Mystery Diagnosis (2005– ) User Reviews

Scary but interesting show

[scs0 · 8/10 · 1 May 2007]

I'm sure that anyone reading this knows that this show is a documentary that takes us through the process of curing a disease that is difficult to diagnose. Well, if you didn't know that you do now.

What scares me about this show is not the fact that anyone can stumble into some bizarre diseases, it's the consistent tales of doctors blowing off the patient's symptoms by misdiagnosing the disease as something trivial. Gotta throat that's sore and been around for weeks? Oh, it's just a cold. Near 30 and you suddenly lose the ability to breathe? Oh, it's just Asthma. Have a red lump the size of a Grapefruit on your forehead? It's just a pimple, put a little Clearacile on it and you'll be fine. OK, that last one didn't happen but you get the point.

It's like these people go to a mechanic with a car that can barely be driven downhill and the mechanic says "Oh, you just need an oil change".

When a patient comes in with bizarre symptoms that only match a simple disease at a superficial level, why don't these doctors ever seem to go the extra mile and take some advanced tests? They abuse the trust of their patients when they telling them they have some BS disease and as a doctor they should know when a disease is only mimicking the symptoms of another disease!

Good, literate documentary show

[vfrickey · 9/10 · 14 September 2008]

I like this show. It's somewhere between "House:MD" and the medical mysteries documentary on ABC in its watchability (of course, without the fictional misanthropic medical Sherlock Holmes of the 21st century, Dr. Gregory House).

Also, Mystery Diagnosis gets into the tendency of some physicians to condescend to their patients. "Depression" is probably the single most over-diagnosed illness because it can be treated with relatively inexpensive and non-toxic drugs, and because HMOs tend to financially reward physicians who choose to do this rather than actually working down a differential diagnostic tree in a patient who is troublesome, and actually treating them for what ails them. I speak as a sufferer from a rare cancer which has metastased to my liver because my physicians, even after I had had a large, rare tumor removed from my abdomen, chose to believe that something else was the matter over a period of years.

Anyway, the show is smart, well-produced, well-researched, and compassionate to its subjects. You can also learn things watching it. So can your doctor.

Great Medical Show

[robwms63 · 9/10 · 9 September 2006]

If you like House, you will like this show. And as is so often he case, the real version makes the non-real aspects of the other appear completely superfluous. These guys cover 3 cases in an hour, w/no stupid love interest sidelights. The only thing I don't like about this show is that it rips off Errol Morris so ruthlessly they should be paying him a royalty.

One of the other points to make here is that the real show has a diametrically opposite message from the fiction one. In House, the formula is the patient always lies and the genius doctor pieces together the truth by finding the lies. In this show, reality is much uglier: the doctors are INSANELY incompetent, and invariably, in the face of incompetence, the patients and/or their parents, put up with an unbelievable amount of grief. Countless cases result in people enduring torturous chronic illnesses for years, and in some cases, having their lives ruined because some jackass doctor couldn't be bothered to fill in the whole picture.

House is the happy, status quo version of this world, making you feel better because the genius figures out how to undope the problem. This is much more troubling, but ultimately, also much more rewarding.

Excellent Show!

[cowgirl41092 · 10/10 · 31 May 2006]

This is an awesome show if you like medical shows. If not, well then, this probably won't spark your interest. It features cases of medical conditions such as a baby who's hair becomes brittle after a case of whooping cough. Or a mother who is being told her children aren't her own because of a medical condition (undiagnosed) called chimera. Which means the mother has 2 sets of DNA. I also recommend Medical Incredible on Discovery Health and House M.D. on Fox. Hope this helped! It is really interesting show. Hope you enjoy it if you decide to watch! I really like it, and watch it as often as possible. This, like MEdical Incredible, is also on Discovery Health. If you have a weak stomach, I would not suggest this show, as it contains real clips of surgeries. Hmmm.........what else to say about this show? This is one of the best shows on Discovery Health. SO I hope you give it a shot and watch it sometime!

I didn't think this show would be as interesting as it was. I thought it'd be typical "TV movie" quality

[griplegend · 9/10 · 8 February 2023]

Note: binge watching this show for more than 2 episodes in a row can be a bit too much. So I'd say watch one episode a day to gain maximum knowledge and maximum fun and maximum entertainment.

Boy was i wrong, like actually wrong, this is TV movie quality but from 2005, so it's essentially TAKEN TO NEW HIEGHTS. It's got the feel that you know it's almost maybe/but/maybe/not kinda gimped by the tv movie budget but it doesn't leave you hanging with no answers or anything, the people interviewed always feel down to earth, genuine, human, they give the whole story very beautifully and not like they're reading from a low-budget script. It feels like a reaslitic portrayal of life and doctors and all that. All of it feeels reaslitic. So much that i have to watch more of it just so i know what reality is like again. Instagram/youtube/reddit and life in 2022 especially has brainwashed me too much away from the bad stuff and true normals in reality. What actually happens to most people etc..

I'm gonna have to remember to watch this more when bored.

Music

[bmarshal-44236 · 2/10 · 16 July 2021]

The show is great but the music or sound with the story is way too loud. You can't hear the people in the story when their talking. The music just over powers everything. Its the same with all the programs on this channel. Its very annoying..