It's a mess, to be sure.
I blew my knee out at work almost a year ago. Workman's comp. Got sent to a place for rehab.
In the first session the guy hurt me so bad I could barely walk back to my car. I was set back a week in terms of recovery. Literally, he damaged me despite me telling him he was manipulating my knee too far and too hard.
Let me be clear here, I am no stranger to pain and have a high tolerance for it; that therapy was gonna hurt was no surprise to me, but I wasn't simply subjected to a little pain, I was *damaged*.
Second time I requested a new therapist. I was asked why and stated my case as calmly as I could, specifying that I wasn't going to make an issue of it but I wasn't going to put up with being injured either. Well, the Dr didn't believe me and acted like I'd dropped in at the Vatican and took a crap in the Pope's hat. She made it clear that my opinion (never mind that it was my own personal knee here) was a pile of steaming dog poop in her eyes and her therapist guy could do no wrong.
So I said "right, frack the lot of you", and didn't go back. I got a cheap gym membership and did my own @#$#-durn therapy. It cost me my WC payments and ultimately my job, but I was at the point I didn't care. I had a knee to rehabilitate.
So sometimes, ****ty therapy by people who don't really care is worse than no therapy...
Doctors who don't listen drive me insane.
I've had laparoscopic surgeries in the past, which leave behind a bit of air in your abdomen which gets reabsorbed by the body over a day or two. The feeling of free-floating air in your body is a weird one. It even rises to find higher ground when you invert yourself. Truly bizarre -- can't really explain it.
A few years ago, I had a partial lung collapse. It was small enough that I was still breathing fine -- I just had a bit of pain on the inhale. And I got that same weird feeling of air inside me.
I flipped myself upside down, and felt it push down my body, finding higher ground. "Yup, that's air. Ok, to the ER we go." I didn't really know what it was, but I knew it was acting like air, and air isn't supposed to be there.
I went to the doc and told them what I just told you. Guy refused to listen to me. Insisting it must be muscular, or a chest infection. Absolutely refused to do an X-ray. "No, dude. I've had TOS, and I've had chest infections. I've also had air inside me. I know what all three of those things feel like. This thing moves like air. Please? Just humor me and do the X-ray?"
Eventually I got him to do it, and hey, guess what, I was right.
He did at least apologize for not listening to me. It wasn't like I was coming in hysterical about space aliens inside me. I came in trying to be reasonable about the possibility I was wrong, but also with the knowledge of what air feels like inside my body from previous experience, and it's not like lung collapses are some super out-there thing, especially not under my circumstances (lots of weight loss due to bereavement -- being too thin is a risk factor). And I got treated like I was ****ing crazy.
This is why it's important to be our own advocates. Doctors are human like you and I. There are good ones and bad ones.
Yes, all of them know more about bodies than we lay people. But that doesn't mean they'll apply that knowledge properly.
If you don't like how you're being treated, go with your gut.