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Communication with your doctors: What works/ what doesn’t??
Relationships aren’t just about spouse/ boyfriend/ girlfriend relationships. One of the most important relationships when managing a chronic illness is the relationship we have with our medical team. This includes ALL parts of the medical team, from PH specialists, to primary care doctors, dietitians, and therapists. I find it best when I communicate through written words vs being actually at the appointment. This can make it hard for me to say what I need to say at appointments or really express how I’m feeling in a way that is easy to read. I can put on a happy face at appointments and confuse doctors when I talk about my symptoms being really hard to manage. On the outside I convey a different message than what I’m actually feeling.
This makes communication with my providers feel challenging and there can be a lot of miscommunication at times. To try to avoid this, I like to use online portals when they are provided to me and when the doctors are responsive to online messages. For the most part I send messages through patient portals, but other times I have my doctor’s personal cell phone numbers or their email addresses and have contacted them this way as well to get a speedy reply and write out any questions, worries, or recent challenges.
How do you communicate best with your doctors? Do you notice challenges in communication with doctor/ patient relationships? What do you think can be done to improve this and make communication more effective?
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