Posted by Laurence on February 27, 1999 at 12:04:40:
In Reply to: 48 Hours EMail Address! posted by DJ on February 26, 1999 at 18:48:28:
Although my email contribution might well have a telltale accent to it, and even though we don't get the show 'over here', I have sent it 'over there' anyway. Fingers crossed DJ.
PS: This is what I wrote:
"To the Producers of 48 hours:
According to a book shortly to be published by New Atlantean Press (CLUSTERHEADACHES:Treatment and Relief by Michael Goldstein) it was initially
thought that only a small percentage of the population suffers from this debilitating condition. But the numbers -- about one in 400 -- appear to be increasing.
It often helps understanding to translate a raw statistic into context. The population of America is I believe estimated to be 260 million people. A one in 400 ratio would therefore mean some 650,000 sufferers of cluster headaches in the US (and 145,000 in a population of 58 million in the UK, where I hail from).
The fact that there are ‘only’ 650,000 sufferers in America is evidently leading to frequent misdiagnosis of this devastatingly painful condition. But now that ‘clusterheads’ from around the world have been able to get together on the web, the condition is no longer a medical rarity – at least to us. The telltale symptoms of this illness are now ‘virtually’ crystal clear. By sharing information about our symptoms and treatments, our highs and our lows, we victims have begun to be able to help ourselves.
By bringing the clusterheadaches.com website to greater public attention, your show could undoubtedly help many thousands of Americans who are daily still being misdiagnosed, given the wrong medical treatment, and so having to endure terrible pain through simple ignorance.
Yours truly,"