My visit to a family planning clinic

                                                            

First of all, I do apologise if I offend any of you (if you or your family members are NHS staff), this is my experience which I felt that I need to share with the world.

If you remember my post preparing for a pregnancy I have shared with you that I was planning to visit my GP to discuss the matter.

Before visiting my GP I wanted to be a little bit prepared even though I had a feeling that we can’t really discuss all issues within 15 minutes and more importantly will we even discuss things I thought we should discuss?!  I have prepared a list of most all my health problems I had throughout my life and prepared a blood pressure log.

I have to say straight away that on many occasions I have been disappointed with NHS services and before seeing nurse I wasn’t expecting a miracle! On the day of my appointment with a nurse from family planning clinic I showed her my blood pressure log, mentioned previous health issues I had. She did not show any signs of concern at all or did not even suggest that I can have any issues with me planning a pregnancy.

From the website of my GP: “Services include pill checks, Depo-Provera plus reviews, high vaginal swabs and chlamydia screens. She also issues Levonelle for emergency contraception and carries out coil checks (six weeks post insertion and annual reviews)”.

 To my disappointment none of the checks were offered, none of them took place. The only useful advice was that I need to take out coil 3 months prior to trying for a baby as my period needs to go back to normal and that I should take folic acid for 3 months as well (which I already knew).

After I came home and briefly spoke about this experience with my husband we decided to go to a local sexual health clinic/ family planning clinic (I am still wondering how come it is called family planning) where I had my coil removed. I wanted them to take other tests as well, but unfortunately they could not perform tests.  So i had to go to a different hospital for that.

I have decide to give another go with my GP and booked another visit to GP  this time with a male doctor. What I liked is that he was reassuring, went through many questions I had, but said that “why to treat something which does not exist” (can’t agree with that, to be honest with you). 

On the way home I was thinking but what if something is wrong with my ovary etc etc.?! I guess the whole medical system is different from my motherland that’s why it takes me some time to adjust to it. But overall he was much better than doctors and nurses I visited before, he referred me to do ECG and cholesterol blood test, which is very useful as well.