Pessimistic Dr's View on Statistics

[CosmicVisitor]

A Dr who is a pessimist ? Thats a new one "not!"

You can shake up statistics all you want, but that doesn't change the outcome, just the level of anxiety. I would also have to say that in my opinion 5% is very very strong. Remember, *** is not truly a disease of it's own but merely a secondary condition caused by something higher up that is responsible for injury of motor nerves. Weather it is autoimmune or a virus or even poisoning of some kind, *** is still the secondary condition. So without having all of the variables of each individual and their enviromental subject it would be impossible for any sort of statistic to be accurate.

I will probably not watch ER because it is just not that great of a show anymore regardless of the subject and content. I do have season 4 of The Shield on DVD though. Does anyone else here follow that one?

Oh, and BTW, I had a nasty EMG results a year ago and Dr's at two *** clinics said I have nothing to worry about. Wonder what that pessimist Dr would have done, probably called it ?

Doug

 

[ydav3yat3s]

Look,

On some rare occcasions, some people are going to get badly administered EMGs that miss something.

On some rare occasions, some people are going to get ALS independently of their BFS.

On some rare occasions, an EMG might have been performed too early (a contentious possibility).

One some of those rare papers that suggest ALS after a BFS dx, it is not even clear if an EMG was administered (remember many neuros give a benign dx from a clinical exam alone).

A lot of neuros tell you a lot of different things. I had one neuro tell me my tongue was atrophied and I probably had ALS, then a week later a better, more qualified neuro (according to the first neuro, even) said no, I was fine. That was six years ago and nothing has progressed.

Another very qualified neuro said to me "nothing in neurology is ever 100%"

I think too many people are looking for absolute answers to a highly unknown condition. Some people are going to slip through the cracks in the course of diagnosis. Some of us search out these stories, and ignore the overwhelming rest of the other evidence that is consistent with the Mayo clinic study, that a clean clinical exam and clean EMG can strongly reassure the patient of a benign dx. That, you may notice, is as close as 100% guarantee as you probably will ever find in medicine.

When you go looking for trouble, you'll find it. It really is a "look what the cat dragged in" kind of pattern that when people scour the internet for proof they might have ALS, "information" which, so far, has never lead to any information of lasting importance.

Are you worried that you might have ALS? Go to a good neuro and get an exam and an EMG then turn your attention toward your anxiety, which is what I am trying to do now. That is the best we can do, anything else is making the whole experience worse.