Diagnosis is half the cure. I sincerely believe in this statement. There is a sigh of relief when your doctor tells you what have. It allows you to carry out research in to your condition and all this gives you piece of mind. Imagine arriving at the doctor’s surgery and being told by the doctor that she hasn’t a clue of what causes your condition. The pressure is on. There is 10 minutes for the doctor to get a result. If you arrive with upset stomach then you could be diagnosed with gastroenteritis. You then given a prescription for pills that will soothe your condition. Imagine instead that you walk into the surgery with your upset stomach and you are told that……….. you have an upset stomach. You would simply tell your doctor that you knew that already, and quickly change doctors. But gastroenteritis means exactly upset stomach and no more. It’s a very general word which could hide a multitude of conditions and diseases.
Imagine the next week you went back to the surgery complaining about restless legs. ‘Doctor, I can’t seem to sit still. My legs seem to be restless.’ Imagine the doctor’s relief when she responds, ‘Ah, I know exactly what you have its RLS. Now just to explain this technical term, RLS stands for Restlessly Leg Syndrome.’
You breath a sigh of relief. You tell all your friends what you have. You tell them many cases this condition afflicts individuals in the evening and it causes restlessness in the legs. We then describe how your legs felt last night and the night before etc. etc. You then say that you have a life long condition but thank goodness there is medical help but it means that you must take prescription drugs for the rest of your life.
But then you start to wonder why this is not called the disease. You look up the word syndrome. One definition is a group of symptoms which consistently occur together, or a condition characterised by a set of associated symptoms.
Then you realise that you have been told you have a set of symptoms and that haven’t actually been diagnosed with what is actually caused your condition.
