After months struggling with a healthcare issue and being bounced like a basketball from (clueless) doctor to doctor, I am now at the end of my tether. I’ve had enough of being treated like a second-rate citizen, being talked at rather than to and not being listened to. I’m fed up with being patronised and spoken to like as if I were an uneducated simpleton. I’m sick and tired of being told the source of the pain isn’t the injury detected using the MRI; which I had to pay for myself because even that I was refused. I’m disgusted with the way doctors treat severe pain as if it were a common cold that can simply be sorted with a few paracetamol tablets. I’m beyond annoyed at being told that exercise to strengthen the muscles is the answer to all evils even after I’ve explained for the untempth time that most days I can barely even walk let alone exercise. And don’t even get me started on ‘sometimes the brain sends pain signals to the body that are difficult to explain’ thinly veiled type of BS of ‘it’s all in your head’ and ‘if you weren’t so hysterical’ followed by the talk of how antidepressants have proven very effective in such cases.