My doctor gave a wrong neurological diagnosis. I should know: I'm a neurologist
Here is my story. A few years after coming to the US I started developing some neurological symptoms: confusion, dizziness, lightheadedness.<p>1. The GP first blamed it on dehydration and sent me home and told me to drink plenty of water. Went back a week later and she prescribed antibiotics thinking it was some kind of infection somewhere. &quot;Let&#x27;s just try the strongest antibiotics and see&quot;.<p>I did the full course despite some non-trivial side effects and was still not better, but at that point my heartbeat had gotten a bit faster from the whole situation so I was referred to a cardio.<p>2. Seeing a fast heartbeat, the cardiologist put me, a 24-year old at the time, on beta blockers. Two weeks later, still no improvement.<p>3. So I was referred to a neurologist. Did a brain MRI, did not find anything so he assumed it was some kind of epilepsy&#x2F;migraine combo and put me on something called topamax. Mind you, all these prescriptions were given to me within 10-15 minutes of seeing those doctors. Topamax had its own side effects and my health at that point had spiraled out of control. Reported the side effects to the neuro and he thought he&#x27;d give me one more medication to counter the other medication&#x27;s side effects.<p>When I went back to the GP they said the whole thing was probably caused by &quot;stress&quot;.<p>4. I just stopped all medication, got sick leave from my job, and went back to my home country for a couple of months. I asked my old family doctor to just do a general check-up and see if anything was up. Within weeks my situation had magically started to improve.<p>Turned out my vitamin D levels were at 7 (forgot the unit, but the minimum was like 30).<p>None of the doctors thought about it, every doctor had arrogantly assumed that the problem could only be from their own field (neuro assumed it was neurological, cardio assumed it was cardiac), and literally none of them put the slightest amount of effort into looking at the whole picture. This was in one of the most affluent areas and those were supposedly some of the &quot;good&quot; doctors. I am still convinced that a machine trained model would have performed significantly better than these people since they were literally like bots following a rule book.<p>Side corollary, if you are from a sunny country and move to a state or country in Northern latitudes, keep in mind that vitamin D deficiency can slowly creep on you and basically turn you into a moron. This should be a PSA.