After finding no answers from doctors I think the editorial's headline is not quite right, often doctors do figure out what is going on for folks. But as a whole many people, not just those with...
Late last year, Pat Hannon started waking up in the middle of the night with an excruciating itching sensation on her legs. “It was like a mosquito bite on steroids,” she said. Hannon was convinced that insects were feasting on her. But every time she leaped out of bed, turned on the lights and flipped down her bedsheets, there was nothing.
She washed the bedding, vacuumed the mattress and sprayed her legs with repellent. She called a local pest control company, which said she could pay $500 to hire a beagle that could supposedly sniff out bed bugs. She started sleeping in a recliner in the living room, thinking: They won’t find me here.
After finding no answers from doctors
Desperate for relief, Hannon had also reached out to local insect researchers. One of her messages landed in the inbox of Gale Ridge, an entomologist who identifies pests with her colleague Katherine Dugas at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, a state-funded research institution in New Haven.
On a typical day, they greet farmers bringing them ticks, real estate agents with mysterious roaches and anxious homeowners concerned about a weird bug. But starting in the early 2000s, Ridge more regularly saw a different kind of visitor: people convinced that bugs were not inside their homes but on or inside their bodies.
I think the editorial's headline is not quite right, often doctors do figure out what is going on for folks. But as a whole many people, not just those with this sort of delusion, go mis or undiagnosed. Or dismissed entirely.
How different might Hannon’s experience have been if the urgent care doctor had spent just a little more time with her? He told her he couldn’t find anything wrong, but rather than feeling reassured, she left the appointment feeling minimized and without relief.
A greater dose of humanity could go a long way toward solving the diagnosis crisis. Not just empathetic clinicians, but also a more humanely organized system. Complex cases require time, continuity and collaboration across disciplines, all of which are in too short supply. Doctors want this, too. Often there won’t be simple answers, but people still need someone willing to sit with their questions.
I mostly think this is an interesting phenomenon with unusual experts helping folks. I agree with it's broader point about doctors but I think it actually muddles the message about these infestational delusions
After finding no answers from doctors
I think the editorial's headline is not quite right, often doctors do figure out what is going on for folks. But as a whole many people, not just those with this sort of delusion, go mis or undiagnosed. Or dismissed entirely.
I mostly think this is an interesting phenomenon with unusual experts helping folks. I agree with it's broader point about doctors but I think it actually muddles the message about these infestational delusions