I was fortunate to receive my diagnosis of FTD frontal temporal lobe degeneration/dementia. When I say fortunate, I don’t mean that I was fortunate to have the disease. I mean that I was lucky to get a diagnosis when so many people have a hard time getting diagnosed.

I had neurological symptoms and my husband asked for an MRI of the brain while we were in the hospital. Even though the scan was consistant with FTD, the neurologist told me it was unlikely I had it because it was rare and I wasn’t displaying usual symtpoms.

My husband, having had a lot of pratice in searching for diagnoses, took me to John Hopkins to see an FTD specialist and my diagnosis was confirmed.
Take care,
Soulful Silkee

Even when I tried sharing hard copies of test results with other doctors, they insisted on re-doing the test themselves. I gathered that was because there was distrust in another medical group’s ability to do the job accurately. Taking another doctor’s findings at face value seemed to be perceived as risky. I guess that says something about how common test errors must be. From my own experience, only once among many tests conducted, did the result change from the original finding.

Until we change the way medicine is practiced, there won’t be any cost savings in health care. While I give the administration credit for attempting to give most access to health care, I agree that any bill that mandates all buy into for-profit health insurance is basically a boon for the insurers. If the government is going to subsidize the cost of this insurance, why don’t they just spend that money setting up a system that gives access to health care to those who cannot afford or choose not to buy for-profit insurance? This would more readily address the humanitarian aspect of providing health care to U.S. citizens — a concept that has gotten lost in the shuffle.

My experiences with doctors and commentary are on my blog http://doctorblue.wordpress.com.