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Johns Hopkins not too long ago released a Lyme study that identified genes in Lyme patients that evidently were activated by Lyme as immune responses, or something along those lines. So these were genes that are coded to help fight infections, if my understanding is correct, and the effort is...

Yeah, so that's not even a thing, not even in Bethesda at the NIH. It's not a thing anywhere. How optimistic yet unlikely it would play out so neatly. I would find it unsettling if he actually used this wording.

Seems to have worked out in stellar fashion for the BPS folk. Although to be fair, they probably are well aware of the evidence. They just ignore it. In many ways, it appears for some of that psych crowd that it's not so much about proving their position's merits with science, rather doing a...

Why?

The CDC should never play poker. This is the opposite of a poker face.

Case studies with autopsies are not unknown, but yep, autopsies need to become a priority since the brain seems to be a logical hide and seek repository of pick-your-pathogen.

Well, there are plenty of diseases where the patient is severely disabled to the point of being bedridden with often no trace of the pathogen in blood or serum or CSF. I can think of at least four from the tick-borne disease category that qualify. Moreover there is evidence in some circles of a...

ILADS doctors are ones whose primary focus are tick-borne diseases. They are typically infectious disease specialists, but not necessarily.

I suspect if they add to their list of pre-specified predictors watching TV, playing games, and eating cereal, it may enhance the predictive value.

I think to do it right they'd need baseline scores for patients (e.g. old IQ scores or MOCA scores), and those are not always readily available.

Oh FFS, it's an absurdly inadequate and minimizing and condescending metaphor - one that should never, ever be used by so-called professionals as a lead for a serious study of decline in discrete cognitive domains. This is shameful. ETA: I know YOU'RE not saying that @MSEsperanza . :)

"Since persistent medically unexplained somatic symptoms and somatoform disorders bring about high costs for health care systems and are among the leading causes of disability (8), it is highly relevant to investigate psychological factors that characterize and influence these symptoms and...

Post-Covid. Have they demonstrated that persistently? That the virus is gone from every possible repository in a person? If they admit Covid can exist in priviledged sites, then it leaves the entire profession exposed to similar conclusions about other pathogens. There are too many horses in...

Plus, you're from the US, as am I, not European. Personally I'd reply with something quintessentially American, like a Bugs Bunny balloon cartoon with the caption "What a maroon!", but I realize that we need to be professional and adult. I suppose.

Oh, FFS. Groundhog Day. Again. This medicine reduced to a closed loop, never really moving forward, just thinking it does as it feels its way around its circular path....Patients want to scream at the screen and clue in the stars as to what's happening.

I'd be curious to see a focus group comprised of patients from these GP's. I'd anonymize the GP's names and locations etc, but let the patients read the transcripts. Let the patients read how the doctors had to grapple with the concept that MUS patients might have strengths. Then I'd ask the...

That it takes a focus group to trigger an epiphany of sorts in a small group of GP's that patients are people, too, is terrifying. And infuriating. And cartoonish. But not surprising - at least not to any of their MUS patients, I'd wager.

"A conscious effort is needed to discover patients' strengths." Is it weird that that is exactly what I feel when evaluating most of the GP's I've come across since getting sick?

Pretty good piece. Wish they had written something like "post-acute infection(?) syndrome". Also, this I found meaningless: "The third challenge is that no evidence-based treatment options exist at present for long COVID, resulting in the use of a symptom management approach, which mainly...

Lyme Brain Scan Study (mentions CFS) Some Johns Hopkins neuroimaging findings. Meh. https://www.newswise.com/articles/neuroimaging-study-reveals-functional-and-structural-brain-abnormalities-in-people-with-post-treatment-lyme-disease?ta=home Might be something there. Too small, too limited...