HORRIFIC EXPERIENCE AT THE HANDS OF AN ENT ASSOC. REG.

Yesterday I visited another ENT appointment; this will be my fifth in total.

The doctor just spoke at me, A LOT. I was having a bad voice day and needed extra time to speak but every time I spoke, the doctor was in such a rush he would finish my sentence for me. Very frustrating as I was trying to tell him that I had already been diagnosed with Spasmodic Dysphonia twice.

I had a camera up my nose just before Christmas, this was a private consultant. It cost in total £250, but this appointment was NHS. My hope was that I would be offered speech therapy or botox under the NHS (how foolish of me to think the NHS was going to be useful).

Even though I had already had the procedure he continued with the camera, and didn’t even offer me spray anaesthetic- which on all other appointments I was giving. So camera shoved up my nose very painful. That done, then he checks my ears, and says they appear very blocked, so he proceeds to use a metal hook and tries to scratch out hardened wax, but scratches the inside of my ear- each time my reflexes make me pull away. He seems frustrated with me and he then tries to use a sucker, which feels like a high pitch hoover inside my head and tears are now rolling down my voice through the pain of the sound being created by the suction.

He then says to me ' In my opinion, you are suffering from stress and you need something for stress from your doctor' I reply ' Just before christmas I was seen by Alan Tomkpinson ENT consultant, who diagnosed Spasmodic Dysphonia, which is a neurological condition and nothing to do with stress' the nurse from behind me then says in a very abrupt manner 'you seem to be very highly strung and we do this procedure on little children all the time, what’s wrong with you' obviously by now I am anxious and upset by the nurses negative comment. As you will all know we can seem to sound nervous or upset with this condition, which does seem to bring out negative reactions from people. I think this is what happened with the nurse especially as I disagreed with the doctor. I was not nervous going in - I had been asleep in the waiting room and was very relaxed. The doctor then thought I was going to say something about him hurting me, and started shouting at me - I couldn’t believe that this was happening. He said he was going to write to my doctor to tell him what had happened; to say I was completely confused is an understatement.

So when I left the room I went straight to hospital complaints and reported both members of the hospital to the director - face to face. This is the first time I have ever had to do something like this - I do hope that nobody will ever have to experience any thing like that again.

So as you can gues no offer of speach therapy or botox !

Does anyone experience negative reactions from people- the tone of your voice is one of the most important aspects of communication alone with body language- for me it’s a real problem. If I am trying to get my words out I sometimes have to push hard past the spasms and then it comes out sharp and aggressive.

Regards

Lianne