I got a blood test done to check my level of testosterone, as instructed in the accompanying product sheet for Andro-Feme to see whether it was appropriate to take it. When I got the test results it was not clear how to read them though it looked to me as if I was well below the normal level. I rang the GP. He was on holiday. They referred to his notes which said the test results were "normal". This didn't make sense to me so I rang St John of God Pathology. The thing that infuriated me was that they would not put me through the the supervising Dr whose name was on the test results. They said he would only talk to my GP. But he's away on Holidays... etc etc. Finally the recpetionist took pity on me and talked to the lab technicians who confirmed that my testosterone was well below normal. They appeared to be trying to protect my Dr by saying that the results were normal "for someone my age". Well I knew I didn't want to be "normal for someone my age" so that gave me enough confidence to go ahead and the treatment seems to be suiting me very well. I also spoke to the GP who was standing in for my GP and he couldn't figure out why my GP had said it was "normal" and said it looked to him too as if I was well below normal. When my GP came back from holiday he was very apologetic and said that he had been rushing to go away on holidays and flicked through the results very quickly. What he had meant by ticking normal was that there was "no harm" in my going ahead with the treatment. What I got out of this experience was that my GP didn't take enough care looking at the results and that the medical profession is more concerned about protecting its own than looking after their customers. If I had taken the information at face value and hadn't pursued what the tests results meant very assertively, I would have been deprived of a beneficial treatment.
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