The television show “House” brought the backroom discussions in hospitals to the forefront of many as we watched their painstaking methods for solving medical mysteries suffered by their patients. After all, who hasn’t had an ache, pain or unexplained symptom suddenly occur? For most, those infrequent and non-life threatening moments aren’t something we dwell upon, but when they are life threatening and seemingly unsolvable we tend to get a little “ancy” while looking for the answers. Thus enters in the “Clinic of Last Resort” to the rescue. A carefully woven together group of medical mystery solvers, the clinic offers hope for many who simply cannot deduce all the problems into one answer.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) developed a little known program in 2008 establishing a “clearing house” type program for doctors and specialists to refer to when trying to solve less commonly understood ailments. The program, “Undiagnosed Disease Program” (UDP), has a carefully crafted process for accepting UDP’s into its data base while also helping to authenticate cases accepted. The outcome can be life changing for those who are helped through the shared data base. Starting with a mere budget of $280,000 in 2008, the funding for this program will reach over $3.5 million this year. 

Medical “anomalies” are the norm in the mystery solving process. Specialists dissect diseases and conditions through the use of sophisticated tools and biochemical analysis to solve medical mysteries that elude most medical professionals such as:

*A woman who couldn’t open her mouth more than a quarter inch

*Life threatening protein deposits in a woman’s muscles

*Unknown muscle and lung disorders

*A woman’s legs turn to “stone” making walking nearly impossible

New hope is being given to many as these specialists carefully dissect new cases every day. Anyone can call the NIH hotline at (866) 444-8806 to learn more about the process and ongoing clinic test study programs. The NIH also can help lead you and your doctor in the right direction to find the answers to already solved medical mysteries. To learn more visit http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/Resources.aspx?PageID=31.

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