Review by G. Gayle Stephens, MD. Birmingham, AL.

“Ask Your Doctor,” the endlessly repeated exhortation at the end TV ads for pharmaceuticals,  in real life seems often difficult and unsatisfying for patients who need it most, those who already have consulted one or a dozen doctors about persistent symptoms of ill health without finding either relief or convincing explanations. Even worse, they might have received wrong explanations and misguided treatment.

Dr. Clifton Meador has cultivated special interest in such patients during a professional lifetime and made their predicament the topic of his teaching and writing, first for physicians and now for the public. He believes that troubling medical symptoms can be analyzed rationally by physicians and patients working together, listening to each other, attending to details, and testing opinions and hunches while doing no harm.

The secret to his method is that there is no secret beyond reason. He is selling nothing else- no  patent remedies or injections, no faddish theories, no mechanical devices, nothing to join or subscribe to.

If you were to visit Dr. Meador he would hear your entire story and perform a physical examination, looking especially for signs of rare diseases or rare signs of common diseases, listed in Appendix I and aptly titled “Some Diagnoses You Never Want Missed.”  He would review  your medical records and tests and probably say at the end of the visit:

“There is not a demonstrable medical disease behind every symptom but there is a demonstrable cause for every symptom. I don’t know the cause of your symptoms
Yet.”

Next he will ask you to begin keeping a medical diary of your symptoms and to think about the answers to two questions:

“What am I doing in my life that I should not be doing?”
“What am I not doing in my  life that I should be doing?”

This book contains accounts of what this method has revealed in his patients plus cases from other physicians have found using similar methods.If you  do not have a physician you can talk with in this way your next best choice is to read Dr. Meador’s book.