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Hope for Your Arthritis: What Your Doctor and You Can Do About It
Published by Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1948.
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1. Question: What may arthritis patients reasonably expect by way of treatment results?
ANSWER: Nine out of ten may expect to achieve varying degrees of benefit.
2. Question: Does this mean merely relief from pain?
ANSWER: By no means. A considerable number of patients may be cured; for others the progression of their arthritis may be greatly slowed. Also, patients with gout or gouty arthritis may learn to avoid or markedly minimize acute recurrences.
3. Question: Is this improved outlook due to the discovery of a new curative drug?
ANSWER: No.
4. Question: What, then, is the basis for this increased hope?
ANSWER:
(a) Less indifference and more cooperation on the part of patients. (As Carll has written: “Few patients start treatment early enough, fight hard enough or keep it up long enough.”)(b) Earlier diagnoses.
(c) Advances in scientific medicine and applied nutrition.
(d) Better teamwork between members of the medical profession who specialize in different fields of medicine and surgery; also, closer cooperative relations between physicians, dentists, nutritionists, biochemists, etc.
5. Question: How may the present situation with regard to treatment results be briefly summarized?
ANSWER: Our present sum-total of knowledge about arthritis is entirely adequate to banish most of the toll of suffering and invalidism that has heretofore been exacted.
6. Question: What are the most outstanding limitations to recovery?
ANSWER: The nature and extent of the joint damage at the time the doctor first sees the patient, and the completeness and continuity of the patient’s cooperation.
7. Question: Can deformities be prevented?
ANSWER: Yes. Not only are more than 85% preventable, but, also, their prevention is infinitely easier than their correction.
8. Question: What about “self-treatment” of arthritis?
ANSWER: It is on a par with the “self treatment” of cancer, and is one of the surest ways of acquiring either crutches or a wheelchair. “He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.”
9. Question: Why is your doctor essential to your recovery?
ANSWER: Because–
(a) He knows that all arthritis is no more the same arthritis than all flesh is the same flesh.(b) He is familiar with the distinguishing characteristics of the various forms of the disease.
(c) He will apply the proper principles and methods of treatment to meet your individual requirements.
(d) He knows the treatment measures that are of proved value and those that are worthless or even harmful.
(e) He keeps up with scientific advances.
(f) He practices teamwork with his professional colleagues in your behalf.
(g) He will avail himself of consultation services whenever desirable or necessary.
(h) His personal and sincere interest in your progress toward recovery will help you over “the rough spots.”
10. Question: What must YOU do to get the best results in the shortest time?
ANSWER:
(a) Give your doctor the opportunity of an early diagnosis. “You may delay, but Time will not.”
(b) See to it that your cooperation with your doctor is complete, continuous and unreserved.
(c) Never forget that, at best, the chartline of your progress toward recovery will look:
(d) Once you have selected your doctor give him every opportunity to help you. Do not switch from one physician to another without a good and sufficient reason. No doctor has any magic wand that will make your arthritis vanish suddenly into thin air.
(e) Remember: “He that can have patience can have what he will.”