Fun_People Archive
27 May
Snoring and Calf Pain

Date: Thu, 27 May 93 14:50:30 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: Snoring and Calf Pain

 From: Keith Bostic <bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU>
 From "The People's Medical Journal", December 1987 Volume 6 : Number 12.
 (Dr. Dean Edell's medical newsletter)

Here's an article from the New England Journal of Medicine that reminds us
how simple some diagnoses can be.  A 66 year old man went to his general
practitioner, complaining of pain and tenderness in his right calf for 4
days durations.  He said the pain was deep in the muscle and did not change
with position or exercise.

The doctor examined the man and couldn't find anything wrong, except that
he was tender over this spot in his right calf.  The patient has had a lot
of problems with snoring.  The doctor was unable to make a diagnosis.  A
couple of nights later this man was in bed and had just fallen asleep when
he was awakened by a sharp pain in his right calf.  The cause was a kick
from his wife.  He told her not to kick him there because that's where the
leg hurts.  She replied, "You were snoring again, and that's where I always
kick you to stop it."  Subsequently, his wife agreed to stop kicking his
calf in spite of the fact that he continued to snore and the leg got better.
 No lab test in the world would have picked that one up.

Bio-Medical Journal, 1985; 291:630-2.

© 1993 Peter Langston