“Mystery Disorders”

So why is it that one can go to ten different specialists, get no diagnosis or effective treatment , and that same individual can then come to see me and get better in a few days? Am I just very lucky? Is it the power of suggestion? Well, I can tell you, that’s not it.

Here is why. Most specialists do what they do very well. They excel in and have vast studies preparing for their particular area of expertise. However, most human suffering is not always textbook. That is to say that when a doctor studies disorders, they do not always match up with what we might see in our offices. Further, most doctors tend to be trained such that they are examining you with a goal of matching up your symptoms with illnesses that are referenceable in a medical textbook. Many disorders can be diagnosed in this manner; however, the vast majority of human suffering is not from these “named” diseases. It is from “shades of grey” symptoms that do not typically match up well with any disorder, yet are real symptoms for the patient. Since the doctor cannot find any disease that matches your conditions symptoms, you are simply told to “learn to live with it”, or worse, “it’s all in your head.” Few doctors examine patients cumulatively just trying to get a grasp of what might be realistically happening with that person rather than just trying to find the matching diagnosis code to send to the insurance carrier. Well when you think about this, you can see how easy it is to have no idea of what may be happening to explain your symptoms. It is easy to see how all of the individuals with disorders that fall into the “shades of grey” area are just going to be brushed off as being odd or unrealistic problems.

The reason why my office has so much success in this area, is because when I examine patients, I do not have a predisposed opinion of what disease I am trying to rule out. I look at them for what they are, a human being with symptoms, and I use logic to rationalize what neurophysiology is not working properly, and more importantly, what could be done to fix it. My office has had great success treating patients with difficult disorders in this regard. Because of our success, we routinely see patients who come from other states and spend a week with me so that they may get better.

So if you have been told to “learn to live with it”, or have been going from doctor to doctor without answers, you are my best patient. We always offer a complementary consultation if you prefer one prior to examination as we understand that you may have many questions simply out of years of frustration in dealing with the medical system.