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Comment by berdon | Hacker News Reader

You might consider going to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. It’s world renowned for diagnosis. My wife had various, random symptoms and all local doctors were either baffled or suggesting absurd things in desperation. In two days a doctor at Mayo correctly diagnosed the issue and offered suggestions on treatment that worked. The local doctors were both disbelieving and angry.

Diagnosis was POTS (brought on by pregnancy) and the solution was exercise. Most doctors gravitated to a cardiological issue and prescribed various blood pressure medicine - none of which helped.

Aside from actual medical capability, the place is astoundingly futuristic. The entire process is streamlined. Everything is done within a few days, doctors and lab visits are coordinated and scheduled dynamically and in real time, discussions and investigations are immediately synced with an app, etc. It was…mind blowing to say the least.

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I went there. Hand pain and every doctor elsewhere telling me it was some new random disease, recommending surgeries and botox injections (without doing any real testing).

At the Rochester Mayo Clinic, they did a whole spectrum of tests, multiple specialist doctors looked at the results and made a multi-angle evaluation. In the end, they said it was all in my head, and I could believe it because they went the distance to rule out other things and explained their reasoning transparently and deeply (a year later my hands were fine, and now 5 years later still fine). They even gave me a chance to ask all my questions and answered them patiently with zero pressure to get out and make way for the next patient.

It's an amazing place.

Yes! One thing that I found really neat was that there's a series of underground walkways between buildings on the campus, which is very nice because it gets cold in Rochester. The campus is also just very beautiful too. You're most likely going through something difficult if you find yourself there, and it feels special and nice rather than the experience of most hospitals where you can sometimes feel like a number contributing to their budget.

The tunnels extend a bit beyond the campus--there are places you can stay and not have to go outside to get there.

Unfortunately, they never figured out my issues.

I'll second this!! If you haven't tried The Mayo Clinic yet, drop everything and get an appointment there.

I'll Third This!!

Indeed, just drop everything and get seen by their specialists. Even compared with good Boston hospitals (kind of known as a Silicon Valley of medicine), Mayo is several steps above. Their paradigm is to really do an exhaustive search for the root cause, and work the best treatment plan. It may not be perfect, but it is by far the best available shot.

I wish you both well.

EDIT: Expect to spend several days there with lots of tests and appointments. We've found that a number of the small house AirBnbs are reasonable and good options, and also the CoOp is great.

I posted to be able to vent a little bit and have it be pseudo-anonymous. The conversation had gone stale, so I figured I would type that out and walk away.

We've tried to get into Mayo but they've rejected her because she needs to get into the general diagnostics are and they don't have room. We're going to try again through the spine center because if we can get in there, they can refer across.

I wish you success! Keep trying!

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