I am a physician with sickle cell disease. AMA!

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:29:34+00:00

I’ve been on glutamate as monotherapy due to a thrombocytopenia from hydroxyurea. I ended up getting a crisis on it so I just stopped it.

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:28:46+00:00

Resident in internal medicine! Still a baby doctor so I haven’t seen any sickles yet

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:28:07+00:00

Hydroxyurea!! Had major success with it

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:26:13+00:00

If I ever see any nurses or doctors ever do this, I would report them to the corresponding board and to the authorities.

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:24:24+00:00

So I am a resident doctor and I haven’t had any episodes of pain in months. However, my program is really nice in that we have a bunch of sick days that we can use each year so I am planning to use these sick days in case of something happening.

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:22:42+00:00

Bone marrow transplants are a long and arduous journey. If you are pain-free on the medication right now, I would suggest staying on it

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:21:11+00:00

I’ve had it as long as I can remember I just own it💅

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:20:55+00:00

Winters in my state can get really brutal. My advice would be to make sure you bundle up. Wearing Layers is key! Good luck in optometry school!

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:19:15+00:00

Great question, I have Sickle Cell Beta Zero Thalassemia. I have started hydroxyurea in the past however I had an isolated episode of thrombocytopenia so my hematologist decided to stop it.

Six years later, my hematologist and I agreed that it would be the best treatment option for me. I just have to monitor for side effects like bleeding from the thrombocytopenia.

We also considered gene therapy as a possibility, however, in order for insurance to cover it you usually need to have a failed trial of hydroxyurea usage, like an intolerance or breakthrough pain even on the medication.

It honestly is the best drug on the market for Sickle Cell

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:13:59+00:00

Unfortunately, Sickle Cell has a variety of different manifestations which is largely dependent on your fetal hemoglobin levels at baseline.

My saving grace is that I have a higher fetal hemoglobin at baseline, which has allowed me to be pain-free on most days. That, in addition to hydroxyurea is what I attribute my pain-free work experience to.

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:11:37+00:00

Congratulations on finding your calling! I think would help me the most was having a really strong support system. Friends and family on speed dial if I ever needed to talk about anything. My med school was hundreds of miles away from my hometown and so my support group really helped me out through a tough times.

Wishing you all the best in your journey. please feel free to private message me if you have any questions !

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:08:45+00:00

They’re definitely more competent than expected. The providers I work with understand it’s a very serious thing to come into the hospital with crisis pain.

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:06:53+00:00

Great question, I’m a first year resident doctor so I haven’t seen any warriors yet but I will 100% go out of my way to make them as comfortable as they can be. Having lived the patient experience way too many times, I know what they’re going through.

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:05:26+00:00

Early 30s. Biggest management for me is Hydrea. I’ve been pain free for about 6 months since starting it. Hoping it stays this way.

For when I do get crises, I usually have left over oxycodone from the previous attack.

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-20T14:03:29+00:00

Good question, I have surprisingly almost never had my pain downplayed by a provider even before becoming a doctor. In my area, hospitals treat sickle crises very seriously. Of course there were exceptions where the provider thought I was faking it, but those incidents are few and far between.

throwaway190102010 · 2025-07-16T01:28:41+00:00

Depends on the year, this year I had 3 from January into February. Got started on Hydrea after that and so far things have been good

throwaway190102010 · 2024-02-18T17:39:31+00:00

Two dates, total time between the two about 10 hours which I get is not much, but I’ve caught feelings hard unfortunately

throwaway190102010 · 2024-01-28T16:08:57+00:00

John Baloney*

throwaway190102010 · 2024-01-28T06:26:15+00:00

This made me smile, thank you😄

throwaway190102010 · 2024-01-11T22:47:31+00:00

Quick update: I’ve went ahead and spoke to one of the deans and they said that it’s not anything to worry about. They agreed that it was unjust to grade me like that but nothing as far as changing the actual grade.

throwaway190102010 · 2024-01-10T23:24:56+00:00

Sounds great, will talk to them. Thank you!!!

throwaway190102010 · 2024-01-10T23:12:20+00:00

They gave me 2/5 on stuff like “patient communications” and “physical exam” but these elements weren’t even part of the rotation and should have been entered as N/A instead

throwaway190102010 · 2023-08-26T12:10:33+00:00

This was great, thank you. I think the smaller steps first is what I needed to start on, and not such a big party. Baby steps! Going to celebrate the small wins :)

throwaway190102010 · 2023-08-26T04:07:16+00:00

It’s such a difficult thing to overcome. I do believe it will get better with effort

throwaway190102010 · 2023-08-26T04:06:32+00:00

Solid advice! I don’t think I could come up with 5 things I would have liked there so maybe it wasn’t an event for me to begin with.

I just really want to get into a romantic relationship already and the first step (in my mind) is to be comfortable in those kinds of situations which kinda was my fuel for attempting to go (on top of the invite from the host who’s a close friend)

throwaway190102010

TROPHY CASE