| OCR Text |
Show Patient Should Tell Physician All Symptoms By DR. JAMES W. BARTON THERE was a time when our humorists liked to say, "The patient has had his tonsils and all his teeth removed re-moved but he 1 still has his TODAY'S rheumatism." urniTiJ We do not hear HtHLIH this joke any COLUMN more because I . I practically every family has seen the very satisfactory results re-sults obtained by removal of teeth and tonsils in preventing prevent-ing further attacks of rheumatism rheu-matism although joints damaged by chronic rheumatism can hardly be expected to be free entirely of pain and stiffness. Another joke on the medical profession pro-fession was based on the "foolish" questions the physician asked the patient his parents' and grandparents' grand-parents' age when they died and any illnesses from which they suf- Dr. Barton fered; did he wake up in the night and not go to sleep again readily; how far could he walk without with-out getting out of breath, and other questions that did not seem to be related re-lated to the pain or other symptoms of which he com-' com-' plained. This questioning ques-tioning or getting the "history" of the patient before making the examination exami-nation is not considered a joke any more because only the patient can accurately describe his pain or other oth-er symptoms. Thus a patient, much worried about his heart as it seemed to be beating too rapidly, visited a heart specialist. He expe'eted the physician immediately to use the stethoscope, the sphygmomanometer sphygmomanome-ter (blood pressure machine), the electrocardiograph, which records strength and regularity of the heart, and the fluroscope, which enables the physician to actually see the heart. Exercise Test Made. Instead, the physician had him walk across the room and asked him how far he could walk at this rate without getting out of breath. When he told the" distance that he could walk without getting out of breath easily, the heart specialist told him he had no heart disease, and to worry no further about it. An examination with stethoscope, blood pressure machine, electrocardiograph electro-cardiograph and fluroscope was made, however, and the heart was pronounced normal. Thus the simple question, "How far can you walk without getting out of breath? ""gave the heart specialist spe-cialist the information that it was not the heart that was causing the symptoms. Mucous Colitis Held Incurable When a research physician who has studied the intestinal tract stomach, small and large intestine for many years tells us that no case of colitis (inflammation of the large intestine) is ever cured, it may sound discouraging to the thousands thou-sands of individuals who suffer with this ailment, the outstanding symptoms symp-toms of which are soreness across abdomen, pains, colic, jelly-like substance on wastes from bowel. Dr. Walter Alvarez, Mayo clinic, professor of medicine, University of Minnesota graduate school of medicine, medi-cine, at a meeting of the American College of Physicians said: "Do not spend much time and attention at-tention on the colon (large intestine) intes-tine) in cases of mucous colitis, which might better be called sensitive sensi-tive colon. Find out what kind of person the patient is (most of them are women); how they complain; what it is physical, emotional or spiritual that upsets them and then try to remedy these conditions if possible. Listen to the patient. The trouble may be food allergy sensitiveness sensi-tiveness to certain foods, a fit of anger, a "cold" or almost any type of physical, emotional or mental stress and strain. Cases Begin in Childhood. "Many of these cases begin in childhood due to bad early training and 'no case of colitis is ever cured.' The patient simply has to 'live with his disorder.' "These patients must be listened to with attention and treated with sympathy, understanding and tact. "The thought then is that mucous colitis is caused by the nervousness or the emotions, and it is the nervousness nerv-ousness and the upsctments that must be treated, not the colon itself. it-self. And just as the pernicious anemia patient must always use liver liv-er or liver extract and the diabetic i patient use insulin or protamine insulin, in-sulin, so must the mucous colitis pa-I pa-I tient always remain or try to re-, re-, main calm in spirit if he wishes to keep free of the symptoms of mucous mu-cous colitis. "In the meantime, avoiding rough foods, and using plain water cori- : taining a teaspoonful of salt enemas, or plain water enemas, will help to : : prevent symptoms. (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) |
