Sheila wrote:I don't care what it does once it leaves home.
And your new doctor does indeed sound like a rare find. Kudos to him, and lucky you.
Tex
Where Did The Rumor That Healthy Poop Sinks, Get Started?
Moderators: Rosie, Stanz, Jean, CAMary, moremuscle, JFR, Dee, xet, Peggy, Matthew, Gabes-Apg, grannyh, Gloria, Mars, starfire, Polly, Joefnh
And your new doctor does indeed sound like a rare find. Kudos to him, and lucky you.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Interesting observation. I have a hunch that patient symptoms, and more importantly, patient perceptions of their symptoms, began to be omitted from the equation when doctors unconsciously decided to abdicate their diagnostic authority to various tests that now do virtually all of their diagnostic work for them. Not only did the importance of patient input drop drastically, but the importance of the doctor's role also took a big hit. They probably didn't even realize what was happening as it evolved, but IMO, they lost more than their patients in the transition.Jean wrote:When tests that can be only administered by doctors trump patient's reports of their own symptoms it gives the power to doctors to define whose sick and who isn't. My view is that it becomes particularly absurd when risk factors become worrisome illnesses, like "high" cholesterol and severe symptoms, like a person having D 20 or more times a day, is discounted and treated like a minor inconvenience, because the tests don't show anything "serious" to be wrong. A patient's report of their own symptoms should be the primary driving force behind examinations, testing, diagnosis and treatment.
This topic fascinates me. Specifically what fascinates me is how signs, those things determined by doctors, came to trump symptoms, those things determined by patients, as the primary indicator of illness. If I could get my act together I would write a book on the topic. It's not just about science and progress, but about power and who holds it.
Jean
You really should write that book, otherwise it's not going to be written, and that would be a shame.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Here is a piece of trivia..... actually not so trivial, now I think of it.
In an early scene from the Oscar winning film The Last Emperor (Bertolucci) the boy Emperor of China, Pu Yi, was having a bath while the court doctors smelt his 'poo' (pun intended). The Royal Poo had been reverently brought to them in the Imperial Chamber Pot. The Chief (Chinese) doctor ordered, "No bean curd!"
"Bean Curd" is a translation for "Tofu" which is made from soy. We all know that soy is high on the list of not very healthy, not well tolerated foods.
Anyway, if we are "Potty", so were the Emperor's wise Doctors!
Best
In an early scene from the Oscar winning film The Last Emperor (Bertolucci) the boy Emperor of China, Pu Yi, was having a bath while the court doctors smelt his 'poo' (pun intended). The Royal Poo had been reverently brought to them in the Imperial Chamber Pot. The Chief (Chinese) doctor ordered, "No bean curd!"
"Bean Curd" is a translation for "Tofu" which is made from soy. We all know that soy is high on the list of not very healthy, not well tolerated foods.
Anyway, if we are "Potty", so were the Emperor's wise Doctors!
Best
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"Softly, softly catchee monkey".....
"Softly, softly catchee monkey".....
Jean- If you run for office- I'll vote for you!
I had a situation when I was a teenager- which may have been the very start of "everything" but I came down with terrible abdominal pain and fever after Thanksgiving when I was 16 years old. I was initially diagnosed with a bladder infection at the ER and given some pills which made my pee orange but did nothing to help me. I went home and came back the next day. Finally they admitted me and were toying with a very damning diagnosis of pelvic inflammatory disease. I hadn't eaten in days, was hooked to an IV with a fever of 103 and was alone except for the girl in the other bed in the room with me. I remember one female Doctor in particular who had not examined me- she walked in and picked up my chart and began to explain that they really didn't know what was wrong with me and they would not know unless they did exploratory surgery. She went on to explain that sometimes they have to remove an ovary, or both... and sometimes the whole uterus. She did this to a sixteen year old girl who was ALONE and without even examining me or looking me in the eye- she was simply looking at the chart hanging off the foot of my bed. I never saw her again. What the heck? She's just walking down the hall dropping random bombs on people?
The antibiotics pushed back the infection to the point I was released and sent back to school (a boarding school where once again- I was alone and without an adult advocate) and I was in a bad state. I was falling asleep in class, unable to complete all my assignments and in pain. I was shuttled into a gynecological situation where they were operating on the assumption that I had ovarian cysts. I endured many extraordinarily painful pelvic exams where they squeezed and poked my innards from inside and out. Oh that sharp pain upon releasing in my lower right hand abdomen... I told them- a hundred times- but they just had to see for themselves- did they want to see me cry or scream out in pain like some tender princess from Brookline? Don't they know that I am alone? Like a wild animal, I'd rather silently chew off my own foot than yelp in the woods to alert the wolves - those jerks- I was a steely stoic kid. "yeah that hurts right there I'd mutter between my clenched teeth. I'd already been dismissed by all the adults in my world as having an "attitude problem" and suspected of being a druggie because of how I dressed. I had ups and downs and I was hospitalized two more times, one time enduring a barium enema- still with no diagnosis.
I finally dropped out of highschool and flew to Italy where my mother was. After about two months I got sick again. Very sick- I was taken by ambulance to the very old hospital in Pisa, staffed by nurse nuns. (Yes- the ambulance actually drove through Miracle Square and I could see the leaning tower from the very unsettling angle of flat on my back in a screaming ambulance.) It is very scary to be in a hospital in a foreign country and not be able to understand what people are saying- but as the orderlies ran through the halls pushing my gurney they called out- "Appendice!! Appendice!!" to clear the way- I knew what they were saying and felt so relieved that finally someone knew how to help me.
The appendix was gangrenous. It was July third. Thanksgiving to the fourth of July. I carried that sick appendix as long as a full term pregnancy and I will always thank God for the Italian doctors who saw the obvious, (in human illness 101 right?) in front of them and not the ones who were totally stalled by my chart which had bloodwork that fell one point below the line where suspicion of appendicitis kicks in.
I had a situation when I was a teenager- which may have been the very start of "everything" but I came down with terrible abdominal pain and fever after Thanksgiving when I was 16 years old. I was initially diagnosed with a bladder infection at the ER and given some pills which made my pee orange but did nothing to help me. I went home and came back the next day. Finally they admitted me and were toying with a very damning diagnosis of pelvic inflammatory disease. I hadn't eaten in days, was hooked to an IV with a fever of 103 and was alone except for the girl in the other bed in the room with me. I remember one female Doctor in particular who had not examined me- she walked in and picked up my chart and began to explain that they really didn't know what was wrong with me and they would not know unless they did exploratory surgery. She went on to explain that sometimes they have to remove an ovary, or both... and sometimes the whole uterus. She did this to a sixteen year old girl who was ALONE and without even examining me or looking me in the eye- she was simply looking at the chart hanging off the foot of my bed. I never saw her again. What the heck? She's just walking down the hall dropping random bombs on people?
The antibiotics pushed back the infection to the point I was released and sent back to school (a boarding school where once again- I was alone and without an adult advocate) and I was in a bad state. I was falling asleep in class, unable to complete all my assignments and in pain. I was shuttled into a gynecological situation where they were operating on the assumption that I had ovarian cysts. I endured many extraordinarily painful pelvic exams where they squeezed and poked my innards from inside and out. Oh that sharp pain upon releasing in my lower right hand abdomen... I told them- a hundred times- but they just had to see for themselves- did they want to see me cry or scream out in pain like some tender princess from Brookline? Don't they know that I am alone? Like a wild animal, I'd rather silently chew off my own foot than yelp in the woods to alert the wolves - those jerks- I was a steely stoic kid. "yeah that hurts right there I'd mutter between my clenched teeth. I'd already been dismissed by all the adults in my world as having an "attitude problem" and suspected of being a druggie because of how I dressed. I had ups and downs and I was hospitalized two more times, one time enduring a barium enema- still with no diagnosis.
I finally dropped out of highschool and flew to Italy where my mother was. After about two months I got sick again. Very sick- I was taken by ambulance to the very old hospital in Pisa, staffed by nurse nuns. (Yes- the ambulance actually drove through Miracle Square and I could see the leaning tower from the very unsettling angle of flat on my back in a screaming ambulance.) It is very scary to be in a hospital in a foreign country and not be able to understand what people are saying- but as the orderlies ran through the halls pushing my gurney they called out- "Appendice!! Appendice!!" to clear the way- I knew what they were saying and felt so relieved that finally someone knew how to help me.
The appendix was gangrenous. It was July third. Thanksgiving to the fourth of July. I carried that sick appendix as long as a full term pregnancy and I will always thank God for the Italian doctors who saw the obvious, (in human illness 101 right?) in front of them and not the ones who were totally stalled by my chart which had bloodwork that fell one point below the line where suspicion of appendicitis kicks in.
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Sheila
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Skyward, reminds me of what my son went through back in 1978. His fever shot sky-high, he convulsed and I raced him to the nearest hospital. He spent a week there eating green jello and left without a diagnosis. One pediatrician quipped, "He has Florida crud." Move forward several years and Chris woke us up in the middle of the night in pain. To make a very long story short, after going in and out of the hospital several times the decision to do exploratory surgery was made. Turns out his appendix had burst those many years ago and his body had miraculously walled off the offending organ. The appendix was pushed back almost to his spine and there was a tiny piece still sticking out of the lump of scar tissue. It was decided not to do a resection and to just lop off the remaining piece of appendix.
My son's symptoms didn't match the criteria for appendicitis in 1978 or almost 10 years later. Sad state of affairs when appendicitis can't be properly diagnosed.
Sheila W
My son's symptoms didn't match the criteria for appendicitis in 1978 or almost 10 years later. Sad state of affairs when appendicitis can't be properly diagnosed.
Sheila W
To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.
A person who never made a mistake never tried something new. Einstein
A person who never made a mistake never tried something new. Einstein
Sarah wrote:not the ones who were totally stalled by my chart which had bloodwork that fell one point below the line where suspicion of appendicitis kicks in.
Obviously one of the main causes of missed diagnoses is doctors who are fixated on so-called "normal" ranges. They have become brainwashed to believe that as long as a patient's test results fall within an arbitrarily-defined range, then that rules out certain diagnoses. Their mistake is in not realizing that not every one fits the same mold. "Normal" test result ranges are based on results from "normal" people (IOW, people who are not sick). But sick people are not "normal", so trying to make a diagnosis based on data obtained from people who are not sick may not be relevant, because test results from sick people may or may not fall within the so-called "normal" ranges. If only more doctors were smart enough to realize that.Sheila wrote:Sad state of affairs when appendicitis can't be properly diagnosed.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Yes, that's true, and smelly, floating poop is a common identifying marker for celiac disease. But other dietary factors can affect the specific gravity of poop. Anything lighter than water will float, and that includes certain foods, oils, entrapped air or other gasses, etc., so if the percentage of those items in a BM is high enough, it will float, regardless of how "healthy" or "unhealthy" it might be.Pat wrote:I thought our poop floated before because we were eating wheat which caused us to malabsorb fats and fats float. I just want a normal BM floating or not.
Pat
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.