HYPOCHONDRIA - AN IGNORANCE-BASED MEDICAL WEAPON OF MASS DEVASTATION USED AGAINST LARGE NUMBERS OF PATIENTS WITH SYMPTOMS NOT EASY TO DIAGNOSE

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http://www.redflagsweekly.com/second_opinion/2003_dec06.php

 

 

HYPOCHONDRIA - AN IGNORANCE-BASED MEDICAL WEAPON OF MASS DEVASTATION USED

AGAINST LARGE NUMBERS OF PATIENTS WITH SYMPTOMS NOT EASY TO DIAGNOSE

 

By RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush

 

When I wrote the “Second Opinion” column for ABCNews.com during the last two

years of my work at World News Tonight With Peter Jennings, I faced a regular

stream of email from readers who complained bitterly that their doctors often

did not take their physical complaints seriously; that they wrote them off as

“in the mind” or as “hypochondria.” One reason I suppose that my column

attracted so much of this kind of attention was due to my fierce defense of

those who were suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, or

chemical sensitivities and related complaints. Just because medicine had little

understanding of how these illnesses developed, this was no reason for doctors

to write off these people as malcontents, complainers, and so on. It made me

very angry to think that those practicing what will be considered in the future

to be “primitive medicine,” had the audacity to either humiliate their patients

or cause them emotional pain – along with the physical pain they were

experiencing. Just thinking about this made me mad as hell. And it still does.

 

I read an interview in NEW SCIENTIST today that got me thinking again about the

arrogance expressed by so many who practice medicine, or, at least, think they

do.

 

Here is an actual definition offered by psychiatrist Brian Fallon who has been

studying hypochondriacs for 15 years:

 

Hypochondria is the fear of disease that persists even after a doctor’s

examination and reassurance. A person with hypochondria might be reassured

initially, but later in the day a nagging uncertainty re-emerges and leads the

patient to wonder, “Did I really explain my symptoms adequately?”

 

Fallon goes on to advise that hypochondriacs will “spend large parts of the day

thinking about their symptoms and discussing them. They will track down numerous

experts and will find the loopholes in every medical test, and seek more

sensitive ones to make sure that the last doctor hasn’t missed something.”

 

So? If you have symptoms and a doctor does not resolve them or a test does not

reveal a specific problem, does that mean there is no problem? Does that mean

that the symptoms are being created through force of “mind,” whatever that is?

 

Unfortunately, rather than consider the likelihood that there are always forms

of organic disease in process in the body to one degree or another, Fallon

typically decides that emotional needs, such as the desire for attention, will

generate the symptoms. No doubt emotions are part of a complex package of events

in process at any given time, but why single them out? Why? Because that’s what

too many psychiatrists tend to do. Then, it’s on to drugs, such as Prozac, or

whatever. And then when the symptoms clear, the usual tendency is to assume that

the drug did the job. How utterly stupid this is. But unfortunately in the era

of “primitive medicine,” such leaps of the imagination are common.

 

I particularly note one of Fallon’s comments about patients who apparently are

harder to treat:

 

They feel they have a multitude of symptoms, and they worry that they have a

serious disease. Those patients in my experience have done less well with drugs.

 

Is there a clue for us in the above statement? Might it suggest that those who

do not clear up with mind drugs actually have more serious physical components

underlying their symptoms?

 

The point here is that, sure, there are some very difficult people who see

doctors, and I’m sure that if I had to deal with some of them, I’d be looking

for my prescription pad, just to get rid of them. But that would say more about

me than whatever might be ailing them.

 

The fact that many people behave wildly when their symptoms are not given due

respect is no reason to assume that they match some simplistic criteria of what

is defined arbitrarily as “hypochondria.” Many may display bizarre behavior

because they hurt and no one can tell them why. That might be enough for some to

engage in so-called “compulsive” behavior. Until medicine takes a giant leap

from its current primitive state, no doctor should be characterizing anyone as a

“hypochondriac.”

 

Fallon gives us some extreme cases of what he calls “hypochondria,” but what he

is basically describing are people who may not know how to handle uncertainty,

who are fearful because their pain does not go away, or who become increasingly

disoriented. All they need on top of that is a dumb label – hypochondria.

 

Hypochondria is a trash concept in medicine because it assumes that the doctor

knows what he/she is talking about. That simply is not the case.

 

 

 

 

 

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