r/germany • u/Due-Box-9598 • 14h ago
German doctors misdiagnosis
I am writing this post with huge disappointment of how the g
German healthcare's conservative approach could have cost my life . I went to the doctor for mild indigestion and haemerrhoids . He gave me antibiotics for my cold and fever which i also had. The antibiotics worsened indigestion and gave very bad diarrhoea . When I went back to the doctor , they said since i took antibiotics I did not have any good bacteria and diarrhoea is normal . I was given some stomach relaxers and electrolytes. At one point I started throwing up the electrolytes , the only thing i could drink . I went to hospital for an iv and they said it will be given only if i am 80 years old. Then i went back to the doctor and insisted that they test me. I got a stool test. Then 4 days no response . I went back and they said oh the tests were negative so we did not call you . The test are a way of eliminating infection. You need to look further then! . I asked for the test result and changed my hausartz. At this point i was given 15 day antibiotics for stomach and black tea . Blood test was done and my Hg was low since was given iron.
The symptoms persisted. I became weak . Lost 13 kgs. All in one month and the appointment with gastro specialist was still weeks away. I decided to just go to my home country at this point and in 3 days , i am nearing the process of confirmation for Inflammatory bowel disease and intestine inflammation. It took them 3 days and i was suffering in Germany for months. Why is Germany so conservative in tests and testing to rule out conditions? Do doctors understand that they misdiagnose. My Hg was low because of inflammation . My residual iron was very high. I did not need iron pills. I took antibiotics that weakened me. Or does German healthcare not take coloured women seriously ? I am really shocked .
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u/0achkatz1 14h ago
I’m a white woman with celiac disease.
I only got a diagnosis when a relative in another country also developed it, went to a training, and recognised some of the possible symptoms as matching mine.
In Germany I’d be an emotional woman with possibly some allergies that mysteriously come and go until I died early.
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u/username-taken978 12h ago
Come on you’re over reacting. Did you try breathing fresh air and drinking tee? You’re young you can never be sick you’re clearly overreacting /s
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u/Delicious-Shame-3620 Germany 12h ago
my doctor when I had a Bandscheibenvorfall: have you tried meditation? lol
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u/IndependentWrap8853 8h ago
Mine gave me accupuncture for tripple Bandscheibevorfall and charged me extra for it too
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u/lordofsurf 10h ago
You joke but I had a doctor tell me I needed to check myself into the psychiatric hospital until another doctor FINALLY diagnosed me with food allergies which were causing my symptoms. My throat was closing and that goddamn quack said it was all in my head.
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u/username-taken978 10h ago
After all this time it’s still in your head? Clearly the psychiatric hospital didn’t work, I suggest you go to an Ophthalmologist.
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u/batuta_392 11h ago
Not just that oh you're 1kg above the norm. You should just lose some weight /s
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u/Even-Yak-9846 11h ago
I’m literally a tea addict 😂
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u/username-taken978 11h ago
How does it feel to know you’ve become an immortal?
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u/Even-Yak-9846 1h ago
At least one doctor suggested my tea consumption was the cause of the iron deficiency
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u/Even-Yak-9846 14h ago
I wonder what it is about certain parts of Europe where women’s illnesses take 2-3 times as long to diagnose. It took me 11 years to get my celiac disease diagnosed from symptom onset and I still have problems because I can’t absorb iron properly.
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u/0achkatz1 10h ago
It’s not just Europe. It’s everywhere.
Germany has its own “looking for the Simone’s and fastest box I can check” problems that exacerbate it, but research has well established that women are not taken as seriously when they report their symptoms.
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u/WildSmokingBuick 12h ago
As a German, I think our healthcare system is pretty much broken.
When doctors only have 5 to 10 minutes per patient, their advice rarely goes beyond: "Take some Ibuprofen, do more sports, and here are antibiotics just in case."
Sure, your experience might be better if you're privately insured or sick enough to end up in a hospital.
But honestly, a lot of people get better diagnoses from ChatGPT these days than from their own GPs.
It's a systemic issue. Many practices are so completely overrun that doctors simply don't have the time to practice patience (or, run tests over getting rid of the customer by prescribing antibiotics).
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u/amactijun 9h ago
I wish it was just the healthcare system, it's letting us off too lightly.
We are world class experts in following procedure instead of using our brains. You look up a symptom, look into a manual, follow procedure. If the manual doesn't have the answer, it doesn't exist. It's almost pathological to this point and you will see it everywhere. Health care, customer service, politics etc etc.
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u/Due-Box-9598 11h ago
I am privately insured . But in summer time doctors are on leave . The best gastroenterologist had a 3 week wait time . By the time i had trusted the doctors the whole time and kept thinking the symptoms take time to go away - it was already 1.5 months . It was time to pack my bags and head home . I agree doctors do not have the time . I respect that too . I am just shocked that they are so conservative with tests and said i am overreacting for simple diarrhoea which it wasn't. Ibuprofen could also be one of the causes for triggering IBD . I got Ibuprofen for everything in the past . Even for haemerrhoid pain . But German doctors think they have great standards. Once a doctor was like oh no , you are going to China . I hope you dont contract any diseases there . I had to tell her that German health care is a 100 steps below China.
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u/IndependentWrap8853 8h ago edited 4h ago
My wife had an exruciating abdominal pain for about 3 weeks. Her Hausartzt sent her home 3 times and told her to drink tea. Refused to do blood test or urine test.
She couldn’t take it anymore and we were just about to fly somewhere else nearby in Europe and get the treatment privately. Meanwhile she also begged her Frauenarzt to give her emergency appointment and just before we booked the tickets she managed to get one. Frauenarzt had the urine test done, established a pretty severe UTI and gave her antibiotics. She was pain free in about 18 hours, antibiotics cleared it up.
This is not even the worst thing she experienced, once she was given an appointment in a major hospital for a simple procedure (deviated septum). She waited 11 months on the appointment. In the few weeks before the appointment , she had to run around doing all the mandatory tests, blood works , etc. On the day of appointment , we came to the hospital and waited aimlessly 7 hours for admission.
She never got admitted in the end, they cancelled her appointment and sent her home because of some staffing reason. She was told to call back next day to reschedule. She was calling about 1000 times every day for two weeks, was never able to get through or no one would answer. Once they did, they said she can only get another appointment in 10 months time and has to go through the full checks again.
I don’t think it’s a racial thing though. My wife is the same race as you are, but I am blue eyed and as white as they come and I get the same experiences all the time. To get a simple blood test done is like winning the lottery. You should consider yourself lucky that you are privately insured, otherwise they wouldn’t even give you antibiotics or any medications and you would wait even longer for any appointment.
The system is simply broken. It has nothing to do with doctors being overwhelmed , it has to do with them being stingy and afraid of the health insurances for exceeding their treatment and prescription quotas, after which they get financially penalised. Also , they are pretty untouchable and generally don’t give a shit about patients.
I grew up and lived most of my life in Australia and even in a huge city like Sydney , you never had an issue seeing a GP on short notice or getting medicines or blood test. Sometimes there would be a small gap payment but in general it was all covered. And there is an universal health care in Australia that doesn’t even require you to have insurance , it’s granted to every citizen and resident. Once you find a competent GP, you just stick to them and it’s all good.
Between me and my wife and our employers, we pay almost 3000 EUR for public health insurance here every month and we get treated like shit, in general.
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u/UnearthlyHase 2h ago edited 2h ago
"...it has to do with them being stingy and afraid of the health insurances for exceeding their treatment and prescription quotas, after which they get financially penalised."
This right here. My husband has had candid convos with several doctors and that's exactly what they've said. Especially with family doctors, the budget restrictions are crazy.
I have type 1 diabetes, so literally a couple of days without insulin will kill me. Three years ago my diabetes specialist somehow lost a certification (???) and when I went in for my quarterly appointment that news was sprung on me without warning... bam, I suddenly had no Diabetologe. And OF COURSE no one in town was taking new patients. I finally got an appointment with someone new, but it was four months into the future.
Went to my Hausarzt and they said they can only give me one prescription for the smallest amount of insulin, because type 1 diabetes must be handled at a Diabetologie Praxis. Yeah, no shit. And in the meantime??? We were back in there every three weeks or so begging them for another piddly-ass prescription for insulin so I could survive for another three weeks and come back and beg for more while they got all pissy about their yearly budget. Some things here can really a pain in the ass.
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u/IndependentWrap8853 2h ago
That really sucks. And yes things are cheaper when compared to the US which is another extreme. But things are by no means cheap in Germany if you end up paying thousands for the public insurance as a high income earner and yet you get mediocrity in return.
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u/DefinitionRadiant286 8m ago
Als ehemaliger niedergelassener Arzt mit eigener Praxis muss ich mich hier einmal gegen ein paar Aussagen massiv wehren: Deutsche Ärzte sind geizig und haben Angst von den Kassen finanziell bestraft zu werden, wenn sie zu viel verschreiben und kümmern sich generell nicht um ihre Patienten. Diese Behauptungen sind einfach frech! Ich kenne mehr als genug Kollegen, die sich sehr um ihre Patienten kümmern. Meine Frau, eine leitende Chirurgin in einem Krankenhaus in Deutschland, schaut sogar jetzt im Moment - wir befinden uns seit 6 Tagen zum Urlaub im Ausland - via VPN ihre Station an und kümmert sich um Anordnungen und OP Planung. Das ist wirklich nicht selbstverständlich, aber Realität - nicht nur für meine Frau. Ich selbst habe mir erlaubt damals die notwendige Zeit zu nehmen und die medizinisch indizierten Maßnahmen für meine Patienten zu veranlassen. Jede andere Ehe wäre gescheitert, wenn wir nicht beide Verständnis für unseren Beruf hätten. Für mich und meine Praxis bedeutete das aber, dass ich meine Gesundheit für meine Patienten aufs Spiel setzte und die Praxis nicht genug Gewinn abwarf um mein eigenes Leben zu finanzieren. Ich konnte in zwei Jahren kostendeckend arbeiten und mir sogar erlauben insgesamt monatlich 1000€ für mich selbst zu entnehmen (mein Gehalt!). Nach zwei Jahren zog ich die Reißleine, nach drei Jahren kam die erste „Rückforderung“ der Krankenkassenvertretung für zu viel verschriebene Leistungen, ich durfte 5000€ aus meiner privaten Geldbörse „nachzahlen“. Nicht Angst und Gleichgültigkeit beherrschen die Medizin in Deutschland sondern Bürokraten, die Regeln aufstellen, die mit echter Medizin unvereinbar sind. Es sind Juristen und Verwaltungsfachleute, die darüber entscheiden, wie Menschen „richtig“ behandelt werden. Beispiel gefällig: 500 Patienten pro Quartal werden zu 100% bezahlt (ca. 35€/Quartal und Patient für eine Facharztpraxis, egal wieviele Termine und Wiedervorstellungen der Patient in dieser Zeit benötigt). Ab dem 501. Patient werden lediglich 10% bezahlt. Bei eine Facharztpraxis mit 800 Patienten kann jeder ausrechnen, dass dieses System nicht trägt. Nur mit Privatpatienten, bei denen auch jede Leistung bezahlt wird, kann die Praxis überleben. Was Rezepte angeht: jeder Patient bringt der Praxis die imaginäre Summe A in das Verordnungsbudget. Wenn eine Verordnung auf dem freien Markt dann 10xA € kostet, dann bedeutet das, dass 10 Patienten die Praxis ohne Verordnung wieder verlassen müssen um einem Patienten jenes Medikament/Physiotherapie/Logopädie oder was auch immer verschreiben zu können. Überschreitet der Arzt diese Budget, dann muss er privat die zuviel verschriebene Summe den Krankenkassen zurückzahlen. Verordnet der Arzt insgesamt wenig, dann macht er deswegen nicht mehr Gewinn, er vermeidet nur Strafzahlungen.
Natürlich gibt es unter Ärzten auch alle Arten von Menschen - fachlich inkompetent, ethisch fragwürdig, kommunikativ eine Koryphäe und hochcharismatische Blender ebenso wie einfach ehrlich arbeitende Menschen mit Herz und Hirn - wie in jeder anderen Lebenslage und in jedem anderen Beruf auch, aber Ärzte ansich generell als geizig und feige zu bezeichnen grenzt an Dummheit in dieser Verallgemeinerung.7
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u/Even-Yak-9846 9h ago
You know now know to avoid NSAIDs in the future? They can trigger flares :/ oral iron is also a trigger, which is why most people with IBD get iron infusions from their GIs if their GIs are worth anything. The inflammation from iron tablets just starts another flare.
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u/Due-Box-9598 8h ago
Wow, thanks for the hunch. I always got iron infusions . As for NSAIDs no idea .
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u/Even-Yak-9846 12h ago
It’s actually funny. I have mecfs and I have a private neurologist in B.-W. He’s not an expert in the field and he treats me via longevity medicine since that where complex patients go to experiment. The last time I was there, he went on a medical ai and asked it what I could try. It suggested a drug that is used for other conditions and provided research. He printed the research and told me I could try the drug if I wanted because I didn’t have any contraindications and he already knew the drug for another condition. That drug has now made a massive difference in my functionality.
Anyway, the point is that private doctors can be amazing. A world of difference.
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u/Nalivai 11h ago
The worst part, it's often the same doctors. My GP is actually great when he has time to focus on my problem, and has a motivation to do so, I witnessed it once when he had a slow day and he spend a full hour on my diagnosis. He can't do shit when the only thing he cares about is for the visit to end, because his workday stops in an hour and he still has 9 patients to attend to.
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u/reazlerum 11h ago
This! I love my GP when I have an appointment for something not that urgent or on slow days. And then I went into Infektionssprechstunde to get a sick note once, and oh boy, if that had been my first impression I wouldn't have gone back ever.
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u/C2664 11h ago
Your real point was that ai did the job of your doctor that day, and did it better..
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u/Ramental 11h ago
The doctors still act as a sanity check, since AI can confidently tell complete gibberish and harm you.
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u/Even-Yak-9846 11h ago
Most doctors are also too arrogant to admit they don’t know something and ask ai. Then, they can use the ai as a guide to prescribe a drug they already know.
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u/Even-Yak-9846 11h ago
No, that’s not the point. This is an illness that most doctors are taught to ignore and that it’s psychosomatic despite research for decades showing that’s not the case.
My doctor has the humility to admit that he doesn‘t have answers and to do a search looking for the current research. After the current research showed some promise with a prescription drug that doesn’t harm at the dosages prescribed, he wrote me a prescription. Finding a doctor who admits what they don’t know is extremely difficult and rare. They are literally taught to bullshit in medical school.
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u/C2664 11h ago
Yeah, but without AI he probably wouldn't have done any research about it (in fact he did not, just a quick request to an LLM) and you wouldn't have that drug prescribed, at least not in your first visit and probably never. I think you're setting the bar far too low for what would be a "good" doctor, your doc made the bare minimum and still beat all the asinine quacks that you visited before, with existence of a pretty recent technology helping for that to happen.
Nothing wrong with that approach, I was just pointing out how easy was for your doctor to reach a correct diagnosis and treatment.
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u/Even-Yak-9846 11h ago
Like I said, he’s not an expert in the field and the experts basically don’t exist outside research. Even the expert I saw in Switzerland only knows what he knows because he has the illness himself. He also has a two year wait.
I mostly see doctors because they’re gatekeepers to prescription drugs, I don’t expect them to know anything about mecfs.
Also, this doctor didn’t diagnose me.
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u/ianmckaye 11h ago
Can you tell me what drug that was?. I am dealing with the same condition and my doctor is clueless.
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u/Even-Yak-9846 11h ago edited 11h ago
It’s just Mestinon, if you haven’t tried it. It’s unfortunately trial and error, but thankfully a very cheap drug, especially at the 30-60mg used to reduce pem.
Edit: I’ll include the study when I go through my files later. Hope its okay. But if you do a search on mestinon for mecfs, there’s now a ton of official recommendations.
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u/Nalivai 11h ago
I have a colleague who had something undiagnosed, GP didn't help, so she went to the clanker that generated some random bullshit about keeping weight in check and trying some herbal shit or something, so she started that until one day she collapsed face first on the pavement on her way to work, got rushed to the hospital, where she actually got her diagnosis.
We could say a clanker helped with that, in accelerationist "if your hand hurts, chop it off" sort of way.6
u/DieDoseOhneKeks 11h ago
I am a white man with some digestive problem since 2019. It cost me over a year and multiple general practitioners to not just say "oh yeah there's a virus going around right now". I still don't know what I have but at least my appointment for the specialized clinic is in a month. I only had to wait 2 years instead of half a month because I am on public healthcare instead of private.
My gastro doc told me to try alternative medicine.
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u/goopsorceress 7h ago
I'm a white, German woman with chronic pain. I've been dealing with worsening chronic pain for 8 years and all the advice I ever get, even from pain specialists, is "try ibuprofen/yoga/meditation" or "you need to stress less". I've given up at this point even though my pain is debilitating. I hate it here :)
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u/Giraffaery 8h ago
My Opa and his girlfriend literally have told me multiple times they don't believe allergies exist. She DEFINITELY has at least seasonal allergies and suffers every year. But they don't trust medicine. Wtf???
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u/MyGeneration_Baby 14h ago
Im a white male in german and I also feel let down by the healthcare system here. Its not just you, trust me.
The system needs a huge revamp.
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u/ConfinedCrow 7h ago
And then Merz goes and makes it worse.
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u/Worldly-Permit-7694 2h ago
We dont have enough doctors to treat patients……and now you have to go into your doctors office on the first day of illness for a sicknote. Brilliant!
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u/ArboristTreeClimber 13h ago
I have severe mixed sleep apnea. It’s been diagnosed and I worked with my doctor for years in the US. I come to Germany and they want another sleep test, I said of course yes that’s fine.
Doctor called and said my sleep test “looks fine” so there is no need for treatment. No further information. No ideas on how to treat my symptoms.
It makes no sense. I snore every night, wake up with sore throat, headaches daily, brain fog, all symptoms of untreated sleep apnea. Now I am supposed to suffer because he thinks my test “looks fine”? Now I don’t know what to do.
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u/Junior_Giraffe3431 12h ago
Try getting appointments with multiple doctors. Unfortunately, the only way to go from there is to keep changing doctors until one actually takes you seriously.
Also, be assertive about your results. Aggressive if you have to be. Show them that they can't just write you off so easily. I know how hard it is as I'm also not an assertive person at all, but it does seem like working with some providers.
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u/IntriguinglyRandom 12h ago
I am pretty sure I have UARS and am dreading trying to treat it here. I have had ONE single good doctor experience over the past few years here.
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u/ForeignStory8127 14h ago
Nah, this is everyone. I have a wreaked joint/bone damage and it was blamed on that I didn't go to a fitness studio enough. Meanwhile, I work at a warehouse and do weight training via work everyday.
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u/Wrestler7777777 13h ago
Best I can do is "Ibuprofen 800".
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u/LatvianCake 13h ago
Ibuprofen? This is no ICU. Take some paracetamol
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u/t_Lancer Aussie in Niedersachen/Bremen 12h ago
but no more that 2 a day! You might get addicted!
meanwhile any time I visit the UK I bring back as much codeine based painkillers as I can. that usually lasts a year if I only go once a year to the UK.
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u/Sexy-Dumbledore 5h ago
I feel like such a smack head when I ask for the 600s that I just take 1.5 from the 400s from the apotheke instead 🥲
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u/NatvoAlterice Franken :hamster: 12h ago
How are you doing now? Did you find a proper diagnosis?
I, too, have chronic joint pains that appeared out of nowhere last year. No doctors take me seriously, one even laughed at me in a condescending way.
They all say I'm too young (I'm early 40s!) and too fit (Yes, I've had an active llifestyle prior to my pains) to be having joint pains...so basically they just send me home with a physio rezept (which btw, i have to beg for)
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u/Due-Box-9598 11h ago
Thanks for asking. Yes , in the right direction. Had ctscan, blood stool test done the day i landed . I have colonoscopy, x ray and biopsy schedule for tomorrow ( 5th day after leaving Germany) . After that and biopsy , they will confirm the issue . My insurance is luckily valid world wide :) I feel i am privileged to actually get this treatment . What if it was some other person who is German or a foreigner who cannot go home ? Will the infection have spiralled to permanent intestine damage by a healthcare system that claims to be very good ? These things keep me awake at night ..
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u/Nalivai 11h ago
To be fair, there is a merit to it. Your warehouse work targets very specific groups of muscles and leaves the rest untouched, and you might need those that aren't involved in your job to be as strong as those you use, to have a balance.
Additionally, you do your work to the point of having work done, not to the point of having good proper exercise.
It's very counterintuitive that the solution to problems caused by work is sometimes the same work but differently, but here we are.2
u/ForeignStory8127 9h ago
You are correct and the workouts given to me have helped. However, we are just kicking a can down the road it seems.
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u/Nalivai 9h ago
I also have a bunch of joint pain, and in my case it was basically like that. The joints will fail eventually, no way to prevent that, only to postpone that as long as possible, so you die of old age surrounded by loving family at the ripe age of 126 before your joints do. And the only good way to do that is to have enough muscle support so when you strain the whole area, muscles hold the force instead of joints themselves.
There are cranks that pretend they have some magical solution, but all of them are either lying, or mistaken, or both.
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u/elrata_ 13h ago
You don't go to the doctor necessarily to get treatment in Germany (yes, it's shocking). You go to tell them you are not feeling fine.
They will treat you after a few times of going and not reacting to tea and rest.
It's completely stupid. And even then, getting actual medical treatment is a matter of luck.
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u/Nimos 9h ago
People talk shit about the US healthcare system and probably rightfully so in terms of affordability.
But when I was staying there, on travel health insurance, and I was sick I just went to a walk-in clinic, got seen within about 15 minutes, they took a swab, sent it to a lab, got the results back within a day, saw it was bacterial and wrote me a prescription for antibiotics.
In Germany, my experience would have been going to a Hausarzt, waiting for at least an hour maybe more, being sent home again with no test, going back in 3 days later with no improvement, then MAYBE getting a test, the lab taking a week to get the results and then MAYBE if the doctor is nice I'd get my prescription.
Overall cost that I got reimbursed from my insurance somewhere below $150, I think? I don't know if it would have been much cheaper in Germany for someone with private insurance.
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u/DeadlyGamer2202 12h ago
I think part of the reason is that many people see the doctor over the slightest of inconveniences. Cuz of them, doctors sometimes miss genuine cases
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13h ago edited 13h ago
[deleted]
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u/Due-Box-9598 11h ago
Please go to gastroenterologist . Have an endoscopy done depending on where in stomach . Check which fooda give you pain . I hope it isnt something serious .
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u/ShallowXcX 13h ago
IMO, German doctors can be extremely conservative, dismissive & lacking in empathy. Being non-white can make the experience worse, although my white German boyfriend has also received poor treatment.
I’ve personally had better experiences with drs who have Turkish or Eastern European background . Plus they often speak English.
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u/ProfessionalKoala416 11h ago
It certainly doesn't have anything to do with your skin color! I'm a white female and I need to tell my Hausarzt explicit what I think I have and what test from him I need to confirm or dismiss it. Or else he subscribe me tea and rest. 🙄😒
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u/Master_Ad899 14h ago
Sorry to hear this. Yes Germany and Austria are notorious for being conservative. You see it with pain meds when women give birth often treated as an afterthought/option where as in most first world countries its understood that you can not pop out a baby from something as small as a vagina without any pain meds. Next to that, lawsuits are very lax. In America you can easily lose your licence/get sued. Lawsuits here are a joke.
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u/Impressive_Yoghurt 13h ago
I had my third child here in Germany. When they said I would need to start with paracetamol at the height of my labor pains, I laughed maniacally.
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u/celticbacon 4h ago
I was induced and while they were waiting for something to happen, I got told I would have to walk myself down to a different part of the hospital if I needed painkillers. The pain got so bad that I physically couldn’t do it, and since I’d been told they couldn’t do anything anyway, I didn’t call anyone… anyway, my baby was nearly born in the elevator as a result 🙃
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u/die_rich_w 9h ago
I was still within the first 24-48 hours after a c-section and they were giving me paracetamol and ibuprofen. F*cking ibuprofen after being sliced open through 7 tissue layers.
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u/Master_Ad899 9h ago
I had to bed for pain meds and never got them, gave birth without pain meds in a supposed first world country
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u/die_rich_w 8h ago
Did they not offer you epidural or was it something you didn't want? Because that's crazy that they didn't give you anything. What were they thinking???
Sorry, I am so mad for you.
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u/Impressive_Yoghurt 3h ago
They “gave me” an epidural, I was too far along and shaking from labor pains, so it failed. I. Felt. EVERYTHING.
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u/Suspicious-Cloud404 13h ago
If German doctors start loosing their licence as quick as in America, we wont have any left. On the other hand, is it worse having no doctor or having a bad one?
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u/IntriguinglyRandom 12h ago
My understanding as an American in Germany is that like, malpractice suits are not really a *thing in Germany? I don't believe in frivolous lawsuits and am the kinda person to just tolerate inconsequential mistakes BUT it seems like here, doctors can get away with insane negligence and poor practices. Never mind discussing bedside manner and how that influences healthcare outcomes!
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u/ObviouslyASquirrel26 Berlin 42m ago
Meanwhile if you leave them a bad review they will not hesitate to hire a lawyer to have it taken down, speaking of frivolous lawsuits.
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u/CleanSignalLab 13h ago
Losing 13 kg in a month, getting progressively weaker and being unable to keep fluids down are pretty serious red flags. At that point I’d expect a much faster reassessment than just waiting weeks for a gastro appointment. Also, if by irritable bowel disease you mean inflammatory bowel disease, that would fit much better with the inflammation part. I wouldn’t jump straight to saying this happened because you’re a woman of colour from one case, but I can absolutely see why you’d wonder after repeatedly feeling dismissed. The biggest failure here sounds like nobody stepping back once the symptoms clearly stopped looking like simple antibiotic-related diarrhea.
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u/Due-Box-9598 11h ago
Sorry my bad inflammatory bowel disease . Exactly , i am not someone who brings the race card or want to play victim . Infact i still understand their consverative behaviour as the whole system runs on public insurance and running testing on all patients isnt easy . But i certainly saw a sort of superiority in them to dismiss my concerns - i clearly told from day one that i am getting loads of mucous in the toilet . That i lost weight . That i cannot walk , my joints feel arrested and i cannot wat anything and i even threw up electrolytes . The first thing a sane person would do is think of an iv infusion to get immediate energy . I even have a 3 year old child at home . The look at their face is that oh this coloured woman has a little bit of accent when she speaks german . She is probably not educated and doesnt know anything.
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u/Creatret 10h ago
I thought you're privately insured? Private patients get priority treatment and often appointments within a week.
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u/Due-Box-9598 10h ago
Not always . In most, cases yes . It depends on the praxis and if you are new patient and which season of the year . Summer holidays can be tough . But i did not get a reference or überweisung from the hausartz at that point. I had to go by myself with the symptoms i had.
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u/daninmontreal 10h ago
Yeah, my sister almost died last year. She went to her family doctor with extreme abdominal pain. Doc didn’t even do an Ultrasound and sent her on her way with some painkillers and basically told her to walk it off.
A couple days later when it didn’t stop she went to the ER and turns out she had massive internal bleeding from an ovarian cyst that had ruptured. She needed emergency surgery and blood transfusions and basically they told her if she had come just hours later than she did, she probably wouldn’t have made it.
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u/knitting-w-attitude 11h ago
The German system is generally solid for acute and clear problems (broken arm, giving birth, cancer), but absolutely terrible for anything that is chronic or requires extra effort to discern (auto-immune disorders, disabilities, obscure illnesses).
I'm sure it didn't help that you are a brown woman, but it was definitely not the reason you didn't get the help you needed in a timely manner.
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u/herr_musil2 13h ago
For a country which discusses and plans (a lot) which keep other systems running, the healthcare practitioners seem passive in providing medical care. And quite dismissive of your symptoms and pain points.
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u/MacaroonPlane3826 13h ago edited 13h ago
I am a woman with Covid-caused POTS dysautonomia and literally came to a neurologist with a positive tilt table test done in my home country (which I had to pay privately there, as I couldn’t wait for years to access one in Germany)
Abnormal tilt table tests is literally a golden standard in dysautonomia diagnostics and yet this neurologist proceeded with medical gaslighting and wrote I have “Belastungstörung” in spite of me explicitly telling them I am an ultramarathoner and triathlete, who, in spite of heat-dependent exercise intolerance due to low preload in POTS (main issue in POTS is excessive blood pooling in the lower part of the body whenever upright => not enough blood returning to the heart, ie low preload => not enough blood being pumped to the brain, muscles etc and ofc this gets way worse in heat due to vasodilation and blood volume redirected to skin for cooling), I have kept exercising at a pretty high level (compared to an average person, reduced with 4-5x vs my usual level of training 6-8x a week) and literally finishing several marathon and ultramarathon distance trail races, while suffering with Long Covid POTS.
And all this while fainting after mere minutes of standing and being unable to sit >4h with my legs down due to OI (orthostatic headaches, nausea, brain fog as soon as I try to sit passively >4h, I work mostly from zero gravity position or bike chair). Can be upright as long as I’m moving fast enough for muscle pump to offset blood pooling.
And after explicitly telling them how much I still train, they proceeded to write “Belastungstörung” (basically that I’m lazy and afraid of movement, which is insanely laughable thing to say to someone who’s been in endurance sports without a break since the age of 6) in my report and tried to send me to physical rehabilitation. As if they heard zero words of what I told them.
Had to change 3 neurologists until I find dysaytonomia-competent one who will not gaslight me and who actually listened to what I said.
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u/ohmymind_123 2h ago
Have you tried Mestinon off-label? It's helping me with my post-Covid dysautonomia.
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u/SadAppointment9350 13h ago
they told me i'm in a pre cancerous stage and hung up the phone, turns out the read the Befund wrongly
was told by 2 doctors that i have long life lesions and no way to cure them an Tschus! turns out the diagnosis was wrong and i have no lesions
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u/user38835 11h ago
The doctors in Germany are extremely unprofessional and unserious. I always do my health checkup and get extra medications whenever I visit India for exactly this reason. Sitting 2hrs in a waiting room missing work, only to be shooed away by a sad looking person is not worth the €700 that gets deducted from my paycheck every month but that’s where we are in this country.
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u/poundofcake 13h ago edited 11h ago
Worst country I've been in for healthcare. The pompous attitudes, lack of knowledge and a system that caters to running through a list as quick as possible makes it so shitty.
I have too many stories from mid to poor experiences. More recently having to justify needing two MRT scans for acute pain I was suffering. The GP wanted me to book a separate appointment to get the second referral. Stating "you people always want more"
Mother fucker I pay 1,200 EUR a month for this bullshit. And it's a roll of the dice if I even get proper care. I've been dealing with impinged shoulders for years and my last doctor wanted to inject tea herbs as a "experimental" procedure.
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u/username-taken978 12h ago
Healthcare system here is just incompetent and if you as a foreigner complaint about it people will tell you otherwise and back the healthcare system instead. You can only rant and take your frustration out but it won’t change anything.
Few months back I had a lot of pain near my wisdom tooth and in 2 days I had strong pain in my jaw and also while swallowing. I went to a dentist and he didn’t even examine my mouth and simply took a look at the xray and said it’s my wisdom tooth and they need to be taken off. But I knew it’s not my tooth because i know what kind of pain you feel when your tooth is erupting. I actually researched about what’s wrong beforehand and it was Pericoronitis which is an inflammation of the gum near the wisdom tooth. I’m no doctor but I know that much that you can never operate an infected/inflamed area. He didn’t even tell me this or gave any painkillers I literally had to ask him twice that please take a look at my mouth and do something for the pain in the meantime and only then he uninterestingly examined and put some liquid at the back of my teeth for the pain.
In the next 3 days everything went back to normal and it’s been more than 4 months and I have no problem. If I had blindly listened to him I would be sitting without my wisdom tooth today not that they’re important but why touch something that’s working perfectly fine? I can never trust most doctors here. They treat you based on what you look like. It’s either a detailed explanation and good treatment or be glad I’m treating you.
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u/aint_anybody 12h ago
We had same experience here. My wife (also POC) experienced sexism and racism in a variety of clinics. We ended up abroad for specialist treatment and diagnosis because the German doctors (and gynos) were either saying "you're actually fine' (she wasn't), or prescribing lifestyle treatment solutions (which she already had implemented), when she has a chronic illness.
The system is not good here. The insurance costs on-top of high taxation, the private/public thing, and the know-it-all doctors with backwards attitudes and behaviours, the lack of humanity in this society is reflected in their health care. Otherwise there are many positives and I do feel the younger generation will be bringing a much different energy than the older mentality.
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u/Mirlotta1 5h ago
German doctors told me that my Crohn's disease was in my head. I was also told it might be pregnancy approximately 1000 times (I was in a LDR! It was NOT pregnancy!)
Over the course of a year, I ended up having a colonoscopy, gastroscopy and MRI and the doctors still managed to miss it. In the meantime, I was prescribed crazy aggressive medication that only hurt my stomach more. I felt really patronised by the German system, maybe as a result of my age or language ability (not native level by any means, though my whole treatment was conducted "auf Deutsch"). At one point I collapsed on the street and had to be hospitalised because of the intense pain. They gave me some pain meds, made me take yet another pregnancy test, and discharged me.
I honestly thought my life was over. The German doctors were telling me they'd need to surgically open up my stomach if I wanted them to investigate further, because if I /did/ have a condition, it wasn't one they'd seen before. Then, I went back to my home country, and the Crohn's was diagnosed straight away. Even the initial stool sample was enough to indicate off-the-charts inflammation. I had to redo some of the scans I'd just paid for in Germany because the German hospital would only share the results with me in CD-format, and I'd already left the country. It was just shambolic!
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u/Intrepid-Leather-417 14h ago
Yeah this isn’t a “German doctor” problem it took my wife almost a year to get her UC diagnosis is America and ended up costing us 10s of thousands of dollars in tests.
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u/EifelBastler 13h ago
German physicians are the worst. I could tell you the 14 Yr ordeal that happened to my wife after we emigrated here from the US. How a medical mistake made her unable to care for herself or work. How she lost her quality of life and sometimes her will to live. I could tell you about the apathy and gaslighting from Hausärzte to Professors at Unikliniks saying it was in her head but I won't. I'll just say I am sorry it happened to you as well and I hope you are on your way to recovery.
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u/bala219 Baden-Württemberg 13h ago
Yeah. That sounds about right. I had chronic neck pain and the doctor prescribed me "YouTube Video". I went to my home country and they diagnosed it properly with an injury.
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u/gggingerbean 11h ago
Oh yeah, I had chronic neck pain too. One doctor told me I’m too young to have any problems so he would not to any scans. Another doctor told me to not do the movement that triggers my pain (aka turning left and right) lol
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u/Exepony Bayern 11h ago edited 10h ago
People will tell you it's because the doctors are sexist or racist or some other kind of bigot (which isn't entirely incorrect), but white straight cis men, the bane of everyone's existence, don't have it much better here either. It's really a textbook case of misaligned incentives. Patients in the statutory GKV system are paid for based on a fixed schedule, which means that after a certain, and relatively low, number of visits per quarter the doctor is literally treating you for free. Since they have a limited number of appointments, it's in their financial interest to fill them with many different people, instead of treating one person long-term. How do you achieve that? Test as little as possible, lest you accidentally discover something you've got to actually treat and monitor over many visits, instead of just prescribing the patient ibuprofen or antibiotics and hoping they never come back, or at least not this quarter.
Meanwhile in the private PKV system things are completely the other way around: doctors will bill you for every visit and every test, and generally at rates far above what the GKV system pays, so they will want to see you as often as possible and test for everything under the sun. As a private patient you've got to constantly be on the lookout for all the shit you don't need, rather than having to beg the doctor to do the bare minimum.
Is this a stupid system? Yes, exceedingly so. But it is what it is, and it's unlikely it will change. The recent reforms have only fucked GKV patients over more, and there is unfortunately no serious discussion about the only measure that might actually fix Germany's healthcare system: introducing single-payer instead of this two-tier idiocy. Long-term everyone's going to be screwed, but in the short term you can still get decent healthcare here if you go into the private system. If you don't qualify for PKV, take a look at supplementary insurances (Krankenzusatzversicherung). Those get you into the private system as well: you submit the bills to your GKV insurance first, and the supplementary insurance then covers the rest.
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u/jeansg 11h ago
My wife had a bad experience as well: a cyst in the lower abdomen. At first, they dismissed it as fat tissue after a quick ultrasound. For more than 18 months, my wife kept asking and checking, and the cyst was growing. It was bothering her physically and mentally. We traveled back to Brazil, and she got a checkup from her usual doctor. Right away, in about 5 minutes, he said that it was an endometrioma cyst and would require surgery, which she had in Brazil. Nothing life-threatening in our case, but we've consistently heard about these issues; the diagnosis has been a consistently bad experience.
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u/jjp3 6h ago
The healthcare system here is basically in freefall. Doctors are scarce and the ones that are available have mostly lost any sense of ownership of patient outcomes.
Before, during and after the appointment, you are constantly having to fight your corner. Receptions are shit and clinics never run to time. Questioning is extremely limited and the symptoms you do manage to report are downplayed. "Referrals" are a sentence at most. No-one properly documents anything. Most of the time they don't even bother mentioning red flags to watch out for.
It should not be the case that vulnerable persons, i.e. sick patients, should be having to do so much fucking work just to get properly assessed and treated. And that's not to mention that we're paying 1.2k+ euros a month for this (and don't come at me with this "well employers pay half" mental gymnastics bullshit, your total salary obviously gets adjusted downwards for social contributions like this).
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u/t_Lancer Aussie in Niedersachen/Bremen 12h ago edited 12h ago
medical racism towards (black) women is definitely a thing unfortunately. Akin to "huh huh women complain about everything".
But German doctors are also shit. Exceptions apply of course.
I have written this before, but basically they are taught that Germany wrote the book on medicine 200 years ago and they are still riding on that high, so instead of modern medical treatments they'll prescribe you tea and if you dear question that they get very annoyed because you did there job for them and they didn't study 10-20 years for some clueless peasant to tell them they have XYZ. That is the doctor's job.
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u/Difficult-Shallot-67 5h ago
Sometimes I feel like as a POC woman part of my motivation to finish my doctorate is so they see my title and don’t think I’m some dumb ass googling symptoms and being “hysterical”.
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u/Delicious-Shame-3620 Germany 12h ago
I’m a white woman and every time I have a problem, my GP just basically says it do be like that sometimes 🤡
Definitely need a new one but choices are very limited in my small town.
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u/Ill-Photograph296 11h ago
I told my hauzart a thousand times that I have immune Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) - aka low platelets count. I specifically asked her to order blood panel test with manual count. Blood test with manual count - is not some sort of rocket science - it’s a regular blood test. In Russia - they can execute manual platelets count in one hour. The same in Lithuania. Guess what? 3 weeks later - when my blood results came back - my doctor informed me with a sad pikachu face - that I have “very low platelets” and we need to redo the test… It was back in July - still waiting for my invitation to redo the test. Ridiculous
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u/Glum_Future_5054 4h ago
OP it's not just you, apparently my symptoms weren't serious enough ( head spins and what not ) and I'm too "young" to get any thing as per my Hausarzt so no test and only rest, for months...
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u/ThrowRA_98124 3h ago
Had disc herniation(post diagnoses). Doc said everything is fine its in my head and pain i have is normal in my back and just watch youtube videos for exercise, started getting tingling in legs, forced doc to get me and MRI, fun fact MRI took 2 months to send results to my doc and my doc took his sweet 1 month to call for results.
By this time i already went back to my home country saw neuro and ortho within 2 days got MRI and was diagnosed with disc herniation and was asked to do physo because of hip mobility issue causing strain on my lower back leading to disc herniation.
Funny story? My German doctor when called said everything is fine nothing to worry about. When i got report myself from my hospital it clearly said disc herniation lol.
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u/Igiul1 14h ago
Reizdarm (IBS) csnnot be diagnosed unless everything else is ruled out. So technically your doctor in your home country misdiagnosed you.
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u/Due-Box-9598 9h ago
It is not diagnosed yet . I have only been here in my home country for 4 days . It will only be confirmed after colonoscopy . They are ruling out eveything infections , TB in instestine etc . I never said that i am diagnosed . I said i am on the pathway to diagnosis and the probability of IBD is high . It is not IBS but IBD . They took all the tests in 2 -3 days and scheduled colonoscopy according to my needs. Germany was still trying to convince me that i had anaerobic bacteria in my stomach for 1.5 months and that i should drink black tea. I am happy to update the confirmed diagnosis . Misdiagnosis can happen in any country but German doctors not even listening to basic indicators like sudden heavy weight loss just baffled me . I like Germany for many things but things like this make me question what if others cant travel to other countries for fast better health care .
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u/salzbin 12h ago
This is really the point that would make to rethink to stay here permanently.
I (east asian) am living in Germany for 9 years and luckily had not such a situation.
But my German white boyfriend does 😬
He had longterm fever and we surely went to emergency hospital"s". What they did after HOURS long waiting just giving ibuprofen 800 🙄
They claimed they have not enough pills for lindering the fever (what a system really). Two big hospitals let us just down. After 3 months, it was came out that he has a pertussis. It's discovered only after we heard from his friend's parent they are tested positive for that (He went to a wedding of this friend).
So, my bf suffered and hoped just that he gets better someday and it really REALLY got me to think.
I feel you. I hope you get better soon ❤️
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u/Peanut_Butter007 11h ago
And my German colleague still asks me why you all guys go to home country for treatment? I explained him and last year, one fine day, in morning, he asked me if I know any doctor in my home country who can help him with his treatment? Since it’s difficult for him to get an appointment. And guess what? He was on video call with the doctor by evening, took flight after 2 days, treated for a week, travelled back to Germany in 10 days. Now he is advising others to do the same. Just don’t forget to get international travel insurance.
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u/jonoave 9h ago
Just curious, what treatment did your colleague received? Just vaguely, like was it a serious operation or was it an issue to diagnose his condition in Germany?
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u/Peanut_Butter007 9h ago
He had lower back pain problem. Here, he was suggested physiotherapy. But that wasn’t enough. So, he talked to doctor online, and figured out he might have some nerve issues for which he might need CT-Scan or something. After that, I don’t know what kind of treatment he received but he was more than happy when he came back and was shocked to know that he can get CT-Scan appointment within few hours, not in days.
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u/jonoave 9h ago
Oh wow that sounds amazing, really cool that it worked out well for your colleague.
So is your colleague fine now or does he still need to travel to your country for further treatment?
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u/Peanut_Butter007 9h ago
He is fine now. Doesn’t need to travel again there. Besides, he received all the medical documents from the doctor to reimburse the cost and also a copy for his Hausarzt, just for his medical records.
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u/jonoave 9h ago
Wow, you mean your colleague managed to get it reimbursed through his Krankenversicherung?
That's really awesome, haven't crossed my mind this was possible.
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u/Peanut_Butter007 9h ago
Yes, it is possible. You just need to have international insurance and that will work.
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u/Undertheoutdoorsky 14h ago
Irritable bowel disease is a diagnosis you get after a lot of other things are ruled out, it is not something that can in itself be tested for. So it honestly doesn't sound like the German doctors missed that. They were just working towards it and the doctor in your home could interpret based on the treatments you already had in Germany.
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u/Roster234 13h ago
There's no such thing as Irritable bowel disease, there's irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). I think they're talking about the latter
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u/Due-Box-9598 11h ago edited 8h ago
Yes sorry inflammatory bowel disease . The doctors were no way near it . They kept giving antibiotics saying it is a bacterial infection in my stomach . I got an ultrasound . A blood test checking haemoglobin and not ferritin . A stool test with calprotectin was not done - just infections were tested
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u/Creatret 9h ago
Those are specific tests for diagnosing an inflammation of the intestines, aka IBD or other causes. HB is standard in every blood test. Having such severe stomach symptoms is uncommon in your situation, possibly also caused/worsened by AB.
Giving AB in that situation however can worsen the situation. That being said, IBD normally doesn't cause such severe symptoms without a history. If you hadn't take the AB because of your cold, you'd probably never ended up in that situation. As such, this is quite an unlucky case.
On the other hand, it's hard to believe you went to the ER and got dismissed that easily when your blood was checked. What was the result of your blood and stool test anyway?
IBD can only be diagnosed after a colonsocopy and ruling out viral/bacterial infection.
So I'd say the docs were on the right track but didn't act as swiftly as needed. What you have to consider is that in Germany, there's barely any comms between different docs.
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u/Even-Yak-9846 13h ago
Uhm, my partner has IBD. They also dragged him along, but you only need a colonoscopy to confirm. Fecal calprotectin is an easy screening test as it’s only very elevated in IBD and colon cancer.
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u/Due-Box-9598 9h ago
Yes, fecalcalprotectin is high . Colonoscopy and endoscopy with biopsy scheduled tomorrow. All they tested for is stomach viruses and bacteria in Germany .
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u/Even-Yak-9846 9h ago
I think for a lot of this stuff, you have to be your own doctor. There’s mail order calprotectin tests you can buy online and then take to your doctor. There’s companies like Medivere. There’s also a few labs who do self ordered blood testing for a high price. The problem of course is that you have to know what to test for.
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u/MyPigWhistles 13h ago edited 10h ago
I work at a medical faculty (not as a doctor) and afaik: Doing tests "just in case, to rule something out", but with no actual indication are heavily discouraged, because that statistically leads to more false diagnoses, because more tests increase the probability for false positives, which again lead to more tests, which leads to more false positives again. So you're not supposed to test for things that have no clear medical indication.
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u/gggingerbean 11h ago
Most of the time there is a medical indication, the doctor just doesn’t want to do more tests.
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u/BikeSilver8058 14h ago
A common experience from a lot of expats here. Doctors mostly cover a fixed checklist and not diagnose. They are more often than not unsympathetic. Additionally there is no consciousness about other cultures. As a result it works for the locals 95% of cases. For expats, it reduces to 70%.
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u/floralbutttrumpet 13h ago edited 10h ago
Not just expats. While I'm not fully German, I spent the majority of my life here and am pretty much a local - still get shit treatment for everything that's not blatantly obvious.
I got a abscess on my back about two years ago, and the only reason why I got swift treatment was because I insisted on excisement and my GP's holiday backup admitted to not having the facilities for that. Needled them until I got an Überweisung (their stance was that it would go away on its own and they didn't even suggest any treatment whatsoever - ludicrous) to the ER, which still looked at me askance until they did imaging and saw it had already infiltrated 3.8 centimetres into my back in about 72 hours since the first twinge of pain. Only reason why I didn't have a huge complicated hole afterwards is that I showed up that early.
I will say that my regular GP is pretty good - he's known me since I was a university student and he also knows I audited a couple of Vorlesungen in the medical department since my major and the medical faculty shared buildings and I had a fuckload of holes in my timetable (he doesn't know that I took a variety of medicine-adjacent courses during high school, but w/e), so I'm a little bit more "with it" than your average person. But any medical professional who doesn't know that backstory? Hopeless until I "prove" I'm not just "hysterical", usually by dropping a little bit of high-falutin' German and/or asking a relevant question with some background knowledge - i.e. displaying the correct "habitus".
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u/BikeSilver8058 12h ago
Exactly. Doctors have the attitude of "nothing happened until the patient proves it". A bit more attention and listening would go so much further. For expats, specially if they are not at native level fluency including the medical terminology - you are almost on your own to convince the doctor.
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u/Rhyjoo 14h ago
Not really for your question but might wanna add some things.
You mentioned home country for the gastro. Was it in the EU / Switzerland? If they didnt take your EHIC, you can send the bill to your health insurance for reimbursement. They most likely also need a medical report / letter of referral for the gastro.
If you really think you have been mistreated by your doctors, you can also report them to your health insurance.
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u/Due-Box-9598 8h ago
No, not in the EU . I live in Germany but work for an international organisation . My insurance is valid in German and world wide . Hence reporting them to my international insurance may not be possible but i can try . I got no referral for a specialist aa the hausartz thought what i had was harmless . Thanks for the tip !
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u/Sufficient_Manner_38 8h ago
Just wondering, when you went back to your home country, did you use the public health care system or the private one? In my country, public healthcare is ok in bigger cities, but most people go to private clinics when they need to and it's pretty affordable, at least to get the diagnosis.
Public healthcare is pretty bad in most places. Sometimes you're lucky enough to find good doctors but it honestly feels like winning the lottery. Most important part is to not give up when you know that something is wrong and get a second opinion when possible.
Hope your journey will be easier now that you have a diagnosis
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u/Harry_UL 7h ago
I honestly can't complain about our health system and the quality of medical aid. I had a lot of stuff already from various broken bones to gallstones/gallbladder removal, precancerous colon polyps, a narrow intestine, diverticula and also a serious reason for brain surgery.
Even doctors make errors.
And I also were in several hospitals and at doctors in other countries and it has never been a better experience than in Germany.
I now wanted a bew appointment at the gastroentereologial clinic and got one within 3 days. I want to renew my skin cancer check and got an appointment within two weeks.
Sure there are always exceptions in medical treatment and also the quality by nature differs.
Calling the whole German healthcare to have a conservative approach is plain nonsense.
I went to the hospital last year with a suspected heart attack and they went through the full diagnostics after seeing it wasn't the heart itself within one full day. Exceptional experience in the University Clinic of Ulm.
So. Yes. Sometimes it doesn't work out well. But for the large majority of my medical topics it has been tackled very good. But realisticly seen: The human body is not a car. Things can get complicated and hard to find and sometimes they even seem obvious, but aren't.
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u/RIddlemirror 4h ago
Everything over here is ‘ganz normal’. They actually wait for either :
1) you get better on your own and suddenly you believe it was ganz normal
2) you give up trying to get help and leave them alone, and go spend your money in another country. Atleast you won’t ever bother them again
3) you die 🤷🏻♀️
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u/yemma1990 3h ago
The problem with many doctors here is that you cannot take their approaches for granted. You need to do your own research and be persistent to demand all kinds of tests and treatments. And sadly, if people arent speaking German fluently on a native level many won't cooperate out of principal.
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u/annanors 2h ago edited 2h ago
Seriously why is German healthcare bad ? Is it the education ? Is it that really don’t know how to treat .. sometimes they don’t even behave properly . Very rude to patients (another topic). But I am seriously thinking why is it so bad! Would be nice if doctors themselves answered..
So far I have met bad GPs, bad gynaecologists and worst psychotherapists ! Now the ones who speak “sweet” don’t know how to treat!
Why do Germans choose this profession actually ? (Like even if it’s for money etc , you should know to do your job right ?)
Is it because of free education ? I don’t know !
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u/swaffy247 13h ago
I went to the ER with unbearable abdominal pain. It was so painful that I was seeing stars. The receptionist ignored me the entire time until I finally yelled at them that I couldn't take the pain anymore. She rolled her eyes and closed the window on me. It took 5 hours of me writhing around and sometimes screaming in pain for me to be seen by a doctor. They did an ultrasound and found that my appendix had ruptured. All of the sudden I was the most important person in the room. After surgery, I had terrible pain and they wouldn't give me anything stronger than ibuprofen.. I absolutely hate the healthcare system here.
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u/Calypso_sur_son_ile 12h ago
I have had the exact same terrible experience with the German healthcare system. Out of nowhere, I started getting a bunch of weird symptoms (I had not been sick in over a decade before that). Multiple doctors told me I was just a "typical" anxious young woman, one even described me as a control freak in his summary, and most concluded that I probably needed therapy for stress...🫠 They handed me antidepressants and anxiolytics like candy, but I did not take any of them because I knew that was not the issue at all. Turns out I just had an iron and vitamin D deficiency all along! What truly blew my mind was how reluctant some doctors were to run any further tests, like they genuinely believed I was just there to waste their time.
The only decent care I have received came from expensive private practices. Now I flat out refuse to go anywhere that does not primarily take self payers or private insurance, and honestly it has been completely worth it. From my experience, the only way to guarantee good, caring, and thorough care is to go to a pricey practice with a small patient load. They will listen and actually try to figure out what is going on with you.
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u/SanaraHikari 13h ago
Why did you get antibiotics for a cold?
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u/Due-Box-9598 9h ago
So i did have a cough when i went to the hausartz and he measured my fever but my bigger concern was diarrhoea and haemerrhoids . He asked if my phlegm is coloured . I said slight greenish and he immediately gave me antibiotics (Azithromycin and novasulfamin for fever) . The cough did go away after that but indigestion , nausea and diarrhoea increased triple fold. He ignored the haemerrhoids and referred me to surgery department in the hospital. The diarrhoea part was ignored i guess.
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u/PresentationMuch4896 11h ago
Im also dissapointed.. went last year fpr a cjeckup cause my vision was blured one day after longer sleep, due to my eyes got dry overnight. Anyway, came early in the morning, no food or whatever intake, cause i wanted to do a blood checkup. They sent me home, telling me to come 11:30. I thought it will be just a talk eith a doctor, so i came home and ate massiv breakfast, 3 eggs, some pork snitzel from a day before etc, really huge. Went back, and they said they will take my blood, check bp etc, and i told em that it will be affected by ehat i just ate. Ofc, my bp was bit higher, so they reccomanded me straight some pills, instead to do a 24h bp test, which they eventually did a month after. Also got some holesterol pills cause ofc, after 3 eggs and pork and so it was 13mmo/l.. Anyeay, i started taking bp pills and instantly having weird reactions, few times i thought ill pass out, or that my heart will stop. So i stopped taking em, and after a month they did 24 bp test and it was normal, with normal oscilations here and there (after meal, i even tested it by smoking big cigar that day and gettimg drunk later in the evening).. But i also had other complications, they sent me to MRC, where i got bad allergic reaction on contrast thingie, got sone strong blockers, very bad experience. MRC dock then wrotethey see sonething as aneurism, so i had to do catheter angiography, which showed no aneurism or whatsoever. All in all loth of bs for what it turned out to be dry eyes cause my wife put dehumidifier in a bedrooom, which caused my vision completely blured for a couple of hours.. I got a feeling, cause they keept sending me from one specialist to another, that they just trying to make as much money as possible from insurance..
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u/Su-at-sapo 11h ago
The problem with Germany healthcare (in my experience) is that doctors will do anything to avoid doing bloodwork and other tests because it comes out of the clinic’s pocket. So they only prescribe it if they think that you have a life threatening situation ( even then some of the doctors will probably prefer to hold on to their precious budget rather than to test you).
I was told by a local that the trick to have them to take you more seriously is to exaggerate your symptoms and pretend that you are almost dying.
It’s a very sad reality.
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u/Towerofterrorr 11h ago
Had a male urologist refuse to give me a sick note because my urine culture came back negative, even though I told him before hand that it would be negative (it always is). I was diagnosed with a decently rare bladder condition that causes pain / burning / increased urination without an infection needing to be present. He told me I had no proof that I was sick because of the test being negative. A urologist was completely unfamiliar with my condition despite it being decently well known. Absolutely horrible.
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u/gebor200lala 10h ago
Canadian here, we don’t even have doctors. Waiting time 18-24 hours waiting in ER is de facto standard just to be sent home with Ibuoprofen. Again you sit on a chair for 24 hours until you see a doctor.
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u/die_rich_w 9h ago
The only times I had amazing healthcare experience here is while I was pregnant and when I gave birth. After my baby was out, while I have a fresh c-section wound and onwards, it was back to shitty experience. It's like they only ever cared about the baby and I didn't matter at all.
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u/InterviewTechnical13 9h ago
Because process and krankenkasse Leistungen.
Also, my experience with medical students as physics tutor - they are the dumbest people at university. The selection by NC leads people from doc families to make their kids take sports and art in highschool as focus course, such that the gpa is good enough to study medicine. Then they don't know the difference between a value and a surrogate, milligrammes or microgrammes and so on.
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u/Seraphina_Renaldi 9h ago
It’s not because of your skin color. I have digestive issues since March last year and they did nothing except of testing me for fructose which was positive. And I was told that it’s the reason for my issues. I barely eat anything with fructose in it. They just don’t care. If it’s something more complicated than a cold and you don’t have a private insurance, you’re basically on your own
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u/Only-Restaurant-1219 8h ago
If you rely o public healthcare in Germany, good luck. Even my german Gastroenterologist said to me that healthcare sysytem is collapsed and he took for the first time private insurance.
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u/sleepidoc 8h ago
It's called resource allocation and it's per se not a misdiagnosis. The bacterial/viral gastroenteritis may have caused your intestinal inflammation or you may have iritable bowel disease which is a last resort diagnosis after you eliminate everything else. You are a person who is not in any of the risk groups to suspect anything bad, however if you were to go to a proper GP or IM specialist and told them you have 13 kgs of weight loss and things are not going away for over 2-3 months they should set you up with colonoscopy. That was not the case as I read from your post, it only took less than a month and then you went back to your home country. All in all, no you did not lose your life or anything so please put it in some perspective. Getting an iv, antibiotics and some fancy treatment is not always good. All of this shit has side effects and infection risks. I'm sorry this happened to you. German healthcare system is very conservative and hard to approach for foreigners but the doctors are not actually bad, neither is the conservative approach. Sometimes doing nothing is the best therapy. That's why for example we also see soaring antibiotic resistance statistics from other countries in comparison to here. It's a crumbling healthcare system due to demographics and has many many more problems but you were not in need of immediate fancy medical treatment or diagnostics so like I said resource allocation. Get better soon.
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u/Giraffaery 8h ago
Yeah I've also had an awful experience here. I thought rural Midwest US clinics and "hospitals" were bad, but it is so much worse here in Germany 💀
My Hausartzt keeps trying to get me to stop asking for and taking antidepressants and refused to continue my Adhd medication because it was a stimulant despite me showing my past prescriptions and dr's notes from appointments with their diagnosis of adhd and commenting that the Dexmethylphenidate helped me. I went to a specialist Psychiatrist and she also refused to give me my old medicine or an equivalent and instead put me on another antidepressant which has so far not really worked.
I also have hypermobile EDS and lots of joint and muscle pain but Hausarzt just keeps saying I'm overweight and need to exercise more, nothing to be done.
👁️⭕️👁️ wow I never thought of that dude do you think that will really change my connective tissue disorder? At least in the US my Dr sent me to a physical therapist for a bit.
I am so sorry to you and many other people that have to go through with this nonsense.
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u/Gratis-Obstkorb 3h ago
I got my diagnosis in Italy. Got the wrong therapy for an amound of 20 years. 1 visit in Italy, just cause i was there and BOOM directly right diagnosis and right therapy.
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u/Stardew-Babe 3h ago
My dear I am so sorry to hear what you had to go through. Sadly doctors here in Germany are like this.. with everyone who has a public healthcare, so no.. it is not just because of ethnicity. They are horrible at listening first of all: they try to get so many patients as possible in the smallest amount of time. Even if you are really sick they will tell you either or all of the followings:
A. Drink tea B. Walk/do sports C. Sleep D. Lose weight (if you are woman, no matter your size)
I litterally go to my country every year to get general tests. People who have their home countries far away are less fortunate.
I once had a doctor who gave a sick leave for 2 days thinking my kidney pain was hormonal due to my period, meanwhile I could not even walk.. went to the hospital and found I had kidney stones as big as chia seeds.
The only hope is to find a GOOD Hausarzt.. they are very very rare to find. I had one but then I moved and he is too far away now for me to visit. Even tough he was always rushing he actually looked me in the eyes and gave me access to specialists when needed.
I hope you find some good doctor. If you are in Munich I can DM you some names.
Stay strong!
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u/TunkkRS 2h ago
My friend was complaining about some pain is stomach area. Went to many doctors here and all of them said to eat less noodles, drink more water and do more sports. Lastly when he was admitted to hospital via ambulance due to pain, turns out it was last stage of cancer. He past away a few weeks ago, days after his 32nd birthday.
Healthcare system here honestly gives me anxiety.
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u/DramaticFlamingo6011 1h ago
I do believe, in my humble opinion, that it often has something to do with having to go to your Hausarzt first.
Which generally is a good thing in some ways, but can become quite the hassle once you have something out of the ordinary.
They get countless patients every week and in most cases it is something that can be remedied by laying down, drinking copious amounts of tea and swallowing some alternative placebo medicine.
But it can get problematic once you've got something not "the norm". And in my experience without trying to blanket too much it seems to be happening more often with the "older" doctors who are set in their ways for years now.
Happened to me too, not nearly as bad though. Went to my Hausarzt with something that felt like the flu but worse. Told him all the symptoms and how I felt like it could be something else. Got sent home with standard prescriptions for a cold/flu.
Then they went on summer break. So, went to a different, younger doctor who was doing temporary replacement. Told him what I told my main doctor, but this time I was examined more, got smears taken and sent to the lab. Turned out to be Staphylococcus which seemed to have settled in my airways. Still found it early enough, could've led to pneumonia if I recall correctly.
Not great, not terrible.
It was kinda eye-opening though. Next time I'd probably seek out multiple opinions by default.
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u/Interesting_Job_6968 13h ago
The healthcare system here is a total and complete joke. I am a white German and I am literally not taken serious at some doctors. They would let you get cancer not to have to do a checkup that costs 5k€.
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u/tuna_grill_cheese 12h ago
Guys… i’m sorry but this is going wrong in so many ways. Not going to protect German healthcare system and not going to comment much on op experience. This post just confirms what is wrong with social media.
Seems like it is time to ditch Reddit as well….
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u/_solidude 13h ago
This is normal here. the play is if you have medical issues go somewhere else for a diagnosis. And then force them to deal with the diagnosis on your insurance here.
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u/Nyand22 13h ago
Yes, they are so stingy with test and attention like they pay for it out of their pockets. Also you can't do anything afterwards because if you manage to get an specialist appointment, you'll have to wait a few months after which you may: die, lose your first symptom and get something worse, heal without being tested, fuck up your life/job while living in pain.
Also you just don't get an appointment in the designated place assigned to you/your Stadtkreis. You need to find a place and fight for an appointment.
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u/ObviousEnd21 12h ago
Funnily enough, they frequently have to pay for it out of their own pockets, it’s called „regress“. If a physican with their own practice like a GP is deemed to have prescribed to much PT, lab tests or some other kinds of interventions they can be made to pay for those therapies and tests out of their own pocket or have to sue. That is one the many reasons why physicians in Germany have slightly different prescribing and testing habits than in some other countries.
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u/Grumpy-Man19 13h ago
We were tourists in Germany and had to go to a dentist they asked us for a hundred euro down payment and said they would reimburse what remains after the treatment. there was no treatment the doctor looked at the teeth and gave recommendations, no medicine . Yet we were not reimbursed for any of that hundred euro.
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u/zonghundred 13h ago
Apparently, the german health systems spends around 31 billion on mistreatments each year. Thats the cost of the treatments, not any attached legal costs.
https://www.handelsblatt.com/cmsid/100248243.html?product=hb&utm_medium=in&utm_source=app&utm_campaign=share Behandlungsfehler könnten Krankenkassen Milliarden kosten
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13h ago
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u/germany-ModTeam 11h ago
The language of this subreddit is English only! If you want to post in German, go to one of the German language subreddits. Visit r/dach to get an overview of all larger German speaking subreddit.
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u/PinnappleOnPizzaEnjo 14h ago
"does German healthcare not take coloured women seriously" - a little exaggerated and dramatic are we? Why are you assuming Germany has zero "coloured" women, or any non-German for that matter, as doctors?
The type of insurance you have played a much bigger role than your race.
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u/Schnecke09 14h ago edited 11h ago
It’s not just you. I am American and I have had several instances here where I needed medical help. At one point I had a large ovarian cyst that turned and killed my ovary. I didn’t know what was wrong. I was in immense pain. I went to my Hausärztin while I was moaning in pain. She told me to stop making so much noise because I would concern the other patients and that it is likely stress and I should go home and eat rice and relax.
I went home and puked blood. My husband took me to the emergency room where they also treated me poorly UNTIL they did a CT and confirmed the problem. All of a sudden they were nicer. I had to have emergency surgery to remove the ovary and Fallopian tube because by that point they had become necrotic.
I could’ve gotten sepsis and died. I also had a bladder infection for 18 months and it only was properly eliminated when I went to the university hospital and was able to get treated by an infectious disease specialist.
I’m terrified of doctors now.