My local GP surgery.
One December, I managed to severely sprain my ankle (seeing the sole of your shoe, hearing a loud crack, and not being able to walk on it at all for a week was a dead give-away). Being the "I don't need no doctor" sort, I left it to heal on its own. 4 months down the line, and it was still painful - I could walk, but running was completely out of the question.

I had to give in, and booked myself an appointment. I was awarded a time slot to see the new registrar, and what a dopey sod he was. He started by asking me what "I thought I had done" as you would expect, so I explained how I dashed down the back stairs at work, got my footing wrong, and twisted my ankle with a loud crack/pop. I also told him that I realised how stupid it was of me to leave it so long, and that I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help it, i.e. with exercise.

He examined my ankle, I explained where it hurt, and how putting weight on it was still an issue.

He repeated his question at this point "So what do you think you have done?"

"I just said I twisted it... I'm not sure WHAT has happened to it" I replied.

The doctor, as if asking a senior surgeon for diagnosis advice, asked "Do you think you may have sprained it, or broken it?"

"Well I don't know, that's why I'm here..."

"But what do you think?" he continued to ask

I had to keep telling him that I didn’t have a self diagnosis, and that I had told him all my symptoms and what I had done to get that way. At this point he offered probably the most extreme form of medication aside from amputation - "I could schedule you in to have an anti-inflammatory injection directly into the joint, and I would be inclined to send you to Physio. If you had broken it, it would be healed by now."

Not fancying a needle stuck right into my ankle, I declined and asked to just go with physio. He booked an appointment, and prescribed me anti inflammatory pills (I forget which ones, it may have been Dyclophenac or something). What he failed to do, was specify coated pills, as the uncoated were known to cause stomach upsets. After taking them for the first time, I started suffering serious stomach cramps, and had to give up on the course.

The physiotherapist was brilliant, though. She immediately said, after watching me walk, that I was compensating for the injury and was now placing my weight on my foot in an unnatural way. I re-learned to walk on my foot, went though exercises and that electro-magnetic pulse therapy they use.

Now I can walk and run again on it with ease, but it still is a bit sore when it's cold.
( theoriginalsteve <this space intentionally left blank>, Mon 15 Mar 2010, 13:31, Reply)