disconcerting to me after I thought about it, so the next time I go see her, I'll have to see if she does it again. If so, I guess I'll have to ask her if I'm making her uncomfortable by looking her in the eyes. Do some folks not like that?

Or, are lady doctors just strange?

I don't know but I would be getting my prostate checked every time I went to see her.

 

[BikerHT]

At least she didn't start you on chemo and/or radiation! Medical errors are the 3rd leading cause of death in the US. http://journals.lww.com/journalpati...idence_based_Estimate_of_Patient_Harms.2.aspx

According to the most recent research into the cost of medical mistakes in terms of lives lost, 210,000 Americans are killed by preventable hospital errors each year.
When deaths related to diagnostic errors, errors of omission, and failure to follow guidelines are included, the number skyrockets to an estimated 440,000 preventable hospital deaths each year!

This is more than 4.5 times higher than 1999 estimates published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and makes medical errors the third-leading cause of death in the US, right after heart disease and cancer. As reported by the featured article in Scientific American:

“The new estimates were developed by John T. James, a toxicologist at NASA's space center in Houston who runs an advocacy organization called Patient Safety America...

[A] spokesman for the American Hospital Association said the group has more confidence in the IOM's estimate of 98,000 deaths. ProPublica asked three prominent patient safety researchers to review James' study, however, and all said his methods and findings were credible.”

 

[Neanderthal]

Har!!

 

[BadgeBunny]

Glad to hear you are okay and wasn't subjected to any treatments you didn't need. That's not an "error" ... 100 times too high, especially since you weren't biting the heads off little children and trying to hump everything you saw, should have triggered something in her beady little brain to double check EVERYTHING, not just your bloodwork. Find another NP ...

For the record, I have been the "victim" of a doctor who didn't do "due diligence". He very nearly killed me, which would have been preferable to the mental issues the medication he had me on caused. Thank God I have a husband who, instead of leaving his wife who suddenly became bat-**** crazy, stayed and kept at it until we figured out what the REAL problem was ... I am glad to say that I know many, many more good doctors than bad -- just like I know more good lawyers and good cops than bad ... Still, after you've travelled the road for a while with that one bad apple, it's hard not to judge everyone through that filter ...

 

[SoonerDVM]

I suspect the error was the lab techs - when they were hitting the little buttons on the computer, they hit "F" rather than "M."

When those reports print out, they also print the normals on the same page because different machines and different tests may have a different "normal" range.

So, your doc got back a report that showed you were way out of the normal range and didn't check to see if all the info at the top was correct. I learned to check it after I got a few goofy results when my tech put in the wrong species.

Listen, there's very few "normals" I know off the top of my head, I trust the lab report. This is a mistake I could see anyone making, and it doesn't mean that your doc is incompetent. Believe me, when you point it out to her, she'll be so embarrassed she'll never makes that mistake again.

 

[reddog1]

i don't know but i would be getting my prostate checked every time i went to see her.

lmmfao/ rotf!!!!!