HEALTH: Finding the Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms The Extraordinary Walker E

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Finding the Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms: The Extraordinary

Walker Exam

 

 

by Dan Stradford

 

Founder, Safe Harbor Project

 

" As a practicing psychiatrist and neurologist, I've successfully

diagnosed and treated hundreds of patients whose emotional and

behavioral symptoms were caused by tumors, infections, toxins,

medication errors, genetic diseases, and other physical problems. Most

of them came to me after being tagged with psychiatric labels - manic

depression, anxiety disorder, attention deficit disorder - and being

given powerful mind-altering drugs or referral for psychotherapy. By the

time they called my office, many were desperate, some were suicidal, and

few had been significantly helped. "

 

Sidney Walker III, A Dose of Sanity

 

" I'm afraid Mrs. Williams is going to need to be placed in a facility, "

the doctor said in a call to nurse Barbary Massey of L.A. County's

Genesis Program. " Her family can no longer take care of her. She has

dementia. "

 

" How do you know she has dementia? " asked Nurse Massey.

 

" Her memory is gone, " came the reply.

 

" And what else? What medical tests have you run?

 

The phone was silent. The doctor had, in fact, done little testing.

Nurse Massey rattled off a series of medical procedures she felt should

be done before Mrs. Williams (not her real name) was consigned to the

dustbin of " dementia. "

 

" I'll make a deal with you, " said the physician. " I'll run these tests

if you promise to help the family with placing her in a facility. " The

nurse agreed.

 

Some months went by before Barbara Massey heard that doctor's voice

again.. He called to tell her that Mrs. Williams had just left for a

vacation in Las Vegas and was having the time of her life. Medical tests

had shown she had extremely low thyroid function and a severe urinary

tract infection.

 

Once these were treated, the " dementia " vanished.

 

" I'll never make that mistake again, " the doctor said.

 

It surprises most people to discover that physical ailments can and do

cause severe mental problems. This is probably the most overlooked fact

in the practices of psychiatry and psychology. A 1982 study reported in

the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that of 215

consecutive patients admitted to a San Francisco hospital with mental

problems, 41% had physical disorders that were misdiagnosed as

psychiatric. A 1983 article in Schizophrenia Bulletin concluded that 83%

of people diagnosed with schizophrenia have physical ailments instead.

 

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/article-stradford.htm