“READER'S DIGEST Changed My LIFE!”

Grateful readers share their personal accounts and experiences of how RD got them medical diagnoses, mental-health help, solace in dark hours and even their life’s calling

- Brian Stauffer

When doctors were stumped, this article helped our reader find out what was wrong.

“I yelled at my husband, ‘This is what I have!’ ”

Deborah Barber of East Pharsalia, New York, after reading an April 2013 article about a patient being diagnosed with achalasia. The condition causes one in 1,00,000 people mysterious, excruciating indigestion and vomiting. Barber had surgery the next week. “My family was amazed that I found out what was wrong in Reader’s Digest, after years of going to five different doctors,” she says.

“I was starting to drive away after visiting a friend when her mom ran out to our car. ‘I just want to thank you again,’ she said. ‘Big Bob has lived 20 more years because of you!’ It was because of Reader’s Digest too. I remember the incident like it was yesterday: My friend and I were watching TV in their basement when we heard a thud. Her dad had fallen and was mumbling incoherently. Her mom didn’t want to trouble the doctor so late, but I was thinking that I’d read about all his symptoms in an RD story about strokes. When my friend said I was worrying them for nothing, I questioned myself— but the symptoms were there. Her mom finally called the doctor, who discovered that Bob’s blood pressure was off the charts. My advice: Stick to your guns. It was a stroke.” —Andrea Hess, Brunswick, Maine [In 1994, the National Stroke Association said our article “will literally be saving hundreds of lives.”]