I’m not the neatest person. My love of learning leads me to hang on to more printed material than I have time to read. This causes clutter. Every so often I clean up the piles and yesterday was such a time. I came across an email from last year that, unusually, I had printed.
It was written by a primary care practitioner in another city. She had read my book and wanted to tell me about an encounter with a man in his mid-20s. The patient had years of unexplained episodes of headaches and dizziness but came to the office for two weeks of abdominal pains and diarrhea. There had been numerous diagnostic tests done in emergency rooms. Unlike the patient’s other clinicians, however, the author of the email knew how to take a Stress History.
As a boy, the patient was severely abused by his stepfather. In his mid-teens he reported him which put the man in prison for ten years. The discussion about this in the clinician’s office led the patient to realize the sentence would be over soon if it wasn’t already. The patient then recalled recently seeing a man who resembled his stepfather. The man was out walking his pit bull, the same breed of dog the stepfather had once owned. It quickly became clear it was no coincidence that the young man’s abdominal symptoms began soon after this encounter.
The patient’s symptoms did not resolve immediately after this visit but the insights gained were tremendously helpful and he made steady progress. The practitioner described the encounter as “very dramatic” and “one of the most rewarding visits I’ve had in a long, long time.” She pointed out the usual outcome in a case like this: failure to diagnose correctly, a series of tests that are normal and prescriptions (possibly for narcotics) that don’t help for long if at all.
Some day successful encounters like this will be routine. And that would be neat.
Tags: Stress History
