I’ve had a first experience with the healthcare system back when I had Covid, and everything went smoothly. I am still learning Japanese and need an English speaking doctor, which I got.
But now I fell ill again, something much more serious that has been torturing me for 2 weeks today and I’m still a long way from recovery.
So I’ve seen a first doctor in a small clinic, he was nice but didn’t ask an excessive amount of questions. After a few days it became clear this is worse than expected (had sudden 40.5 degree fever) and the next day I went to see a different clinic. There the doctor examined me quickly and prescribed コロナール for fever.
Getting worried I may be getting simple pain killers for something that’s more serious I went to the first clinic again, where I met the original doctor’s son. They both speak very good English having studied in America. I demanded to perform a blood test (I politely asked, but I want to stress it was my own initiative). So they took my blood and the next day we finally found out that I was not just having a cold but a serious disease due to a virus. So they wrote a recommendation letter for a big hospital in shinjuku to welcome me.
The next day I went to that hospital and met with the doctor. They decided to do another blood test testing more indicators to confirm which virus I have. And I got a different kind of anti fever medicine. We scheduled the next visit for Friday, that’s when the final part of blood test results come back. But in the pharmacy that gave me the medicine and I only got 10 pills which is not enough to last until Friday.
I feel like doctors don’t ask many questions, just want to get rid of me and prescribe something, and don’t even make sure I get enough pills to survive until the next visit. Has anyone had a similar experience? This is a weird word but how do you tame the healthcare professionals to work for you?
EDIT: After experiencing super high fever for a second time (thermometer said “Err.”) and getting extreme tonsillitis that made it hard to speak my girlfriend called the hospital and arranged for me to come today. And surprise surprise the final blood test results are actually here. I don’t know if they came earlier than expected or if they just wanted to leave a 4 day margin for me to see the results, but they are here and I have a virus called Cytomegalovirus (CMV).
2nd edit: I’m really wondering what is the motivation behind all of these downvotes. Did I make it sound like had cancer but then I said “I think it’s mononucleosis”? There is a comment of mine with 20 downvotes that just says I am not comfortable with relying on the internet and ChatGPT and would prefer if the medical staff was more proactive. And even though my disease is not treatable, it does affect the liver and some anti fever medications are better than others in this context. So it’s important the doctor knows what they are doing and can properly diagnose my condition before just prescribing コロナール which happens to be the wrong kind of painkiller for this. This community can be so toxic. I’m asking for help and get downvoted to hell. Oh well, have a nice day everybody, thank you for your valuable input to those that really tried to help.
by Old-Glove9438