Not everything is easy to diagnose. If your friend doesn't get a diagnosis, he will need to think outside the box, and take himself to other specialists.

My husband was undiagnosed for almost 10 years. Finally, we took him out of the HMO system and to a specialist at the university hospital. The specialist had an idea of what the problem might be. The test required a team of neuro surgeons to go in through an artery in the groin and send a wire up into the brain to capture blood for sampling, and thus it was a hospital stay. Once the test was completed, the diagnosis was positive that my husband had Cushing's Disease, caused by a tumor growing on the pituitary gland that emitted chemicals into the blood that caused the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys to malfunction.

Needless to say, the cost to us was over $30,000 to get the correct diagnosis. I won't divulge the rest of the story because it is too depressing and changed my life irrevocably.

Darcy