Why does diagnosing Mito take so long?!

"when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" Sherlock Holmes

It took my family 6 years of hard searching with highly qualified doctors to find out that we had mitochondrial disease. At first there were a lot of possibilities the genetics doctor and other doctors suggested. The children went through all sorts of testing and blood labs.

Then there was the wait after a test went out. Was it going to show the problem or were we waiting yet again for a negative finding or worse an ambiguous finding that required more testing.

I hated making my children take more and more tests. Slowly the possible problems were cleared from the table. Eventually the only disease left was mitochondrial disease.

After a couple years of that being the only possibility but still no diagnosis my husband and I were stumped. Why not diagnose the kids? One doctor said I won't diagnose your daughter with mitochondrial disease because then there is no hope. How wrong that doctor was. A diagnosis of mitochondrial disease is NOT a no hope situation.

It is serious.

Another doctor we dealt with said that the mito community was moving towards only diagnosing people when their was black and white lab evidence, therefore anything less was not diagnosable. Again not exactly true if you look at the DSM, Cleveland Clinic's criteria, and other main stream specialists.

Eventually testing for mitochondrial disease took a huge leap forward and we were clearly diagnosed. Not long after getting those results back I (a 35 year old had a large stroke). Soon none of our doctors could deny we had mitochondrial disease. Like the Sherlock Holmes saying, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" Mitochondrial disease was what we were left with.

It took years of searching and eliminating other possibilities. For us that is why it took so long for a final diagnosis of mitochondrial disease. The good news is, with the recent leaps in testing that LONG wait is being cut down to months or less! The best way to reduce your wait to find out if you have mitochondrial disease or a disease like mitochondrial disease go to a specialist in metabolic/mitochondrial disease. These specialist are often in a position to tease out which tests will be the most revealing and clarify your situation promptly. There are still times when being diagnosed with mitochondrial disease is an exercise in removing everything else it COULD be, to find what it is.