this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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It's infuriating that I've ended up on so many meds I can hardly manage them, and it's all because of side effects. The cancer meds caused me to have a stroke so now I am prescribed two stroke meds. It also caused food intolerances so i can eat very few foods without getting sick, so I've developed deficiencies and been prescribed vitamin injections and pills. One of these vitamins (folic acid) gives me terrible UTIs so I need antibiotics and bladder meds. These also have side effects. These issues have wrecked my skin so now I have eczema (so bad I've been hospitalised multiple times when it gets terribly infected), dermatitis and infected foot ulcers. It's caused chronic migraines so now I take migraine meds which have side effects, and many others.
And with the folic acid, it took seeing multiple doctors before they accepted that the folic acid was causing my UTIs. A simple google search would have shown them that folic acid is known to cause UTIs and other bladder issues but most doctors are too arrogant to even check something they haven't heard before and just dismissed me. And the latest bladder med they prescribed, in the side effects it lists UTIs, bleeding in urine and bladder pain as side effects! I've been begging to see a urologist for ages but they just keep fobbing me off with pills.
I understand! I'm getting frustrated, following your nightmare journey. And yes, doctors are extremely arrogant. Add that on top of whatever constraints imposed on them (time management, restricted formulary from which prescription is permitted, etc) by the system, and I can imagine wanting to throttle someone!
But you said something that made me wonder... Often FNPs or even LPNs are more knowledgeable than MDs, and I wonder if for primary care management, that's a workable possibility for you? I'm sorry if it's another useless idea, I am unfamiliar with your healthcare system, other than what I've read online.
A lot of the time, if I actually manage to get an appointment, it's not even with a GP but a nurse, or now they even have paramedics and other similar people doing appointments at the surgery. These have been even worse than the GP. The nurses always say they don't understand blood test results and have to ask a GP and get back to me, and usually no-one gets back to me and I have to chase them up. When my folate deficiency symptoms started and we had no idea what was causing it, I was first given an appointment with a nurse who said she would ask the GP what to do and get back to me. She never did. Months passed as I waited, always expecting a call and my symptoms got much worse, in the end I kept trying to get an appointment with a GP and eventually got one and they said "Oh it looks like the nurse just forgot to follow it up."
One time I went with a UTI and was given an appointment with a paramedic. He was extremely unprofessional, made inappropriate sexual remarks, didn't know which part of the body was affected by a UTI and refused to give me antibiotics so my situation deteriorated. I actually ended up making a complaint about him but nothing came of it.
It's just utterly impossible to get any adequate treatment at all.
😲
I have a hypothesis, but without a detailed whistleblower report, it's just a hypothesis.
I'm sorry you're going through this. What a wicked system.
What's the hypothesis?
Rushing people through to meet NHS cuts and probably quotas on time and limits on resources.