"Can you go
to Pasadena?”
asked a dispatcher from Expressdoc, a housecall service. I could.
“Bloating
and nausea,” was the reply when I asked for the patient’s symptoms. Once I
arrived at the Pasadena Hilton, I learned that, besides bloating and nausea,
the guest was suffering hot and cold flashes, difficulty breathing, dizziness,
and blurred vision.
My diagnosis
was an anxiety attack. She agreed that this was reasonable. She remembered
similar episodes.
“I don’t
have more stress than most people, but obviously I’m not handling it well. Why
is this happening?”
“Because no
one is perfect.”
She laughed,
but I believe this. I explained that an anxiety attack is a tiresome
body malfunction like a backache or allergy. You suffer, deal with it, and feel
better, but it’s likely to recur. Almost everyone believes that stress causes
anxiety. When it becomes chronic, victims undergo psychotherapy which sometimes
works. I treat it as a simple malfunction; this also works pretty well.
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