BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid

Moved post

 

The actual evidence for functional illness presented in this article is nothing. They just take it as a given and then proceed to speak about nocebo effects. That some people might have functional symptoms is an assertion devoid of any evidentiary basis. It’s like writing an editorial that some Long Covid patients may have symptoms due to reactivation of latent viruses, and then proceeding to make a case why that’s definitely true. It’s persuasive if you aren’t familiar with this area, or just read quickly.

 

There's significant pushback. There were 56 comments when I opened it, and about half were supportive of LC, half dismissive.

 

Many, if not most, symptoms are nonspecific and shared by different pathologies. That is why there is a diagnostic tree to follow to find what the problem is in any particular patient.

Think cough or headache for instance. My son and daughter had mild anaemia and a feeling of not being quite right at times. One was dismissed while the other had a blood test and exploratory examination. They both had coeliac disease.

Fatigue is common to many diseases so it cannot be used to prove you do not have a physical illness.

"brain plasticity" is overused with little evidence. The fact it exists says nothing about what it does in response to thoughts and they offer no evidence that thoughts can make you ill.

If stress gives you an ME type illness there should be epidemics after wars, under repressive regimes, in the poor but that does not happen. The fact they can come on suddenly after an infection disproves all their theories.

 

Just out of curiosity, was it your son or your daughter who was dismissed?

 

Medicine: let's combat medical misinformation

Also medicine: here's a bunch of medical misinformation

It's the absolute confidence in bullshitting that is defeating. Nothing that they say has any validity, but they express it with the same confidence, bravado even, as the validated stuff. This is how you invalidate expertise.

When you take an evangelical approach of "it's only real if we say so, since we know everything", you better be absolutely right about every damn thing, because every error suggests even more errors. And of course, not even close. Not even half-way there. Today, and this all began well over a century ago. The hubris, holy crap the hubris.

 

Echoing the very beginning of this thread when Vogt said —

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1646438616397127682

 

Strangely, it was my son. He was told that he was just a bit anaemic so it was nothing much, even though 22 year old men are not usually anaemic. Also told that exercise was shown to help fatigue so he should try that.

As we have found neurologists are not good at asking patients first. He had a 2 month old baby, was working 12 hour shifts in an active job and spending his weekends fixing up a flat for the three of them to move into!

My daughter went to our GP who had once had a flat mate who had coeliac so she got a blood test and biopsy. Son went back to his GP then asked for and got the blood test and biopsy.

 

Even so-called mild anaemia is exhausting and causes all sorts of other symptoms, so I can empathise and sympathise with him.

 

This web site has been doing the rounds on Twitter today. It's from Mind Body Lab with among other LP researcher and Professor in psychology Silje Reme.

It provides advice on faster recovery with different CBT methods and LP inspired visualisations etc.

It's in Norwegian but there's google translation if anyone wants to have a look. It's pretty bad.

Here's a little taste about "Graded activity adjustment"

https://piccolo-orca-rxh4.squarespace.com/

google translate:
https://piccolo--orca--rxh4-squares..._sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

ETA: Oh, Professor Wyller is there too, and they share Garner's story as well.

 

No matter how many times I 'affirm' that I'm in charge, that I 'own' the world and control all natural, and unnatural, law...it doesn't make it true.......

..at least so I assume (I assume that over the centuries many people have thought/affirmed similar things, and it wasn't true for them, so why would it be for me.)

 

Agree.

Do you know if this is used in their Long Covid trial?

 

Mind Body Lab

"Start the day by asking yourself the question: "What is wrong with me?"
And then you answer: "NOTHING!"
Remember this is true! If you get insecure, talk to us.

After you have answered "NOTHING!", you can give yourself positive "affirmations". This affects your brain. Here are some sentences we recommend, but you can find your own:

I am fit

I am strong

I am healthy

I am safe"

I can do what I want

I will be alright.

Tell yourself these affirmations multiple times a day, or when you have a spare moment."




FFS! That is the kind of puerile dross sold in thousands of Mind over Matter Affirmation courses in the sodding 1980s! People like me who experimented with that mind method stuff 40 years ago (I never spent any money on it mind, and it wasn't in the context of health) worked out that it's just selling hope to the desperate (or people into experimenting on themselves).


How can it POSSIBLY be that medics and psychologists are flogging affirmations-as-treatment in national health services. They are just scammers preying on the desperate.

 

It’s essentially prayer, isn’t it? Just with a secular hat on and a better monetisation model than collection plates.