Unknown

I have a patient RK who has something. I don't know what that is. It's a lot like myasthenia gravis. So I checked him for that. He didn't seem to have it, at least not by testing. Still, it looks a lot like that illness. I thought about treating him without knowing what he has, because whatever it is that he has it is causing great disability with very severe weakness. I sent him to Mayo Clinic. They said he has something. They don't know what it is. It looks like maysthenia gravis to them, but his test is negative. So they thought I should try treating him.

I treated him with what we thought we should treat him with for whatever it is that he has. It seems like it probably didn't work. It maybe worked a little. I saw him back and thought he was a little bit stronger. His wife thought he was better. He didn't think it made a difference. I saw him back a couple of weeks later, and I think it didn't really make any difference. It's not clear at all.

At this point, we're going to try treating what we don't know this is with another treatment that we don't know if it will work. He and his wife wanted me to advise them about how he's going to do - of course, we don't know that.

I saw a patient today and he has Lumbar Spondylosis with Scoliosis and Spinal Stenosis associated with a mild L5 Radiculopathy. This causes pain and weakness and will progressively get worse. Treatment is difficult. Right now, things are not that bad and I would prefer to wait until later. Later on, he will almost certainly have severe pain that may be disabling. Then, we can start treatment. I told him basically this. He was quite happy to have a clear cut definitive diagnosis, the poor prognosis and limited treatment available not withstanding. It's much nicer for me to see someone like that than someone like RK.

It's amazing how much we hate the unknown.