It used to be whenever a physician was unable to come up with a diagnosis for his patient’s illness, he would chalk it up to a psychosomatic dysfunction and recommend an antidepressant. It seems now that more and more physicians who are perplexed by their patient’s symptoms or lack of response to treatment are just using the excuse: “you are just getting old”.
Now if the patient is eighty or ninety years old, that just might be a valid reason for some symptoms. However, when Rachel a recent new patient, went to her endocrinologist appointment to go over some recent thyroid tests, she was told that her blood work was normal and that the cause of her fatigue and other chronic symptoms was due to her advanced age- she is of the ripe old age of 33!
My comment to Rachel was, “If you feel this way when you are 33, just imagine how you will feel when you are 53.” Unless you are very advanced in age, I feel that there is no excuse for any chronic illness.
Terry Pfau, DO, HMD