Be a wise consumer
I experienced a traumatic realization last month. My husband died of a tumor (almost always benign) on his parathyroid gland. With my medical background, I found conclusive evidence of this, but too late to save him. The correct treatment was a 20 min radiographic band-aid procedure performed at Tampa General.
In the 4 months of seeking treatment and opinion from PCs and specialists alike in TV, including 2 neurologists, he was consistently dismissed as having Alzheimers, apparently a convenient catch-all for people of age here. In my 20 yrs. of experience as a geriatric consultant, I can say with authority he had no signs of Alzheimers, except for a failed Folstein Mini-Mental screening for "something's not right". My arguments, and the clear case I built fell on deaf ears until it was too late.
Patients should not be disregarded at any age. I would recommend to others that you never give up control of choosing docs, and do go "outside" when things don't come together quickly. With today's cookbook medicine, they either come up with an answer pretty quickly or they are headed in the wrong direction.
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