An exploratory search for a cure gone bad.

Although I have taken the initiative to start a blog about my therapy, I really have not done too much research into stuttering. I didn’t know the Stuttering Homepage and National Stuttering Association even existed until I started my blog. Actually, I learnt more about the resources available on my first day blogging, than I had in the past 30 years.

I’m sure anybody who has found this blog, knows more about stuttering and stuttering resources than I do.

Also, contrary to the impression possibly given in this blog, my problem is not something I spend a whole lot of time thinking about. I have daily frustrations and don’t go a day without feeling the effects, but that’s usually it, I rarely dwell on it. The past month of this blog is mostly a summation of it’s effects on my life.

However, I will occasionally look into something off the beaten path, in a vain attempt to obtain spontaneous fluency. I already mentioned the hypnotherapy in my previous post, this caused me to lose 1 hour of my time and $75. No big deal. But once I pondered if this could just be the side affects of a mild form of another more serious illness and the effects of this questioning may come back to kick me in the behind for the rest of my life. What is this ‘more serious illness’? Don’t let your imagination get carried away, it’s nothing really bad, and besides, I don’t have it.

Once I pondered; Could it be that I have a mild form of this illness, which originally brought on my speech problem? And due to the mismanagement of it and my speech as a side effect; my problem has snowballed into it’s current state? If I have this illness, and it was brought under control, would my speech problem go away?

OMG!!!!!!! It would be like winning the lottery!!!!!! :-D

So I explained my theory to my doctor, who told me I did not have this illness, but he would send me to a neurologist to rule it out if I wanted to. I told him yes, and he arranged an appointment for 8 months down the road. I scheduled it on my calendar, and pretty much forgot about it.

So about 2 months before my appointment with the neurologist, I become aware of the risk of being self employed without disability insurance. So an insurance broker came by to sell me some. I signed over my medical records when I applied. No big deal right?

Well, the insurance company saw I had a neurologist appointment coming up for diagnosis of this illness, and refused to sell me the insurance until a doctor ruled it out. Which was understandable.

When I finally saw the neurologist, I wasn’t even interested in pursuing this any farther … it was a long shot from the get go, and now it was starting to adversely affect me. But now that the ball was rolling, it wasn’t going to stop.

The neurologist told me he didn’t think I had any problems, but he would send me for an MRI, and to this specialist and that specialist. Eventually, after about a year of this, I got fed up with the endless referrals to every specialist on the planet.

When I refused to go to any more specialists to find out about an illness nobody even thought I had, the insurance company refused to sell me the insurance. Even though the MRI had eliminated any risk of me having any unknown problems in my head … like a tumour.

Now, this entire episode resides in a shared insurance industry database. No insurance company will ever sell me disability insurance and I will be unprotected if anything ever happens.

Hence the dangers of self-diagnosis and searching for a long shot cure.

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Not meant as advice, please find a qualified therapist if you are interested in similar therapy.