Diana: Speaking with health professionals – Poor communication and lack of information
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Diana
Female
Age at interview: 22
Number of medicines: 13
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Diana feels that her doctors do not adequately explain her conditions to her, or takes her side effects seriously. This adds to the emotional pain of having chronic conditions.
For two of the conditions I've got, I was actually told I've got the polycystic ovarian syndrome by my gynaecologist and then told, come back when you want to have kids. No explanation of what it was or anything. The Hashimoto's I was told over the phone and just told, your body's attacking your thyroid, once your levels get outside the set range, come back, in the meantime try and find some energy to lose weight. So it hasn't been the easiest road, but just day by day with it I have noticed the decrease and after a while doctors start saying, oh you can't have this side effect. So you’re obviously just drug seeking and all that sort of stuff, which I know at my age, I'm not the healthiest around, but when doctors are saying that to you, it really hurts. So yeah.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.