The Walletectomy

In the Journal of American Medicine, Dr. Lutz. A physician at St. Mary’s hospital, Passaic, New Jersey tells the tale of a 52 yr old male. The male’s complaint was pain on his lower back left side –near the sciatic nerve. The diagnosis from the first doctor was a herniated disc. Upon examination by Dr. Lutz, a neurological examiner, he found that the man complained the pain was most severe when driving his car, especially on long business trips. Dr. Lutz asked to see the man’s wallet, in which he carried it in his back left pocket. The wallet was 1 ½ thick filled with credit cards. The pain was immediately and completely removed when Dr. Lutz performed what he calls the “Walletectomy”.
Back pocket sciatica is primarily a man’s disorder but it has a female counterpart “ponderous purse-disease” - a condition that results from carrying an overloaded shoulder bag. In the New England Journal of Medicine Dr. Engel points out that the constant contraction of the shoulder muscle and neck muscles from carrying a heavy purse can lead to pain, tenderness, muscle spasms which can lead to severe problems.
In our culture a man’s ego lives in his wallet-credit cards, currency, and the like. A woman’s ego is manifested in the contents of her purse. Dr. Lutz has shown the male ego becomes a “pain in the buttock” and the female ego a “pain in the neck”.
This so funny but so typical of what our medical system has become - they are so quick to perform elaborate expensive needless test when there is such a simple fix.