Column Chronicles: Ask Dr. Wellbottom: nerves

Ask Dr. Wellbottom: nerves

Frank Cotolo
September 13, 2018

Once again it's time to confer with the all-knowing Dr. Adrian Wellbottom. The popular physician and author of 56 books on medical matters that matter to the young and the old, the sick and the poor and others, always takes a fresh yet traditional approach to the health of anyone. In this episode, we ask the doctor about nerves.

Q: I get the shakes when I begin to strain my muscles, like when I try to lift a car. Is there something wrong with my nerves?

Dr. W: I think not, since you have to have a lot of nerve to try to pick up a car, especially if it isn't your car.

Q: I am told that Epilepsy is caused by discharges. Since I was discharged from the Army some years back, do I have a greater chance of getting the disease?

Dr. W: People cannot join the Army if they have Epilepsy but they can get it if they were in the Army but so can those people who were never in the Army or Navy or Marine Corps. I am not sure about the Coast Guard.

Q: If the protective lining of the nerves is damaged, what can be done?

Dr. W: That is called Multiple sclerosis, or MS. We are still looking for a cure for MS. By "we" I don't include myself because I would not know where to begin looking for a cure for MS.

Q: The nervous system isn't really a nervous system, is it?

Dr. W: Not at all. The nervous system is strong and brave.

Q: Can tumors affect the nervous system?

Dr. W: Yes. I am surprised you may have thought there was a chance that tumors did not affect the nervous system, which is implicated in such a question. Now I have to look in my medical books and see if there are cases where tumors did not affect the nervous system. I don't like second guessing my tip-top medical education or experience but there are always anomalies and certainly there may be one I don't know about in this area. It makes me realize that a medical education should always include anomaly studies.

Q: I read in a Ripley's Believe It Or Not column once that a man in India was able to display all the nerves in his elbow. Do you think that was true?

Dr. W: Believe it or not, yes.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.