Why Doctors Misdiagnose Autoimmune Diseases

Even specialists often struggle to make sense of the puzzling symptoms that come with these slow-moving disorders

David H. Freedman
Elemental
Published in
8 min readSep 30, 2019

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A close up of a woman’s arms and hands with vitiligo.
Photo: MarijaRadovic/E+/Getty

TThe patient came to her doctor with a low-grade fever, some achiness and fatigue, and a touch of diarrhea. The doctor told her it was probably a mild case of the flu. But weeks later the symptoms hadn’t…

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David H. Freedman
Elemental

David is a Boston-based science writer. The most recent of his five books is WRONG, about the problems with medical research and other expertise.