telling your doc you do drugs?

[areflectionofnothing]

my ear doctor snorts coke (rumor)...

when i told him about my arrest for marijuana- he paused.. and had nothing but sympathy...

he admitted to his own dabbling in elicit substances... weed in particular.. and had a smile on his face as he explained.

he basically sided with me and said if i ever need to talk to someone about this kinda stuff... to go to him.

 

[StagnantReaction]

I filled out on the patient form that I smoke weed & take psychedelics occasionally.. and he just laughed. He said that a bunch of his friends would take mushrooms in college..

I guess it depends on your doctor.

 

[Inchoate]

I am a bit biased about this, but my answer would be NO, please don't tell your doctor!

This is for 3 reasons:

2. Scapegoating: With anbove stigma and doctor not wanting to bother with a disposable junkie, the doctor will simply blame the drugs for all your problems, be they anxiety, hernia, fungus, or a mutated tail you've been hiding since childhood.

Of course, thereare exceptions, but they tend to be rare...

Doctors do do this! Even unrelated to drugs...I have a chronic illness (MS) so it doesnt matter what my complaints are...its all the MS (see the analogy to drugs?) - docs have little time with each patient, so they want to 'diagnose' you as quickly as possible.....

I had a 'weird feeling' in my throat -- lasted several months. At my checkup I told the doc -- he said 'yea, MS can effect the nerves in the throat' etc.. or some such bullshit -- he didnt even look. Then weeks later I was hanging out with a friend who is a nurse and she got a flashlight and looked down my throat and there were polyps there....
Imagine what the case would have been if I told the doc 'I snort crystal every week' and then 'yea, my throat hurts' ..same thing would have happened would be my guess....

only if you know your doc very very well would I advise this--

 

[ruski]

I still stand by the fact that you should find a doc who will look after you.

I agree there is a good demographic of doctors who just don't have the time for you, but after recently finding a new GP and actually seeing that some doctors do care I am a firm believer that there are practioners out there that want to help you.

If you can find someone like this I'm sure you'd be well on your way to building a trustworthy relationship with that doctor that would enable you to talk about things like drug use.