BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid

Fatigue after corona cannot always be explained biomedically

https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/vermoeidheid-na-corona-is-niet-altijd-biomedisch-te-verklaren~b50b9ef0/

Considering that there is no biomedical explanation for fatigue, of any kind, that's a weird starting point.
Of course, the cause of fatigue after corona can lie in the body. But also look closely at the rest of the lives of these former patients, who are often young and fit when the virus struck, says insurance doctor Jan Hein Wijers.
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Biomedical explanations are mainly sought for these extreme fatigue phenomena, but for most cases this explanation has not (yet) been found. Scientific research and years of experience as an insurance and company doctor have made it clear to me that these chronic complaints have several causes. In addition to medical factors, circumstances in private and work, phase of life and psychological factors play a role.
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By this I do not mean that it is 'mind-boggling' or 'psychological'. But unconscious personal factors do appear to play a role in the cause and recovery of diseases. Not having an eye for this slows down recovery. Conversations with patients have shown me that they are helped if there is also an eye for meaning, in which they draw on their intuitive wisdom and life experience. With the doctor, the patient should consider the question 'what can and should I do with this disease now that it is coming my way'? Often patients say: deep in my heart I know, but it is so difficult to change yourself.
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I'm sure there's a point somewhere in there but I don't think science can decipher that puzzle.
My appeal is that the medical and paramedical world should not continue to exhaust themselves to continue to explain fatigue symptoms within the biomedical model. And mental health care could play a more important role in this if it gave more place to the spiritual aspect of recovery in therapies.
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Considering those efforts have never been tried, I don't see what's being argued here. There are exactly zero significant efforts currently aimed at solving the biomedical concept of fatigue. Basically the equivalent of arguing that we should not give in to alternative energy and give fossil fuels a chance. What a weird person living in a very strange fantasy world.
 
Arnie Pye said:
Just picking one thing almost at random... Anaemia is a well-known biomedical cause of fatigue. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

Edit : I'm not disputing that the bits you've quoted are junk, by the way. :)
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Probably right that anemia causes fatigue. Problem is the very concept of fatigue is completely distorted, has multiple definitions depending on context, and although we know that anemia can cause fatigue, the mechanism by which this occurs is not well-defined, it's more of an association that happens to be recognized, unlike other associations which aren't, largely depending on context and who said what. Medicine can't even properly define fatigue, has multiple meanings for it and multiple words that kind of mean the same thing, sometimes, depending on context, so it's not the same as explaining the mechanism in full.

It's quite possible that there are multiple independent, though possibly loosely interrelated, concepts underlying what people call fatigue, but again we're stuck at the place where we have to ask "which people?" and "in which context?", as well as "what do you mean by fatigue?".

At best where we are at is roughly "the sky can sometimes cause lightning and clouds must be present". That's a far cry from knowing about electromagnetism and even farther from understanding quantum field theory, the standard model of particle physics and how the fundamental forces work are actually different facets of the same thing. So far that it's basically the whole field.
 
Skycloud said:
He's trying to save his employers a lot of money:



(my bold)
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Won't somebody please think of the insurance companies??!

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Looks like @dave30th's good old friend Kate Kelland has things to say. Well, more like opinions to say but whatever, same thing.


Fear and dread haunt COVID-19 'long-haulers'

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-h...ead-haunt-covid-19-long-haulers-idUKKBN25U0ET

Til Wykes, a psychology professor at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IPPN), notes that uncertainty is a key feature of anxiety. The unknown progression of the disease leaves doctors unsure of how to help, and can make patients feel fearful and alone.

“For most illnesses we have an understanding about what will happen first, what will happen next, and what to expect,” she said. “The problem (with COVID) is that the symptoms come, then seem to be abating, but then they come back again.”
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Not true on that last part but whatever let's pretend, I guess, that medicine is precise and knows all about other diseases but also clearly it's understandable since it's also common with other diseases. Cognitive dissonance is one hell of a drug, way more potent than literally all the cocaine in a very large city.
Patients like Callard and Edwards say they recognise doctors are dealing with a completely new disease caused by a novel virus, so can’t be expected to have all the answers. But they and mental health specialists say the psychological impact of this unpredictability and lack of control make things worse.

Rona Moss-Morris, head of psychology at the IPPN, says evidence from previous disease outbreaks and from studies of patients who have been in critical or intensive care shows a significant impact on levels of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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The fact that we know nothing is literally the fault of people like Moss-Morris, they are entirely to blame for medicine being caught with its pants down and head up their own ass. The very people who created the problem want to be part of "solving" it.
 
chrisb said:
Is that addressing anxiety on the part of the doctors? It seems to be they who are said to be unsure.
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Honestly every time I see a BPS ideologue spouting nonsense about anxiety... yeah, it absolutely is projection of their own anxieties and false attribution syndrome. The way they talk about it, it just has nothing at all to do with how pwME behave or think, but aligns with how they explain their own experience. So either it's theirs or entirely imaginary, because it sure has nothing whatsoever to do with us.

It could actually make some sense if they had significant experience with short-term, because holy hell is it worrying at first to have all those symptoms and no explanation, in some cases anyway. By the time people get trapped in the BPS dystopian nightmare, the worries are very different. But the very nature of the ideological model prevents that, so it only leaves their own insecurities. Gerada is a particularly open book about this, projecting like an IMAX factory.
 
NelliePledge said:
What a hypocrite that guy is to accuse someone else of risking harm to patients
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As everyone have full attention on Covid-19 at the moment, I expect he will meet more resistance from peers than what he's used to from when he writes about ME and Lightning Process.

Vogt was put abruptly in place by a doctor and researcher after having written an opinion piece about creating long-covid simply by talking about it. (Shared in thread here)

Her response to Vogt:
Vi som vet, har en moralsk plikt til å fortelle: koronaviruset spres ikke bølger, men som en brann.
google translation: We who know have a moral duty to tell. The corona virus does not spread in waves, but as a fire

They are also concerned about symptoms which "... cannot be explained by a corresponding" objective "injury". They refer to examples from myalgic encephalopathy (ME), which are characterized precisely by the absence of clear objective findings.

But covid-19 is another disease, caused by a completely new, immunologically specific virus, which produces unfamiliar symptoms. Research reports on late injuries after covid-19 are predominantly about proven organ damage, such as damage to the central nervous system , lungs and heart . It is being investigated whether the virus can in rare cases damage hormone-producing cells in the pancreas and cause diabetes in children.

These are late injuries with organic findings, where the patient's mental attitude is probably of secondary importance for the course. It is therefore not correct that what is referred to as late injuries after covid-19 pr. today, appear to be injuries that are mostly of a mental nature. And it is unfortunate that the opinion piece conveys this message.
 
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Kalliope said:
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Is he not at all aware of the people who have died from organ damage distinct from pneumonia/ARDS or just doesn't care? Seems like he didn't bother reading anything about it at all. Several autopsy studies have mostly come out with the same look of horror, that the damage is much worse than anyone had expected.

The very public humiliation of BPS quacks will be a bit entertaining, just comes at an extremely high cost but whatever we freaking told everyone that these people were complete charlatans. The decisions by Norwegian medical authorities will be interesting to watch, having fully committed themselves lately to psychosomatizing everything and everyone at a time when it's the worst thing to do. Which, to be fair, is always, but it's especially worst at the worst of times.

Escalation of commitment is a very harsh and unforgiving master.
 
chrisb said:
I'm not sure about that article. It seems to me to wish to distinguish Late Covid from ME. That seems reasonable for many cases but it doesn't make clear her views of the ME -like cases.
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Agree. There's still a long way to go. But Vogt's BPS-approach to the world won't automatically be accepted when the subject is something other than ME. This may come as a surprise to him. It's a small victory, but still..
 
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