Very true, I was born defective and my mother was told to take me home from the hospital because I was dying and there was nothing they could. I was 6 months old and I’m almost 79 with the same genetic bowel problem of malabsorption. So I had to be a medical detective if I wanted to survive. I jumped in a few wrong holes before I found the correct way to search. My body is a medical wonder, that’s why I call myself a freak of nature.

As with anything, a high level of discernment is not only a benefit but an absolute necessity in life. That said, the medical school teaching of "When you hear hoof beats think horses, not zebras" is, in my opinion, single-handedly the absolute worst teach of all time (aside from the presumption that female patients are fakers, exaggerators, malingerers and simply crazy). While true that for a large number of people the most common explanation is likely the answer much of the time, teaching doctors and patients to only think of issues that are likely to show up in family practice medicine is dangerous and simply wrong. We pay doctors to leverage their entire medical training and experience and to think objectively and clearly and to progressively rule out, based on symptoms and facts, that which does not apply to our situation. We do not pay them to first rule out "X%" of medical issues/conditions and then apply their training and experience to what remains. Please stop perpetuating such a dangerous mental approach to medicine.