Kassie, did you have to see a "regular" family doctor before getting a referral for an Asperger's test? That's what I was told by a branch of the big medical center here. Seems a waste of time and money to "plead my case" to a general practitioner in hopes of getting a referral. Thanks.
That's actually kind of a comedy of errors, I'll try to keep this brief though. I was having several seemingly unrelated physical symptoms that my GP was fairly uninterested in. Extreme fatigue, difficulty eating, lightheadedness, shortness of breath, and bowel & 'female' stuff to boot. The GP ran blood tests, told me I'm fine, and kicked me out. I went back & he referred me to a psychiatrist. She wrote him a letter that basically said "This isn't psychiatric, it's physical; keep looking." So the GP sent me to a half-dozen different specialists, none of which found anything. (I should mention that my first visit was to my gyn who put me on the pill, so the 'female' symptoms were being masked. GP said it wasn't related to anything else.) One of the specialists was a neurologist who referred me to a few other specialists, one of which was a neuropsychologist (for dementia … did I mention this was for
physical symptoms??) That was ruled out (of course) along with everything else. I turned to Google (which I should've done in the first place), it said I had a cyst … so I found a better gyn who did the proper tests and found it … removed it … all better now.
But all the trouble I had getting doctors to actually listen to me was the last straw that started me asking about Aspergers again. When I found out that a neuropsychologist could give a diagnosis I contacted her again (calling it a 'followup') but she doesn't have any experience with autism or Aspergers. As luck would have it, they just had a new doctor join their practice who does … so I got a referral to the new neuropsych from the previous one, who was referred by the clueless neurologist, who was referred by the clueless GP who couldn't see past the numbers on my blood test. Not a process I would recommend to anyone, but I'll take it any way I can get it.
So I guess the moral of the story is, people will go to extreme lengths to disagree with us or prove us wrong. If I'd gone in initially with questions about Aspergers he never would've given me the proper referral. But while he was trying so desperately to disprove a (legitimate) physical issue, I kind of fell backwards into the referral I need for an Aspergers eval. Ugh. And it only cost me a few years, my job, and a boatload of money.
