Unfortunately, medical records are not guaranteed to be preserved for the entirety of an individual's life. There is a useful link on the internet that lists legal requirements for the retention of medical records, by state: http://www.ahca.org/hipaa/state_mr_retention_laws.pdf
This list may be outdated (Sept. 04), but it illustrates that for most states, the law requires somewhere between 5 to 10 years of record retention. In other words, you are practically guaranteed that only a small fraction of your records have been preserved.
This is among the primary reasons we at Records For Living encourage every one to maintain a personal health record.
Having said that, here are some suggestions to steps you can take to reconstruct your medical record:
1. Act IMMEDIATELY to collect the medical records maintained by ALL physicians, specialists and hospitals from whom you have received treatment in the past few years. Contact as many as you can remember, in particular if you have been treated by them within your state's record retention requirements. You can use a template such as the one in our website: http://www.recordsforliving.com/PersonalHealthRecords/HowToGetOne.aspx
By law, every provider who has cared for you (within the record retention limit) must provide you with copies of your records. You may be required to pay for reasonable clerical fees for copying your records.
2. If your condition is genetic, and if your parents have recently passed away, you may be able to access THEIR records to provide you with additional information. If your parents have surviving relatives (your grandparents or uncles/aunts, siblings, etc) they may help you identify some of your parents' providers. Additionally, if your condition is genetic and you have siblings, you may talk to them about their health.
3. You may also have some luck with certain institutional medical records. For instance, if you served in the military or if you attended college. There may be some records at those institutions that may be of use to your efforts to reconstruct your health.
4. If you ever donated blood, you may be able to request some additional information.
We wish you the best of luck in your efforts and we encourage you to get started immediately.
Support Team
Records For Living, Inc