Rare-Diseases Books

As a member of the medical profession I was able to identify most of the "types" of people presented in this remarkable book! Yes, I could put a face and name to them--but it would not match the face and name in the story! This is how I know it is true! Just as there are many heroes in medicine, so are there many others who I would not want near me nor my loved ones!

I heartily recommend this book to anyone suffering from any kind of handicap. Kelley is such a source of inspiration! She deals with whatever comes her way and does so without fanfare or self-pity. What an example to us all! I was humbled by her bravery and her deep faith.

Give someone the gift of hope--give them Kelley's Journey!

This is a terrific book if you are looking for true inspiration, common sense application to life's problems and a model of someone who has accepted life's challenges with faith, endurance and an indominable spirit.

As a mother of a young child with the same illness as Kelley, Denises words have been an awesome source of strength and wisdom for me to follow. My feelings are that any parent, family member or friend going through any illness will experience so much widsom and support through reading this book. Her words keep you riveted to Kelleys story, at times making you laugh and other times making you cry.
She is positive and matter of fact, showing that good can come from even the very worst of situations.
This book really is a journal of a mothers unconditional love for her daughter. I would recommend this book to as many people as I possibly can.

This is an terrific book that tells an inspiring and accurate story about someone who has faced life's challenges with faith, endurance, love and an indominable spirit. It offers encouragement to anyone confronting a personal crisis by its positive and common sense approach to what would seem insurmountable circumstances.

As a mother of a young child with the same illness as Kelley, Denises words have been an awesome source of strength and wisdom for me to follow. My feelings are that any parent, family member or friend going through any illness will experience so much widsom and support through reading this book. Her words keep you riveted to Kelleys story, at times making you laugh and other times making you cry.
She is positive and matter of fact, showing that good can come from even the very worst of situations.
This book really is a journal of a mothers unconditional love for her daughter. I would recommend this book to as many people as I possibly can.

As a naturopathic physician, I have a rather extensive library of natural health books. The author's insight into disease, and prevention of disease is particularly insightful. Anyone who suffers from a chronic condition should read this book. Many chronic conditions are covered; but even if your's are not, the information presented is still valuable in the pursuit of overall health. It is truly a gem.

I always liked Joel Wallach's approach to health. He tells it like it is. I like how he disses the doctors who poo-poo nutritional supplementation.

In this book, Wallach lays out all kinds of newspaper clippings from various newspaper articles about doctors and famous people who died at young ages. Those clippings are appropriately placed in the section where the major mineral deficiency was the cause of death, such as chromium for a diabetic coma, etc.

This book is a wonderful source of information on minerals, and their functions. It also lays out all kinds of info on deficiency diseases, and how minerals can help certain ailments.

This section also covers a bunch of different alternative approaches to wellness, such as Ayurvedic medicine, the Dean Ornish Diet, and many others. The information is in depth, and covers a good amount of material for a book focused on mineral supplementation.

This book pretty much has it all, and is a great read if you wish to gain knowledge on the role of minerals in our health and well being.

I really liked this book. Lots of great info about how basic minerals effect your body and keep you healthy or make you sick. It gave me lots of new ideas.

It's more than a little gory at times. I guess doing 18,000 autopsies, gave the author sort of a callous view of life. The descriptions of what the Inca and Jack the Ripper did to their captives is not for the weak at heart. Hint: a deficiency of minerals causes strange cravings.

One new idea I really liked was the documentation of zinc deficiency in mothers that become pregnant as a cause of Down's syndrome. Apparently one can demonstrate this in the lab with monkeys or simians. Healthy babies then introduce a zinc deficiency in the diet and get Downs syndrome, then add the zinc back and get normal babies again. Wow!

A second idea: adding rare earths to the diet of mice and other animals extends life span by 2X! Wow, again! Excellent bibliography, but I was unable to locate this one paper on feeding rare earths to get 2X life span.

Excellent basic book.

I highly recomend.

Leon L. Hulett

I HAVE 7 YEARS OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND THIS WAS THE MOST INFORMATIVE BOOK I HAVE EVER READ, AND THE INFORMATION IS PRICLESS.

Medical Mysteries is fascinating and informative not only for the target audience but for older readers as well. Adoiescent boys will enjoy the photographs of whole brains and brain segments dispersed throughout the book. The book is nicely organized with six main categories: Medical Science, Pathology, Genetics, Heredity, Classification, and Physiology.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter dealing with morgellons disease, a baffling condition about which relatively little is written.
Those with an interest with the odd and mysterious will enjoy this fast moving book, a book made even better with fabulous photographs and excellent graphics.

The book was well written and greatly helped my sister who also has ALS and I to understand how other people both patient and caregiver deal with the disease. I was especially pleased that my sister enjoyed it.

This book was not professionally written, but Thoughtful Reader Lynn missed the meaningful point of this book. The book was written to share a journey through a disease, and provide an insight into what one may expect, if ever faced with the horrible reality of progressive bulbar palsy.

I found this book choppy, poorly written, and difficult to read. This book is very much in need of a good proofreader to help fix the poor grammar, misspellings, bad punctuation, and incorrect word usage. As far as content, it dealt very little with progressive bulbar palsy, and mostly with documenting her own family relationships, the names of the helpers, personal memories of her mother, and pushing her religion on the reader. I found this book a complete waste of my time.

My mother-in-law was diagnosed with Progressive Bulbar Palsy A.L.S. in July of this year. Diane's book was an honest look at the journey we have ahead of us. She wrote about the illness, as well as the special bond that developed between she and her mom at this time. Diane and I have also communicated via E-mail and she has become a wonderful friend!

I REALLY ENJOYED READING THIS BOOK.IT WAS SUCH A HEART WARMING JOURNEY. TO READ ABOUT A FAMILY THAT REALLY PULLED TOGATHER DURING ONE OF THE MOST HEART BREAKING JOURNEYS OF THEIR LIVES.

This text has long been a very valuable resource tool when it comes to anesthetic cases complicated by unfamiliar disease states. A copy should be kept in the immediate surgical area for quick reference. It is also highly valuable in the personal library of all anesthesia providers.

Lee Fleisher, a national leader in anesthesiology, has continued the tradition of previous editions with this fine book. The comprehensive chapters stand by themselves as a thorough reference. Conversely, the summary tables and strategies for diagnosis and management give this edition great range for 'middle-of-the-night' suprises as well.

The book is made coherent by consistent chapter design. Authoratative and well-written, it belongs in every anesthesiologist's library.

I have used each edition of this book as a reference, but was so disappointed with the 5th edition that I returned it after 1 week. This was once the "go to" book for the rare and esoteric. No more. For example, there is nothing "uncommon" about the problems addressed in the chapters on trauma and acute care, herbal medications, or pregnancy. The chapter on congenital heart disease (CHD) focuses on pediatric patients, a common subject with books of its own. A chapter on the adult patient with palliated or corrected CHD would have been more useful.
The chapter on muscle diseases is very disappointing compared to the excellent one by Miller and Rosenbaum in the 4th edition. The chapter on hematologic disorders lumps impaired coagulation and prothrombotic disorders with diseases of platelets. A discussion of acute blood loss is duplicated here and in the chapter on trauma.
There are 2 significant omissions: no chapter on cancer patients or chemotherapeutic agents (hardly uncommon but outside the realm of most anesthesiologists), and no chapter on rheumatic diseases like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis that affect multiple systems and have novel therapies.
The 5th edition is an unwelcome departure from the original concept of Katz and Kadis. Perhaps the 6th edition will capture the spirit of what was formerly an awesome reference text.