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Obviously if you are locked up in a concentration camp and are taking in fewer calories than you need you will lose weight. This trivial observation has nothing to do with free-living individuals in the uncontrolled environment of the real world where decades of research shows that people in...

The three peaks in 2000, 2009 and 2012 coincide with economic crashes, recessions and/or sovereign debt crises. In every recession many people lose their jobs, and some of these job losses are permanent. Some of these people end up on disability.

I know a guy who took part in a clinical trial of this drug for diabetes several years ago, years before this trial for obesity was published. He has battled weight for years and remarked that he was surprised to discover that it was the first thing in his life that got rid of his constant...

This guy is so lucky to have recovered from his postviral fatigue syndrome. He has no comprehension of just how lucky he is. Those of us long haulers who have had periods of remission, sometimes lasting YEARS, know that the rug pull can come at any moment and you can find yourself sicker and...

Completely agree. Also, psychotherapy trials should be at least single-blind. There is no excuse not to at least blind the rater who scores outcome measures such as observer-rated depression scales. Also, better control groups are possible. Instead of waitlist control or treatment as usual (aka...

Pretty astonishing claim, for which there is no evidence. I have seen Stone et al mention the 30% figure in the context of new referrals to neurology clinics and how poor neurologists are swamped by these nonpatients. These sorts of people seem more interested in blame apportioning...

Pretty ironic seeing one of Lancet’s subjournals publishing an editorial calling out the unregulated nature of psychological interventions. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30414-4

Every time I get disheartened about how bad thing are here in the Anglosphere for PWME I see an article like this and realise things can be MUCH worse in many places. I find that the society I live in is too passive-aggressive and hypocritical for people to just straight up hurl abuse at me like...

Brutal. My best wishes to patients in Japan.

What they are implying here is that these people are somatisers.

Spot on. I think the ethos of western can-do individualism plays a role here. Anything bad that comes your way is probably your fault because you didn't take care of your health. You can achieve anything as long as you pull yourself up by the bootstraps. You can be anything you want! (Anything...

Yeah, this makes no sense. Recruiting sick and healthy participants for studies which are of no direct benefit to them is hard but not impossible. I’ve done it as have millions of other scientists despite not being allowed to offer financial incentives where I am. I find it very hard to believe...

There is a cult of exercise in our society. People have been led to believe it has magical healing properties. One of the reasons ME/CFS is heavily stigmatised is because we tell doctors and ppl in general that exercise makes us worse.

In online communication I use the compromise term ME/CFS to acknowledge the uncertainty and politics surrounding the name but also because I believe that ME and CFS are the same illness. I don't accept the prevailing narrative in some circles that all was well and we were cruising until evil...

Nope, that would be sickness behaviour. That’s the term used in psychiatry for what you are describing. Illness behaviour, on the other hand, is used specifically in BPS and is meant to denote somatisation or secondary gains/faking.

ACT, I thought that was used for people with personality disorders to help them get their act together. They just keep rebranding the same old tried & failed approach of trying to trick/cajole/coerce ME pts into doing more activity.

Illness behaviour. I always had a strong dislike for this term. You’re not ill, you’re just behaving like an ill person. To what end? I have lost literally everything thanks to my “illness behaviour”.

Same here. And to this day my mother refuses to acknowledge that there is anything in particular wrong with her even though her activity levels continue to decline, especially now as she is getting older. When you ask her why she can’t work, can barely do any housework and rarely goes anywhere...

Catatonia and ME/CFS don't look anything alike but it certainly caught my attention that there are apparent responders to lorazepam and aripiprazole in our community. Both these drugs are used for catatonia (especially the former) even in cases where catatonia is due to an identifiable...

Sickening stuff.