Dr. Martinez, Jr.

Usually, I like to keep going to the same doctor. However, my lack of funds and my continuing fight with Social Security sort-of prevent me from seeing my usual doctor. So now, as I've previously ranted about the University Health System, I've seen the new doctor they assigned me. He seems nice enough, although more businesslike than I usually like. Plus, he seemed hard of hearing or something, constantly asking me to repeat statements that I thought were a little loud for my privacy, since the doors are only so thick. Plus, there are things that I've read about bipolar disorder that he didn't seem to know, like the more current research. He seemed more interested in what medications I was taking than my actual symptoms and what has worked and what hasn't. Like, he was considering putting me back on Depakote! Hell, no! I don't want to go through all of that again! My hair all fell out (well, I'm exaggerating...not ALL, just a LOT) and I got really bad tremors in my arms, legs, hands, fingers, mouth, etc. Unfortunately, the tremors have not gone away after I went off the medication. I certainly don't want to do anything that could make it WORSE! Not to mention that he thought Lamictal was an antipsychotic and not a mood stabilizer as I've read. The antipsychotic would be the Seroquel. He didn't think I needed to be on an antipsychotic, which I really don't agree with. There's a reason I'm on it. I had problems concentrating and focusing when I was on only a mood stabilizer. My doctor said the anipsychotic would help me concentrate, which I didn't believe at first. But it really did work and I'm not about to go off of it. I like to read, and I couldn't do that before the antipyschotic. I couldn't remember anything I read and had to read and reread passages since I would forget how the paragraph started by the time I reached the end. Sometimes, just a sentence was incomprehensible to me. There were other problems as well, of course. I also had some hallucinations. They were very infrequent and I could always tell it wasn't real, but I'm glad to have them gone at any rate.

Anyway, I'm not pleased with this doctor and I hope I don't have to continue to see him for very long. If I have problems with him, I hope they'll let me switch, or else I could win my disability case and then seek my own doctor.