I came into CVI after 7 hours in the ER the day before for chest and arm pain. Upon arriving the receptionist was immediately annoyed at my presence and that I didn’t have an appointment. I had been discharged from the ER at 10:30pm the night before and was told CVI was a walk-in.
During my consultation with Dr. Jamnadas, he told me the reason I felt chest pain is because I am depressed, and that I am depressed because I am severely overweight. I’m a 26 yr old 5’6” woman 174lbs. He ignored me when I told him about my dietary changes and how I actually had been losing weight the last couple months. He said the only way to “fix” myself and my depression/bipolar would be to fast 3 days a week, only drinking water and 1 small meal of vegetables. I asked what meal and he said it didn’t matter. I asked for how long and he said “you’ll know when.” He also told me if I was a cavewoman and felt depressed I would go out and hunt them look to find someone to reproduce with, because that’s my “biological purpose”, and I wouldn’t be able to if I didn’t “get rid of the gut.” He said, “don’t you want to be happy?” He also said there were other parts of my body that could improve and pointed to his neck. He literally begged me to stop eating. It was extremely uncomfortable. He said if I wasn’t so big I wouldn’t need to take my bipolar medicine. He tried to make me schedule an appointment with his dietician but I didn’t trust someone who fell under the jurisdiction of such an ignorant, ill-advised “practitioner.”
I’m not sure which medical school teaches that bipolar is a curable disease, but regardless I don’t think it’s a cardiologists place to tell you he knows how to cure it. I felt embarrassed and insulted after my consultation. I didn’t know doctors were allowed to tell you to starve yourself, or that you were too fat to attract someone and have a child, or imply that women only walk this earth to be birthing machines. Dr. Jamnadas would be better cast in The Handmaid’s Tale than be a doctor giving dangerous, and potentially lethal, advice to patients.