Those are just a couple of the tidbits I picked up from Reid Jenner’s new book, Diagnose Yourself.

Now, doctors are, for the most part, pretty smart people.  But your doctor doesn’t typically know your whole history.  (There are occasional, rare exceptions to that.)  Your doctor doesn’t know the full circumstances of your environment, your recent life changes, etc.  And if he doesn’t even spend ten minutes with you, he’s certainly not likely to hit on the one thing that’s key to what’s going on with your health!  Is it any wonder so many illnesses are misdiagnosed?  The odds are against an accurate diagnosis!

I’ll give you a full review of the book in a couple of weeks, but today we have something rather special, instead: an interview with the author himself.  (And keep reading after the interview, because he has graciously agreed to a pretty awesome giveaway, too.)

Let’s dive straight into the questions, shall we?

RJ: I had been trained as an expert root cause analysis facilitator in industry, focused on helping various commercial enterprises solve equipment failures, product defects, system outages, and those sort of problems.  This was my 10,000 hours (over 20+ years) that Malcolm Gladwell refers to in his book Outliers as producing a master expert in a particular field.

T2H: How did you get started in your current line of work?

RJ: I had always encouraged my students in my problem solving training workshops to bring personal/home problems as well as work-related problems to work on in the workshop.  One day, a particular client volunteered his problem as ‘blood in my urine’.  We actually had a doctor also attending this session, so I formed a team and encourage the group to tackle the problem using the process in the normal manner.  We came to a definitive and clear solution in a little over an hour.

I asked the client how he felt about the process and the outcome whereupon he expressed dismay that a group of non-experts (we asked the doctor to not interfere during the analysis so we could give the process an objective try at solving the process without medical intervention) could so clearly solve a problem none of his doctors had been able to fix for so long.

When I asked the attending doctor who definitively supported our conclusion why this was the case, he replied that we did two things that most doctors are unprepared to do in a typical examination: we asked a lot of good open-ended questions to engage the patient in providing full and detailed information about his particular problem history, and we took over an hour to analyze the problem.

He said most doctors are only prepared to spend about 10 minutes to perform a typical examination, and they are trained to use the various tools of their trade (stethoscope, optical flashlight, MRIs, etc.) to perform mostly non-verbal tests.  This began my journey where I began specializing on applying this very rigorous problem-solving process to successfully analyze and solve many clients’ health problems across a wide range of maladies.

T2H: What is it you recommend patients do to help themselves, that doctors and other health professionals typically don’t or can’t?

RJ: a. Keep a log of their symptom history, and record what they are doing, where, and when, whenever their symptoms get worse or better (doctors won’t have this information unless they follow the patient around over the entire period of symptom presentation);

b. Record the information and analyze the problem in the manner outlined in my book to ensure they are collecting all the relevant information and narrowing the problem to its root cause (doctors aren’t trained to diagnose health problems in this way – they are trained to quickly match key symptoms with known and recognizable disease patterns);

c. Take the time to ensure all the relevant facts are captured and analyzed (this will normally take more than the 10 minutes most doctors are prepared to give you in an initial examination);

d. Rule out non-viable possible causes and narrow the search for cause to the most probable cause based on how well it fits the facts recorded (most doctors aren’t prepared to thoroughly evaluate multiple possibilities – they quickly latch on to one preferred suspect and rush to treat it with a known treatment regimen, usually some kind of medication).

T2H: Why is it beneficial for an individual to do this, as opposed to relying on the information his doctor is likely to identify?

RJ: The patient has nothing to lose from doing this other than a little bit of his time.  Even if it takes 1-2 hours to analyze all the relevant facts, this pales in comparison to the weeks, months, or sometimes years that many patients suffer with an undiagnosed malady until it is properly solved.

The vast majority of the time, the malady can be traced to something in the individual’s environment that he/she is doing or being exposed to, as opposed to a genetic or internal cause.  Once this source is identified, the problem can normally be quickly and decisively solved simply by removing the triggering source from his/her environment, without having to resort to drugs or surgery.  This process addresses the root cause of the problem and provides a permanent cure, as opposed to most doctors’ approach who only treat the symptoms with drugs or surgery.

T2H: Can you give us an example or two of what this looks like in practice?

 RJ: One client was suffering with debilitating and very painful recurring sinus infections, which his doctors had been unable to solve over a period of many years.  After using this process, he was able to trace the trigger for his symptoms to the use of a wood stove in his house during the winter months, which was located in the basement of his home where his study and gym were located (that only he used).  Some quick and easy changes to the ventilation and humidification of this environment quickly and permanently eliminated his problem.

Another client had unusual and uncomfortable numbness and tingling in his fingers.  The problem had started after he was in a rear-end collision, so his doctors presumed it was related to whiplash and were contemplating spinal surgery to correct the problem.  Our analysis focused very carefully on the precise location of the tingling on his hand and the unique circumstances of the collision.

When he explained that he saw the car coming in his rear-view mirror and had braced for the collision by gripping and pushing back on the steering wheel at the moment of impact, we were able to trace the source of the tingling to pinched nerves in the base of his hand corresponding to neural path where his fingers tingled.  He went back to his doctor who confirmed our diagnosis with cortisone injections into those locations on his hands and he was able to avoid expensive and risky spinal surgery.

T2H: In your experience, are there particular challenges people face while completing this type of analysis?  Do you have any tips for overcoming them?

RJ: It is oftentimes challenging for the patient to understand and have the patience to collect all the relevant information about his/her problem history.  This is because they are untrained in the process and also because they are too close to the problem and sometimes distracted by the pain.  We have helped to overcome these problems by carefully outlining the process and questions that need to be asked in my book Diagnose Yourself, and by providing free worksheets to organize and analyze the relevant data.

T2H: What if an individual isn’t confident doing this on his own.  Can you help?

RJ: Absolutely.  This is what I most love to do.  It is very empowering and rewarding to help facilitate people suffering with a chronic or debilitating illness and be an objective coach in walking them through the process.  Sometimes all they need is a little external perspective from someone who is willing to take the time to help them collect all the relevant information and help frame and test the possible causes.

The Giveaway

That external perspective is what Reid Jenner is offering as a giveaway here at Titus 2 Homemaker.  One reader will win a personal consultation, which typically takes between one and two hours.  This can be conducted by phone, Skype, etc. — whatever method works for the two of you.

To enter, you know the drill. 🙂  Use the Rafflecopter widget below.
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