Its horrifying how many stories sound like that, like the recent story woman who got parasitic worms from Hawaiian food that crept upwards from her legs gradually causing pain until they made it to her brain and only then the cognitive impairment made doctors take her seriously. She kept getting sent home too.
It's infuriating how many problems in our lives are met with a shrug.
edit: I'm a jerk, I forgot we were talking about somebody close to you. I'm sorry about your friend and I hope you're doing okay.
> It's infuriating how many problems in our lives are met with a shrug
If you know anyone in medicine you know they are swamped by hypochondriacs, frauds and crazies. Absent clear diagnostic criteria--or a person privately funding the search costs, with time and money--itβs infeasible to expect a collectively-funded system to explore every potential case like an episode of House MD.
This is pretty hand-wavy. I was diagnosed with a rare disorder. My doctors said surgery was the only option and that it would be fine after. As it turns out, there's a radiation therapy that is 80% successful, been practiced around the world for 20 years with no serious side effects (including cancer), AND is practiced regularly by a RO here where I live.
I had to find out about him by myself because my doctors didn't do anything other than look up my condition and give me the most common treatment option. In my case surgery usually makes things worse and is NOT advised other than as a last resort. My doctors didn't know any of this, because they didn't do their research.
It's infuriating how many problems in our lives are met with a shrug.
edit: I'm a jerk, I forgot we were talking about somebody close to you. I'm sorry about your friend and I hope you're doing okay.