<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> I quite agree with Margaret. There was a time when doctors depended on their innate intelligence and diagnostic abilities, whereby they took a cluster of synptoms, the patients experiences, their own experience, put it together and arrived at a conclusion. Today, if without the laboratory, many would be hard pressed to make a decision. My motto is if you find a doctor who actually listens and talks to you hang on to him for dear life, This breed, operating independent of lab tests, which they use to confirm their diagnoses, are fading fast. Many use the shotgun approach ordering lots of tests and supposedly rule out diseases. In that case unfortunately those who react a little differently get lost And Lord knows we all have different symptoms! As seen on this listserv there is more than one form of this disease, probably determined by which genetic markers are involved in what combination. Anyone who consistently reads the posts probably knows more than most of the docs. My doc suggested I bring him whatever I found on the internet that I felt was relevent and he woud read it to help understand this disease. A rare truthful doc without an ego problem. Thanks......JD