While reading one of the seemingly endless articles about the bin Laden raid I came across this photograph,
Which person in this photo has a chronic/acute medical problem that we see quite frequently?
What is the clinical clue that you saw that tipped you off?
I’m guessing the guy w/the cankles, especially his right foot, but I haven’t a clue what that means, medically.
Either that, or he’s terminally ugly.
Guy reading the paper in the middle
Chronic heart failure, edematous ankles
However there are other causes for ankle edema, don’t know whether elephantiasis is common in Afghanistan?
What about the guy above him with the inhaler? :p
Left sided heart failure right pedal edema
Myopia… he’s wearing glasses.
Sorry.
He promised he’d stop when he needed glasses!
Really sorry.
How about the guy in blue that seems to be feeling to see if he has a pulse?
So are you ever going to tell us?
Yes, but not for a few more days. I will say that while I don’t have the biggest readership in the blogosphere, I certainly do have the smartest.
[…] answer to the question I posed in Make The Diagnosis is of course, Congestive Heart Failure. Read the comments for further comments. I’d also […]
It doesn’t actually mean that he has heart problems. It only means that has fluid retention problems. A common cause of fluid retention problems is heart failure, however, I’ve seen ankles like that on someone with serious thyroid problems. They were just diagnosed and hadn’t started treatment yet.