MelanieUK

This must be so devastating for his family, but I'm glad they are bringing this disease to public view. It makes me more thankful that I saw a GP who was able to put all my symptoms together & immediately referred me. This is not always the case over here. Most GP's treat symptoms, they do not look for an underlying cause, that's the way it is over here, they are constantly under pressure to reduce the costs to the NHS, so any referral to a specialist has to be for a DAMNED GOOD REASON! For diagnosis they look for the lowest common denominator, this goes for all diseases, the simplest illness is the one they DX. My father was DX'd with asthma at 62, he went on to have a stroke, then passed away suddenly with a heart-attack at 69. It turned out, when he was opened-up, he didn't have asthma at all, his lungs were fine, his arteries were clogged which caused his breathing difficulties, and he could have had an operation to resolve this. My father-in-law died from pneumonia, because when he had a chest x-ray, they said he had a massive cancerous lung tumour which was inoperable, so didn't offer any kind of treatment. When he was opened up, there was no tumour, he also died needlessly. That's just the way it is over here, it varies from region to region though, we call it the Postcode Lottery, it's difficult to see how it will ever change. Melanie XXX