MEDICAL MYSTERIES

For years she had relied on physical therapy to recover from minor mishaps. It took eight years to learn why it stopped working.

Doctors were baffled by a man’s severe throat pain that spread to his neck and shoulder. The cause was found after he started hemorrhaging in a hospital waiting room.

A California teenager’s splitting headaches, violent nausea and sudden bizarre behavior were erroneously brushed off as temporary signs of pregnancy.

A professor spent more than seven years bouncing among specialists who disagreed about the reason for his debilitating facial pain and how to treat it.

Slowly and insidiously, a New York real estate broker developed balance, urinary and memory problems. For years, various doctors performed many tests but overlooked the reversible cause.

A young woman’s stubborn weight gain and sudden severe anxiety were attributed to pre-wedding stress by her doctors. The cause was far more dangerous.

A vacationing former CIA analyst had already spent seven years consulting specialists who ruled out 50 diseases but were unable to make a diagnosis.

After a teenager collapsed at a Maryland trampoline park, paramedics worried he'd had a heart attack, which is rare in children. The cause was more unusual.

A retired surgeon suddenly developed violent abdominal pain. After losing 21 pounds, he discovered the unexpected cause that was hiding in plain sight.

For years her sleep was so disrupted she would suddenly drop off in the middle of working or even driving but have insomnia at night. Meds didn't seem to help.

The devotee of rugged back country skiing would spend the next 16 months trying to discover why he had grown so weak.

A frightening aborted run led to the discovery that previous surgeries had missed the root of the problem.

Her 18-month quest for a cure involved an allergist, an endocrinologist and two additional ENTS, the second of whom found the underlying and treatable reason for the problem.

Doctors saw a new mother with anxiety and an alcohol problem. A middle-of-the-night trip to the ER showed that the wrong assumptions had been shaping her care.

A diagnosis uncovered the potentially deadly reason for the fainting spells and led to major surgery from which the conservation biologist continues to recover.

A primary care doctor’s commitment and the patient’s own tenacity helped ferret out the cause of the zebra, medical slang for a rare ailment.

The condition drastically alters her personality and temporarily shuts down her life. The diagnosis brought relief but also uncertainty.

The biggest change since surgery has been the absence of fear, which had come to dominate the business executive’s life.