Blog- Tom’s respiratory problem. A case study

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Tom had been having severe breathing problems for a few months.  His description of the issue was as follows:

“I have loss of breath and struggling to reach a breath. Sore lungs and a little pain on the left side in my ribs. It gets worse with physical activity”  

Tom is only 19, fit and healthy. He plays ice hockey and works in the automotive industry.

He had already been to the doctor’s twice regarding the problem. The second visit resulting in chest x-rays and a more in-depth examination.

Ventolin was prescribed to be taken twice daily as the only potential solution available to help, as the doctors were unable to determine the cause of the problem.  The Ventolin did nothing to alleviate the symptoms.

Tom got progressively worse and finally ended up in hospital.  He spent an entire day attached to machines measuring oxygen in the blood, heart monitoring and more X-rays.   

Having gone through the vigorous testing regime, the hospital ended up prescribing Ventolin again. 

When questioned, they responded that they couldn’t find the root cause of the problem.

Tom did not take up the offer of Ventolin and went home for more rest.

At the time, Tom spent nearly 1.5 weeks off work, running out of official ‘sick’ days and was becoming increasingly frustrated that his problem could not be solved.  He was experiencing significant discomfort which was aggravated by the hospital’s failure to identify the source of the problem. 

Tom asked if we could offer any indications of a solution. In his words: “I just want to know the cause of my breathing problem.  I’m not interested in any voodoo magic cure rubbish. I just want to know what’s wrong”.

We asked Tom to write a short description of his problem for use as reference material.  Using this as a starting point, we tasked one of our Professional team to determine the cause of the issues as described by Tom.  

The outcome of the work was quite definitive. It did not show any of the issues were health related. 

It was a very process-oriented ‘thing’ that was happening.

The final analysis of the data had two main components.  The first was an environmental issue involving a grate/filter system and some sort of compound like dust particles.

The findings were then passed to Tom followed by a discussion.  As is typical with these kinds of projects, they have an immediate meaning to the targeted person. 

Tom quickly commended “Oh that’s where I work. You can see the Locker room we have and the main workshop.”  The emotions of comradery, aggravation, and tension perfectly described his work environment.  He identified the tented area as being where the cars were painted.

We discussed the second part of the outcome involving the filtering / grate and other components and how this might relate to his work environment.  We did not have any idea what this meant.  

Tom immediately said that his entire workshop had a big dust extraction system. As they sand down vehicles in preparation for painting (aka panel beater / spray-paint shop) the unit extracts the dust through a system to a large storage container.  

He confirmed that the dust extraction machine had broken down and inoperable for a couple of months.  Therefore, dust was everywhere, especially in the morning upon first opening the workshop.  

It appeared we had focused in on a probable cause of his respiratory problems due to his constant inhalation of paint contaminated dust at his workplace because of the broken dust extraction system.

Tom had already been taking remedial steps by changing his job to a smaller workshop closer to home.  

We contact Tom several weeks after his change of jobs and asked how he was progressing.  He replied.  “Oh, I hadn’t thought about it because my breathing problem went away really quickly when I moved jobs”. 

For us this can be a typical outcome for these types of problem sets. Sometimes we describe an external ‘thing’ or even sometimes a method to resolve the problem and not the problem itself. It always has some meaning to the person who is targeted more than us.

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Please note: Te Haurapa Labs appreciates obtaining permission to be able to post this case study. The only request made was that we change his real name to ‘Tom’ for privacy reasons.
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Please note we are not Medical Doctors and do not offer medical advice. The above article is for educational purposes only. 

Our work at the source of the Corona Virus (Covid-19). Our data indicated the source for Covid-19 showed a person in a suit (like a diver’s suit) in a pristine pressurised room. This was enough data for us to conclude the source of the virus was most likely from a laboratory setting. No further work was carried out after this.