Doctor tell me; Are there patients who want to be sick?

Doctor tell me are there actually patients who want to be sick. Because answering questions about your health is an important part of your doctor's services. The Minnesota State Medical Association presents doctor tell me here to ask the doctor your questions. Is Janice Hughes dead. Today your health questions will be answered by Dr. Robert W. RIF a family physician from White Bear like Dr. rife. When is a diagnosis not a diagnosis. I mean how can a physician explain a patient's attacks of pain or shortness of breath and even vomiting when there is no apparent disease present. Well no you're in the category of psychosomatic illness and of course we hear so much about that these days. I think the best way to approach this is to say that these symptoms are symptom complex some of which you've alluded to here arise as a result of the patient's

emotional impact on his entire system that is on his circulatory system on his digestive system or. On his nervous system in general so that any of these symptoms can arise without any disease being present but just by the stimulus of these emotions in producing hormones or producing some sort of a nervous impulse to one of his glands. And the end result is the symptoms as you've alluded to here. You know a patient who is very uncomfortable. These patients frequently come to the doctor with such frightful symptoms that you just know they're very very. I'm comfortable very sad and having a lot of discomfort. The trick of it all is to try to get to the bottom of it without putting a patient through a lot of unnecessary diagnostic procedures.

Well then with the regular or romantic troubles any of these things a person makes himself sick so he is actually ill in a sense this is right and I think our present attitudes show somewhat of a change as to what it used to be felt. You know the idea used to be these people were imagining things but this is not so at all. They're not imagining they have very real symptoms and they suffer. Any physician who is in practice with a family or in a family situation can usually see the interplay of emotions between members of the family and relatives and see the results of such an interplay of emotions on. Symptoms and on various symptom complexes how common is it for worry to cause illness. I think this is one of the more common things of course we're all under pressures every day the pressures of everyday living and what

with the bomb the pill and all sorts of things the. Tremendous worries that the air rage family group carry around with them. I think it leads to a lot of these symptoms as you've described. Does it get serious that the person requests or thinks he needs surgery. Get me get to this point and sometimes it's a real trick for a physician to try to convince this individual that he has no organic disease that can be simply cured by either a magic potion a pill of some sort or by surgery. Thank you very much Dr. rife. The Minnesota State Medical Association has presented Dr. tell me recorded in the studios of KUNM at the University of Minnesota. Jenna's who is dead has asked the doctor your questions if you have any additional questions. Write to Dr. tell me. Minnesota State Medical Association Three seventy

five Jackson St.. St. Paul Minnesota 5 5 1 0 1. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.