Patient
Before getting into the review I wanna preface by saying that the nurses were wonderful! I have been experiencing debilitating symptoms such as high blood pressure reaching about 145/90 (and even higher) every day, dizziness, fatigue, joint pain (although I have arthritis as well so that makes sense), headaches, chest pain, ect. I was referred to a cardiologist by both my PCP and my Rheumatologist and it waited about a month to get in (not too bad!). But, after going through multiple tests including a laying down, sitting, standing blood pressure test that showed changes in correspondence to my movement the doctor was very dismissive. As soon as he came in he said my blood pressures are mildly elevated (if he had looked at my app as I had suggested he would see they go beyond that on a daily basis). Regardless he said my heart scans looked good and that he is not worried about my blood pressure because my heart looked good. My mom and I had expressed that my symptoms are the focus and that I am barely functioning and he blamed it on not drinking enough water. To be fair I have not been drinking much lately, but I have tried increasing my water intake before and it has done little to no good. As well as all the above he quizzed me on random medical topics asking if I knew what two types of chest pain related to the heart are and when I said no he pushed me to try and answer anyways despite me just wanting help with my symptoms. At the end of the appointment the conclusion was that I have a orthostatic autonomic dysfunction, but he glazed over this, didn't give a diagnose or helpful solutions and said that this can make people feel pretty "crummy" when in fact it goes beyond that. He had also mentioned that this happens to so many women around their cycle even though I had mentioned multiple times that this has been ongoing and worsening over 4 months with no relation to my period. It felt as if he was trying to find anyway to blame it on anything but an actual issue and I left with an appointment two months out with him saying to "drink more water and see what happens" (paraphrased).