I had one of the worst ongoing experiences of my life with this place…read more
I was itchy. Really itchy, for about a month. I thought it was poision ivy for a while, but when it spread to my hands in lined patterns, I did some research and I reluctantly thought it might be scabies, so I went to the walk-in.
The first thing they had me do was put on a cloth gown. I asked the doctor if it was clean and was told it was 'fine.' I explained that I thought I had something contagious and didn't want to put on anything that might be shared with and spread to others. I was told that I probably didn't have anything serious and that it was 'fine.' [This is not only disgusting, but irresponsible, and probably the way that I got scabies in the first place, as I had been to this walk-in a month previous.]
I told the doctor that I thought I had scabies. I was stressed out because I was incredibly itchy, and paranoid because I was pretty sure that I had bugs burrowing into my skin, and I was upset because it was embarrassing. The doctor took my hands in his bare hands (again I protested about contagiousness, which he dismissed) and looked them over. He told me that it was probably just a stress reaction and told me to try to moisturize and relax and that they would go away.
I asked him if there was any way he could take a skin sample to diagnose more effectively and he said NO.
Well, having already tried to chill and moisturize for a month, I told him that that wasn't good enough. I was pretty convinced it was scabies. I showed him the lines of rashes characteristic in scabie burrowing patterns, and after a lot of back and forth, he reluctantly prescribed me permethrin 5%.
Permethrin is an insecticide with side-effects of skin burning, itching, and feelings of paranoia. He prescribed this to me, he said, for the placebo affect. He didn't believe that I had scabies, and thought it was just stress, but felt that if I thought I could get a medicine for scabies, then I would relax, and then the relaxing (not the medication) would cause the rash to clear up. [It is incredibly irresponsible to prescribe medication (especially one with serious side effects) to a patient that they don't need, just to get them to shut up.]
I thanked him, and went home and used the permethrin. But because the doctor believed I was just crazy, it was never clearly explained to me the extent to I would have to clean my whole life to get rid of these bugs. So, while I was waiting the week or so for it to work, I was still reinfecting myself with clothing and my partner, who didn't yet realize he had it. And since some of the side-effects of permethrin are very similar to scabies symptoms, I was unsure.
After two weeks of things only getting worse, I did some research online, and realized that I had to clean my entire home, and that my partner would need medication too. So I went back.
The doctor this time refused to prescribe the medication again, still believing that I did not have scabies, and that I had already had my chance with this medication. I explained that it didn't work before because I was not told that I needed to clean coats and furniture and that my partner needed to be treated as well. He told me he would prescribe me permethrin 3%. Having done a ton of research by now, I explained to him that 3% was only for lice, and wasn't powerful enough to kill scabies, and that I needed 5%. He insisted that he would only give me 3%, and I just broke down crying.
I can't explain how incredibly insane it feels to have bugs burrowing on your body, eating you, keeping you up all night every night, so that you can't sleep, how it feels to be contagious and disgusting to everybody, and when on top of that, your doctors are ignorant, completely ineffectual, and unnecessarily stubborn, and you can't just get the simple help you know you need. So yeah, I broke down in the doctor's office because he wouldn't just give me the goddamn 5%. It was like some power trip he was trying to pull.
Finally. he brings out this little medical dictionary to try to prove me wrong, and then sees for himself that you really do need 5% for scabies, and then prescribes it like it was his idea. Great.
I go home, clean the hell out of my house, slather that stuff on, and slather my boyfriend's on him (he had no problem getting accurately diagnosed and prescribed from his doctor), and we wait. Eventually it worked
They never did diagnose me, and always insisted that I was just 'stressed' (crazy). I wanted to know for sure, and to prove them wrong. I have a friend who works in the lab at BU, so I went to his place, and dug into my skin and made slides. After an hour or so, I finally found a mite. Scabies, unquestionably, when compared to images of them online.
Now why did I have to spend an extra month and nearly $400 to find that out to get better? Fuck you, Lourdes.