aka OHIP. In the past year I have had the pleasure and enjoyment (not) of having to heavily use ohip. For the most part I have had relatively positive experiences. The doctors I have encountered have allowed me to be an agent of my own body, as long as it has been safe to do so, and they were sensitive to my needs as a person who has strong opinions and critiques of the medical system in Ontario.
This has not been the case with allergy specialists. About a year ago I was referred to an allergy specialist. I waited months for an appointment with them only to be cancelled on the day before. After that, I gave up on finding an allergy specialist, until I encountered a doctor who was able to provide me with an appointment within a timely fashion.
I thought that since I have an appointment with an allergist I should probably go. So I went, and it was not a very good experience. I arrived at the office was weighed in and then sat on a bench and told I was going to be given an allergy test on one arm for foods, and on the other for environment. During this time I was trying to explain to the woman why I was here in the first place, but she wasn't really listening. I told her that I knew that I was allergic to most of the environmental things she was going to test me for, and that the foods she would be testing me for I was not allergic to.
She replied saying that they have to do this test anyway. Then she asked me if I had taken an allergy pill that day. Yes I had, because when I called before my appointment wondering if there was anything I needed to bring//keep in mind they said just bring myself. Then she hands me a form with a bunch of info on it telling me I needed to sign it before we did the test. I read it, VERY carefully and asked her a number of questions, she was clearly annoyed. Why should she be? She knows little to nothing about my medical history, nothing about my body, and had given me no information whatsoever.
Eventually, after all that I allowed her to do the allergy test, which yielded the results I told her it would before she even began the test. The she arrives into the room with more needles saying some parts of the test were inconclusive and they need to preform this extraa step. So, naturally I wanted to know why, and what exactly the purpose of the test was. She was unclear, and so I didn't want her to do the test on me. She calls the allergist in (apparently she was just some kind of nurse) and he explains to me why this extraa part of the test is necessary.
Fine, I let them do it. After that I had a session with the allergist and he asks me ten million questions about my health. Then he tells me about 5 million drugs. Then I tell him why I'm here (as in the section where he went all 3rd-degree on me, he failed to ask my why I was there toady). I told him with my environmental allergies I would like to deal with them as NATURALLY as possible. Apparently nasal spray is natural? No, its totally not. Then we talked about eggplant and he basically told me he doesn't know anything specific about anything in general with regard to my (possible) eggplant allergy.
Then I asked if I could eat eggplant and he said well maybe, its up to you. You could come back for a 3 hour test to see if your allergic but the severe reaction could have been to anything// any combination of things. Sweet. After some more brief chatting I was pretty much on my way, no more wiser than I was when I arrived, but feeling like I had been not treated like an agent of my own body during this entire endeavour.
Now, OHIP is really great and covers a lot of shit, and over the past year I'm pretty glad that it exists, but it doesn't cover epipens or allergy medication. I was hoping after this visit to the allergist that I would be able to ditch my epipen, but he was able to tell me diddly-squat. Now I guess I need to conduct my own eggplant study at home. The thing is if it turns out I am allergic to eggplant I still need the epipen, and if I'm not allergic to eggplant I need the epipen (because I still have no idea what I'm allergic to). At least in the latter situation I'd be able to eat eggplant...
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