I have a rare autoimmune disease which, albeit slow to develop (years), leads to a specific vitamin deficiency. Other than that one, which is manageable knowing how to, I thankfully have relatively few symptoms. When I first turned vitamin deficient symptomatic at age 16, doctors brushed me off a lot: it was stress, it was this, it was that, I was exaggerating. Having a gut feeling something was wrong, I ended up literally begging one Dr to do my bloodwork. He found the vitamin deficiency (it’s hard to miss in bloodwork), blamed my diet, then stress, then my periods, then again my diet which was not the problem. After this went on for a while, I consulted a female doctor instead, who rooted out the autoimmune disease in a matter of half a week from her first seeing me. By then I’d been symptomatic for four years and probably had the disease itself for some 7-10 years, and I’m thankful the vitamin deficiency symptoms are reversible for otherwise I’d still have numb feet/legs and hands. The thing is I don’t even blame the first doctors for not realising, but I’d have been thankful for a short “I can’t figure this out, maybe consult a colleague/specialist” instead of stubbornly sticking to the narrative that I was creating my own problems.
