Dr. Faizal Ramdial, MD

I went in for an appointment since I had been having breathing difficulties for years and every doctor I’ve seen has been unable to diagnosis me or help me whatsoever. Me and my mom wait in the room for an hour without being seen which isn’t a big deal since doctors are busy people. He comes in and tells me that my tonsils (which swell to take up most of my throat which makes it hard to breath most of the time) are not the problem and he can not allow me to get my tonsils taken out unless I have repeated instances of strep throat or go in for a sleep study. He then looks at my charts and instead of focusing primarily on why I can’t breath and why mucus has been dripping down my throat and causing me perpetual sickness for 5+ years at this point, Dr. Ramdial preferred to talk primarily about the fact that I’m overweight. I’m an overweight 16 year old girl, being 5”6 and 215 lbs. He tells me that loosing weight would surely benefit me, I tell him I’ve been working on that and have been since I was nine years old. He tells me he can refer me to a weight loss specialist and then recounts his experiencing working with weight loss specialists in his personal time. He then tries an exercise that that doctor did with him where he asks me my favorite food and then tells me to eat less of it. He asks me my favorite food and I tell him it’s sushi. He then asks me if I eat two or three rolls of sushi and I say I only eat one which he responds with apparent shock that I’m not forking down three plates of sushi, since I’m so fat. He then tells me that maybe I could cut down a plate of sushi in half or to simply not order a side dish. As if I haven’t been doing this for ages. After I start crying because he brought up a very sensitive topic for me since I had been bullied for my weight most of my weight by both my parents and peers, he continued telling me about how I should eat less sushi. He then tells me that another cause for this is stress and of course, my menstrual cycle. Mind you, the problem being addressed is in my throat and respiratory system. I may not be a doctor but I know my ovaries are not in my throat. He then takes all of 10 seconds to test my breathing and then promptly tells me that it could not be asthma. A week ago I went in for an appointment with a different doctor in which they ran tests and took a more detailed approach and did not write me off for being overweight or for being a woman. I was diagnosed with asthma. It took almost a year to get this diagnosis. Dr. Ramdial was no help in this. And I have been exercising multiple times per week and have been on a caloric deficit for a year and don’t feel any better, thank you Dr. Ramdial for your insight.