1967. My 46 year old mom couldn't keep food down and her weight had gone from a normal 120 to 89 pounds. Doctors couldn't find anything obviously wrong with her so they decided it was all in her head. One doctor even told her condescendingly, "Well, now, I guess we'll just have to call this Dorothy's disease." Lucky for my mom, she got a…
1967. My 46 year old mom couldn't keep food down and her weight had gone from a normal 120 to 89 pounds. Doctors couldn't find anything obviously wrong with her so they decided it was all in her head. One doctor even told her condescendingly, "Well, now, I guess we'll just have to call this Dorothy's disease." Lucky for my mom, she got a new doctor (these were military doctors, by the way, my dad was in the military then) who figured it out instantly: celiac disease. He did an endoscopy to figure it out. He put her on a totally gluten free diet (hard in the 1960's!), she gained her weight back in about 6 months, got a second endoscopy a year later and they saw that her stomach and intestinal tract was completely healed. She ate gluten free the rest of her life and lived to 95. Had she not met that doctor, she would have died at 46.
Since that time (I was in high school), I have never entirely trusted most doctors. My skepticism in this regard has served me quite well my entire life.
1967. My 46 year old mom couldn't keep food down and her weight had gone from a normal 120 to 89 pounds. Doctors couldn't find anything obviously wrong with her so they decided it was all in her head. One doctor even told her condescendingly, "Well, now, I guess we'll just have to call this Dorothy's disease." Lucky for my mom, she got a new doctor (these were military doctors, by the way, my dad was in the military then) who figured it out instantly: celiac disease. He did an endoscopy to figure it out. He put her on a totally gluten free diet (hard in the 1960's!), she gained her weight back in about 6 months, got a second endoscopy a year later and they saw that her stomach and intestinal tract was completely healed. She ate gluten free the rest of her life and lived to 95. Had she not met that doctor, she would have died at 46.
Since that time (I was in high school), I have never entirely trusted most doctors. My skepticism in this regard has served me quite well my entire life.
Skepticism is a very healthy trait.