BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid

The article is pretty empty of anything more than the doubtful headline. I cannot see why lack of research is the reason why people are turned away from A/E. The article contains no analysis.

 

I would say people are turned away from A&E because the number of people that doctors will believe about anything invisible gets smaller and smaller all the time, particularly if the person reporting a problem is female and talking about themselves, or is female and talking about a child.

 

merged thread
New article, old story:

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ggle-to-get-help-for-children-with-long-covid

It's good news that Michael Rosen has agreed to be a trustee of the parents' group, though I don't know how aware he is about what he's letting himself in for...

ETA: correct misspelling of author's first name.

 

Yes, children and young people get severe COVID, and long COVID. If medics don't believe kids can get long COVID, they must not think kids can die of it either.

To date 4 or 5 kids in Canada have died from this disease. Their ages ranged from 2 years old to 17. These medical personnel who are saying kids don't get COVID, or don't get long COVID, should think again.

 

This

 

The Guardian doesn't operate a paywall. Possibly the article may not be accessible from outside the UK, though?

 

This article is also in the world edition of The Guardian. You have to scroll down a little way. It's under the heading Coronavirus.
https://www.theguardian.com/world

 

ah, I see, thanks for letting me know. Yes, you are probably right, then. I think those of us with foreign IP address can access five articles pr. week, so probably it was just me having reached the limit..

 

if you clear your cookie cache\history you should be able to access it . other than that it is just good practice to remove old cookies .

 

Moved from https://www.s4me.info/threads/fraud...-keep-track-of-quack-treatments-for-me.20408/

@rvallee Apparently there is a really effective treatment for Canadians!

From comment section for this article https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/opinion/covid-brain-mental-health.html

Strangely they edited the original title of the article which was “The brain will bounce back from Covid”.


JB00123
Mideast8h ago
I think readers are more interested in the neuro-cognitive impairments faced by patients with Covid-triggered Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS)—likely a large subset of Long Covid patients. It is not certain that their brains will ever bounce back.

2 REPLIES
Doctor A commented 4 hours ago
D
Doctor A
Canada4h ago
@JB00123 assuming that the ME/CFS seen post Covid is the same (or similar) process as has been seen for decades after other infections, one would assume that the treatment would be the same. This treatment is highly effective, and primarily revolves around a neuro/psycho/ socio/ physical rehabilitation program. Emphasis on the word program. Every study has shown a very high likelihood of significant improvement. Unfortunately not a simple pill…

JB00123 commented 56 minutes ago
J
JB00123
Mideast55m ago
@Doctor A Unfortunately there is currently no treatment or cure for ME/CFS. https://www.cdc.gov/me-cfs/treatment/index.html

 

Revolving around time is a very difficult thing to do successfully, at least for anything subject to it.

It's possibly the most difficult thing to revolve around - which may be why they didn't mention it

The other possible reason is that if they admit that almost everyone gets better, by themselves, after some time has passed, then some people might question why they are needed at all.

So obviously it's the first one.

 

Medical training video in Swedish, by SFAM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7R8veUmr0M

"SFAM = The Swedish Association of General Practice

SFAM is the professional and scientific college of general practitioners (family physicians) in Sweden, a non-profit organisation with about 2000 members. SFAM is affiliated to the Swedish Society of Medicine (Svenska Läkaresällskapet) as well as the Swedish Medical Association (Läkarförbundet). Main areas of interest for SFAM are continuing professional development, training of future GPs, assessment of competence, quality improvement and research in general practice/family medicine."

 

NeurologyToday For COVID-19 'Long-Haulers,' Neurologists Focus on Acute Symptoms
The Search Is on for Causes of Long-Term Events

Very confusing article and it seems neurologists are steering straight towards FND for Long Covid patients. Good thing Avindra Nath was among those interviewed, the last quote is his:

Quotes:

Some neurologists said they worry that raising the possibility of FND with patients can backfire.

“Saying that it's functional, which usually implies psychiatric, can be a dangerous pathway to go down,” said Peter D. Donofrio, MD, FAAN, professor of neurology and division chief of neuromuscular disorders at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “As a physician, if they had COVID and now they're not feeling well, I am going to treat them as if their symptoms are due to the COVID infection.”

On the other hand, Dr. Polich said, “If you suspect a functional disorder and you don't go there, you could be doing your patient a disservice by letting them be more worried and anxious that something else is going on. There are treatments for FND, and someone can absolutely get better. If it's an inflammatory process that we have no treatment for, FND might have a better outcome.”

...

Once you're convinced that you know what the cause is before doing unbiased investigation and analysis of data, you're not doing science anymore; you're doing politics

 

Is whomever said this sure of their own sanity? Are others?

Coz it's an absolutely ludicrous thing to say.

'Well the problem appears to be that your eyeballs have melted, but we can't fix that, how would you feel if we splinted your legs? Do you think that might make you feel better, as you'd be less at risk of wandering into low shelves?'

 

Omigosh, that needs to win a special prize for stupid!

Can't these people hear themselves? Can't the colleagues they say such ridiculous and illogical things in front of, hear them? I despair, there are no words, just

 

That really really sounds like saying that lying to patients is the best option when they have nothing to help. Which, yeah, is FND alright. Moral bankruptcy wrapped in an elaborate packaging of intellectual bankruptcy.

It's very clear that what makes up the symptoms that these people call FND are common with Covid and they mostly improve with time and rest. Medicine is quite literally taking credit for a natural process and attributing it to their own intervention, even though a small % of such patients ever go through them and have the same outcomes. And they just don't count those that don't recover, blame it all on the patient's whatever. Human healing crystals.

I don't understand how barely anyone pushes back against this. It's so obvious how absurd those claims are, this is a binkie for physicians, something to hold on to so they don't have to face the failures of their own profession. And they do those things instead of the actual work, which if it had been done already none of this would be needed. A cycle of self-perpetuating failure and suffering for which they award themselves participation trophies.

The training and certification process in medicine is obviously inadequate. None of this is normal. These people have completely lost touch with reality, they are fighting imaginary windmills.

 

The only explanations that make sense of any of this are a) these doctors are in bed with The Establishment as part of a rarefied bubble of academics whose main concern is of saving government money on the cost of treating patients with real treatments, and b) Escalation of Commitment and Sunk Cost.

I just can't see anything else that could explain such apparent absurdity and potential harm. Unless it is really due to brain drain and we are all living in the Idiocracy now for real. I truly find it frightening for myself, my loved ones, and, well, everybody.

 

Merged thread

'Far too much advertising is being done for Long Covid'
A Dutch article about Long Covid has appeared on the website of Syp Wynia, 'Wynia's Week'. Wynia is a journalist who previously worked for Elsevier Weekblad, a Dutch conservative weekly magazine. His website has a reach of about 200.000 to 300.000 visits a month.

The article in question is a guest article authored by Dutch science journalist Arnout Jaspers.
Jaspers is math editor at Dutch science news website 'NEMO Kennislink', was senior staff writer at popular science magazine 'Natuurwetenschap & Techniek' and editor-in-chief of 'Pythagoras', a Dutch youth magazine for recreational mathematics. He also does freelance work for national radio NTR. He is quite a well-known figure in Dutch science journalism and certainly has a readership.

I find his article a shocking brew of misinformation, insinuation and contempt.

About Long Covid and ME patients:

https://www.wyniasweek.nl/voor-long-covid-wordt-veel-te-veel-reclame-gemaakt/

Google translation
(Note that Google translates Dutch instances of 'Long Covid' as 'Lung Covid', since the Dutch noun 'long' means 'lung' - which may also be a significant barrier to the use of 'Long Covid' in Dutch.)
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.wyniasweek.nl/voor-long-covid-wordt-veel-te-veel-reclame-gemaakt/