Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell was a medical student when her symptoms started.
“All of a sudden I noticed that my joints were swollen. And then I was like, ‘God, I feel really tired.’ “ Dr. Bayo, 46, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “And then I started to lose my hair.”
She went to one doctor who told her, “’You’re stressed because you’re in medical school.’ And I remember that sitting with me, and I was just like, ‘No, something’s wrong.’ ”
The next doctor thought she was pregnant — even though her boyfriend, now husband, James, was several states away in Chicago, while she was in Reno, Nevada.
It took visits to seven doctors before “finally, one doctor took the time to believe me.”
It turned out that Dr. Bayo (pronounced Bye-oh) had the chronic autoimmune disease lupus, as well as a clotting disorder. “That could have changed my whole life where I could have dropped out of medical school if I wouldn’t have gotten the diagnosis and the help that I needed — because I was really sick,” the family medicine physician tells PEOPLE.
The second time a doctor didn’t believe her, it nearly killed her. Dr. Bayo had given birth to her second daughter, but when she told her nurse something was wrong, she was dismissed — twice. It wasn’t until she called her doctor, who discovered that she was bleeding internally.
Physician Starts List of Doctors Who Actually Listen (Exclusive)
