Dr. Mohan Rao, consulting at Sagar Hospitals, Jayanagar(Earlier called Sagar Apollo) is supposed to be an Endocrinologist, which is a super speciality department. However, this doctor was more interested in getting business for his diagnostic center than taking genuine interest in knowing about the patient’s case and advising the right treatment option.
My wife was diagnosed with thyroid problem during her fourth month of pregnancy and since we were consulting Dr. Leela Bhagvan, Gynecologist at Bangalore Hospital in Jayanagar, she told us to consult any Endocrinologist and actually suggested Dr. Mohan Rao’s name as he practices at Sagar Hospitals and it is close to our house. Therefore, we met him.
He claimed to have seen thousands of pregnancy thyroid cases. The reading of TSH was around 10 in the report, which is considered as very high. Dr. Mohan Rao then advised us to get the tests done once again at his diagnostic centre in Tyagaraja Nagar(N.S. Diagnostics) as the reports given by Sagar Hospitals were not accurate according to him. So, we went and got that done as well.
After seeing that report in which the TSH was indeed very high and Vitamin D was also low, Dr. Mohan Rao prescribed Thyronorm tablets of 25 mcg. This is a low dosage course. He said he will revise it after seeing another report after one month.
The tests were done once again(this time at Sagar Hospital only) and then we took the report to Dr. Mohan Rao. The TSH had reduced to around 3 now. So, our man advises my wife to take 50 mcg Thyronorm everyday and see him after three months. 3 Months! I freaked and called him to reconfirm. When I spoke to him over phone, he suggested that we go to consult him again after one month, but continue taking 50 mcg of Thyronorm this time.
So, my wife started with 50 mcg of Thyronorm. During the consultancy Dr. Mohan Rao kept assuring us that everything was absolutely fine and normal. He even saw the scan reports and said that the baby was doing fine. However, when Dr. Leela Bhagvan saw the scan report and did a Doppler test, she said the baby was small, but nothing to worry.
This really got us worried! We were apprehensive about going to Dr. Mohan Rao once again. So, I did some enquiry and search on the net and found Dr. C.B. Sridhar - a senior Endocrinologist and a specialist in Thyroid cases. He also happens to be staying in Jayanagar 5th Block, which is close to our house.
So, we called Dr. Sridhar and took an appointment with him. He readily agreed to meet us and called us to his residence as he consults from there. Though we got delayed more than an hour to reach him, he was kind enough to oblige. We met him and gave him the background. He was stunned.
He very politely mentioned that the dosage of Thyronorm had to be started at a much higher level, i.e. 100 mcg and then reduced based on the TSH reports taken every month. My wife was in her 6th month of pregnancy now.
Dr. Sridhar told us to get the tests done and expressed his interest in getting the TSH level down to almost 1, which is close to the starting normal range. Therefore, he advised my wife to go with 75 mcg of Thyronorm and see him after a month. He confirmed that the baby was small due to high TSH not treated with proper high dosage of Thyronorm initially. Therefore, it was absolute negligence on part of Dr. Mohan Rao who totally misguided us and gave a low dosage of Thyronorm to my wife due to which the baby’s growth got limited. My wife had not put on much weight.
Even when my wife started going for antenatal classes, Dr. Sana(who used to consult at Fortis Hospital, Bangalore) told her that the baby was small due to low dosage of Thyronorm taken when the TSH was so high! Every doctor seems to know this and it is surprising how Dr. Mohan Rao did not consider this important How much will a common man know whose subject is not medicine!
I would not advise anyone to consult Dr. Mohan Rao(Endocrinologist) and if you do, then please take a second opinion from another Endocrinologist.