Category: Personal Accounts

A personal encounter with a mystery illness

Abstract:

I urge all practitioners to accept that ‘chronic fatigue’ patients have genuine symptoms. This disease can cause depression, but for most patients it is not caused by depression. I acknowledge that a depressed patient can develop the chronic fatigue syndrome in the same way that they can contract any other disease. If you are unable to diagnose a patient with these symptoms please refer them to a centre specialising in this devastating and poorly understood disease.

 

Source: Lopis R. A personal encounter with a mystery illness. Aust Fam Physician. 1991 Mar;20(3):316-7.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2039419

 

A flight surgeon’s personal view of an emerging illness

Abstract:

The personal experience of a retired Air Force flight surgeon and instrument-rated civilian pilot with an illness that has achieved recent prominence in both the popular and medical press is recounted. The author believes that the illness is widely prevalent and its incidence is increasing. His experience and conviction is that, during certain phases of the illness, both cognitive dysfunction and orthostatic intolerance occur that can pose grave safety risks in the aviation environment, and must be taken seriously by the practicing flight surgeon. As in all emerging illnesses, clinical experience and judgment must precede more definitive proof of the effects of this illness.

 

Source: Harvey WT. A flight surgeon’s personal view of an emerging illness. Aviat Space Environ Med. 1989 Dec;60(12):1199-201. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2604676