Carol comes to the ER with arm pain and claims no injury. No trauma, no old history of pain like this. I go through the usual and seems like the typical arm pain but yet no cause. After no success with history, I do the usual and hit the physical exam and hopefully the reason can be deduced when I have the pathology narrowed down. Looks like the pain is in the typical spot for lateral elbow pain(tennis elbow). Ok, easy, even if I cant locate the cause I can treat the disease.
Well, that would be too easy! (This is one of the reasons I left conventional insurance based medicine.....no challenge- with time comes knowledge and with knowledge comes confidence. With enough confidence I gained independance, creativity and a following. This is why I amat this place now. Not to sound egotistical but I am grateful for all I have experienced and I feel my penance for all this "enlightenment" is to share the knowledge and continue healing. Any time in the last few years and I would have said I have a vendetta against the medical "insurance corporation" but I now see there is a role for this business. The US is too dependant on this way of healing that stopping it would be a catastrophy. But injecting it with more "universal insurance" patrons is fuel for more of the same fire. Most of the primary care docs I know cant afford their own staff let alone take on more low reimbursement government insurance. So since no offices take the "medical card" they end up in the ER for big expensive tests and bandaid treatments designed to care for symptoms temporarily until a "regular" doctor is seen to finish treatment.
At the Harvard Course I voiced my angst and one of the teachers said creativity is beautiful but not with anger. I am still in my healing phase. Perhaps a meeting with Deepak Chopra is called for at this point. Well, as stated, this is too easy. The challenge is to find the cause. Finding the cause and not just treating the symptoms is what my "Saguil Approach" is about. I asked Carol further and I went through the motions of how a person with lateral epicondylitis usually moves.....immediately Carol say Wee! I thought....she must be having a good time! But I realized she meant the wii game. Apparently she had just purchased the game for extra exercise for her husband. She agreed on the cause of her pain as being the follow through in a right to left golf swing and we talked about how to heal and prevent further damage (and hopefully improve her video golf game.
It is good to see young kids and "gamers" doing more "exercise". But just goes to show that too much of anything will cause an overuse injury. Perhaps the next thing Wii comes up with is the Wii integrative medicine clinic! Story ends with me attempting to put acupuncture needles into that sore spot.....never got a chance to do so but hopefully Carol is working tomorrow on my shift!
