The Crazy Things That Happen to Our Patients

We have this great patient who should really be doing stand-up comedy. Whenever she is in our office she has some new and funny story to share. She was having significant vaginal pain when she came to see us and had been misdiagnosed by her ob/gyn so nothing was helping. Our NP picked up that her problem was actually lichen sclerosus which, to be fair to her gynecologist, is quite difficult to diagnose unless you’ve seen a bunch of cases. It’s a condition which causes white scaly patches and makes the skin in the vagina or around the vulva thin and papery and usually causes pain.  We put her on the proper medication and she was getting better. But just to be sure we sent her to get a second opinion. The physician we referred her to was out of state and he did a biopsy and stitched her up. Then he sent her home. She did, indeed, have lichen sclerosus. But a few days ago she called me to tell me that she didn’t think the biopsy cut was healing properly and she thought it might be infected. I encouraged her to call the physician who had done the biopsy to speak with him.

When I called her today to follow up, she told me that she had indeed called him. He asked her to take a picture of the wound and send it to him. “So Bat Sheva”, she says. “I am now sending pictures of my vagina on line!! What will you have me doing next?” I assured her that no one could identify her picture (which was technically her vulva and not her vagina – look it up if you are confused). And promised her that we would not ask for any body part pictures to be sent to our office in the future.

She did, however, have an infection but now she is happily and safely on antibiotics.

And she still makes me laugh.

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