Search results

The name change is much less inclusive of the patient perspective, isn't it? At least the old version allowed for collaboration between clinicians and patients, even if that never actually happened in practice. The clinicians might argue that they need a professional domain, but ME is a very...

I think there's a similar rule that any newspaper headline containing the word 'baffled' signifies that the doctors / archaeologists / physicists / etc are not and have never been baffled about any aspect of the story.

Or just adopt a loud, hacking cough...

I'm not sure whether many doctors or researchers have been willing to say this, have they? I can't remember seeing it anywhere (but then I have got a memory like a sieve). It's long been thought to be true, of course, especially among patients who experienced a long-term worsening after...

Yes, definitely. Not so much with friends, but I seem to be one of the very few wearing a mask in shops or at the leisure centre (the staff no longer wear them at all). I took some stuff to the food bank yesterday and everybody was fully masked up, but that's the first place I've seen it for...

I've had my first experience of next-day weakness today, after doing hours of spring cleaning yesterday. It wasn't as strenuous as activities like digging the garden or swimming, but cleaning the oven and all the cupboards inside and out involved a lot of working on my knees and then having to...

No, I don't think I have any particular insurance cover. I did used to go shopping in my chair when I was working, but I never damaged or crashed into anything. I collided with a couple of people in town, but only because they literally ran into me! If I had to do something more hazardous like...

My late mum had something like this at the caravan—we had to leave her scooter there all winter, minus its battery pack, as neither of us had an accessible vehicle at the time to bring it home: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303951674045 Her shed was coloured, so it looked a bit more attractive...

I use this company: https://www.eta.co.uk/mobility-scooter-insurance/ My chairs are actually insured for replacement on my house contents policy, as ETA's offer wouldn't cover the £7.5k replacement value of one of them. I just have their rescue policy in case I get stranded somewhere. I've...

I tend to use the word capacity in formal contexts, as it seems to help with the problem that it's not describing something quite as straightforward as energy, power, or endurance. Whatever term we use needs to allow for the fact that it can mean different things in different bodies, at...

I do hope they explain that someone noticed they were trying to assemble a squirrel, using the instruction manual for a lobster.

I'm in the early stages of questioning whether ME is my only, or main, diagnosis. A couple of weeks ago I started potassium supplements (long story). They relieve almost all my muscle pain and a lot of my fatigue, and I no longer go all weak and staggery an hour or two after swimming or eating...

I seem to be a really spectacular failure in this department? About 10 days ago I accidentally found a way to relieve the muscle pain I've had for years, and within four or five days I couldn't remember what it was like to have it. The pain came back again this evening. I'd forgotten to top...

Oh, don't worry, it's not a serious discussion of science! Or at least, not a discussion of serious science. I think I'll recommend the Slapdash Assessment Tool to young doctors if I ever visit the area, as it's more fun and you don't have to write essays—you simply employ the time-honoured...

I read the title as "Tomato scientists are trying to crack one of COVID's biggest mysteries..." About right, then?

Apologies, I didn't see this at the time. Most of my house has industrial porcelain tiles (easier for wheelchairs), and I use a Shark steam mop. It's absolutely brilliant. It heats up in less than a minute, there are no chemicals or residues, and the floor dries very quickly. With a traditional...

I suppose it depends how you set it up, really. If a clinician wants to understand how something is experienced, they listen to patients outlining their symptoms, explaining how they manage them, and describing what they do to avoid provoking them. This is a normal part of diagnosis and...

The problem historically is that many of them have had a psychosocial basis, which is pointless. When it comes to other types of questionnaire, I guess it's possible to compile meaningful statistics about length of illness, work/education status, age at onset, etc, and to pick up some broad...

Because questionnaires are really, really cheap to compile and distribute? You don't even need to pay for envelopes and stamps these days. And they're really, really easy for supervisors to manage. Nothing messy or uncontrolled, like having to meet people or test them for something. Of course...

Because they're pretending to research ME. They're not; they're researching psychosocial issues, which are not specific to ME and frequently not even relevant to it. Obviously, there might be psychosocial issues that are relevant to certain illnesses or groups of illnesses, for instance those...