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My mother told me I should always try to find something positive to say. So, at least the participants will be able to watch something interesting on TV whilst the online self-help program's running on mute.

I second the recommendation of Benefits & Work, both the guides and the forum. If you want to join but are really short of cash, join their free fortnightly email list—which is useful anyway, as it always contains a handful of interesting news summaries and isn't padded out with irrelevant...

Well, the simplest way forward is usually to pay people for the time they spend working on something. When I commissioned artists, they estimated how long a particular commission would take, based on the briefing given and their previous experience of delivering work. Sometimes they'd gain...

One of the requirements perhaps ought to be evidence of significant interaction with colleagues who're working on the clinical side seeing patients. And for any researcher who is working on the clinical side themselves, evidence of interaction with a patient group outside of the confines of...

It would be really interesting to compare two cohorts, one with ME and the other on interferon therapy, in a study comprising carefully-designed physical and cognitive tests. Especially as patients who're due to begin interferon therapy could presumably be tested beforehand to see what changes.

Yes, it surprises me too. I haven't done CBT, but I've cut out of other treatments that weren't making any difference because staying at home did me much more good. (I've now corrected the typo on the original post, too, so it makes a bit more sense!)

Just for badness, I'm going to suggest bringing in a third alternative! Continue the treatment; Be given $10; Receive nothing (but you don't have to leave the house either).

No, I'm not sure either—it does feel a bit as if they've picked out the symptoms they wanted and ignored the ones they didn't. I wonder how many ME patients have even had their CSF pressure measured? It's pretty invasive, and I can't imagine it would be done as part of routine diagnostics for...

It sounds really interesting, I so wish I could still read things like this. I know I'd last barely 10minutes before needing a break, though, and when I went back to it I'd have to read the first 10 minutes'-worth again to pick up the thread. Rinse, repeat ... give up!

That looks really good, doesn't it. Hopefully it will get read and used. It reminded me of the thing I'd like inexperienced GPs to know about ME, and that's the importance of powered mobility aids for some of us. Using one was very strongly discouraged by my GP, on the basis that I would become...

It's slightly difficult, as it wasn't always consistent and not always by choice either. For instance, I might be ready for some work but have to wait a few weeks before something came up within striking distance of where I live*. But on average, I'd say four to five months was optimal. That...

Agree 100%. I wouldn't refer to it as rest if I were speaking to anyone other than an ME community, I'd call it recovery time.

I was only able to take time off because I was too ill to work, it wasn't negotiable. But when there isn't that level of illness, I'd agree entirely about breaks of only weeks in duration. Momentum is crucial, and every time I took a bit of annual leave, it was a nightmare to get going again...

I did it when I retired from full-time work. Not in the hope of recovery, but of recovering more function. It worked, but as with previous recoveries from parlous states, it would not be hurried. It took 18 months to begin thinking about work again, and it was two years before I was as...

My experience of fractures has been much as you say, recovery is bit slower. But it is definitely a great time to pack in some recuperation, as you don't tend to beat yourself up so much for not doing stuff. I've never broken a hip since developing ME, though, only a collarbone, ankle, and...

It might, especially given that at proof-of-concept stages, more effort and care goes in to delivering interventions and fewer corners are cut. Some people suffering from depressive illness seem to benefit from talking therapies and gentle exercise, and if some have comorbidities and/or need...

Yes, that does get to the nub of it. It also has the advantage of potentially making it easier to monitor patients for longer, as they're less likely to get bored by completing a long questionnaire. Given the natural ups and downs in function that some ME patients probably experience no matter...

Aah, but they still get paid, and that's what matters! Perverse incentives need to be removed, and funders ought to get a lot sharper—if people in receipt of arts grants produced effluent comparable to the output of BPS researchers, they'd never get any more money. But the edifice has been...

But this is part of my problem with the SF-36. It compares people to "normal", even if they don't have anything like normal function. So is the purpose to show how disabled we are, compared to others; or is it to measure what happens to the function we have—however low or high it is at entry...

No, I haven't for ME, but then again nobody has needed to monitor my long-term response to a treatment in a trial, because there haven't been any. It's the issue of how to record whether people have got better, stayed the same, or got worse as a result of receiving a treatment or placebo, in a...