【324】Elusive Illness

Clinical patients often do this, unable to pinpoint exactly where their pain is.

When they say their leg hurts, they touch the entire leg, when they say their waist hurts, they touch their entire waist and even move to the front abdomen, and when they say their stomach hurts, it's even more exaggerated, almost as if they want to touch every digestive organ inside their body.

With patients like these, the first step for a doctor is definitely to determine exactly which part of the body is in pain. There are many organs in the human digestive system, and without knowing which one has the problem, how can you treat it? But with patients who like to touch their whole stomach, if you perform palpation, they might feel pain wherever you press.

The patient says their stomach hurts, but the gastroscopy shows nothing. Dark stools?

"Have you done a fecal occult blood test? There's only one plus."

"Right, right, right, so that doctor said it's not serious."