Diagnosis and Cure: Intellectual Honesty is the Basis of All Science

Abstract

There is a saying, “live and learn.” I have practiced medicine for
over fifty years. I have lived and I have learned. I had a private
practice in Internal Medicine/Rheumatology from 1968-2008
in San Antonio, TX, USA. While keeping a full schedule, I also
taught Rheumatology at the University of Texas at San Antonio
(UTSA) Medical School and volunteered one afternoon a week at
the local hospital, providing care to the underserved population.
Throughout my practice, I was loyal to the Centers for Disease
Control (CDC) guidelines. I, like all physicians, respected their veracity,
then my daughter-in-law in Boston became ill. Top hospitals
in Boston and even the Mayo Clinic, where I trained, initially
thought she had multiple sclerosis (MS) because of her magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain. But her physical exam was
characteristic of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Her symptoms
were varied, extreme, and debilitating. There was no offered
cure and she was given four months to live. Given no hope, I began
to search for something, anything, to explain her symptoms.
Because she had lived in Westchester County, New York, USA and
then in Boston, I wondered if her diagnosis could actually be Neuroborreliosis
(Borrelia Burgdorferi infection) or, as it is commonly
known, Lyme Disease.1