Functional neuroimaging in patients presenting w/somatoform disorders: model for investigating persisting symptoms after tick bites..,2019,Guedj et al

Full title: Functional neuroimaging in patients presenting with somatoform disorders: A model for investigating persisting symptoms after tick bites and post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome?

Paywalled at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0399077X18306772

 

Is defining symptoms as 'subjective' a subjective exercise? Who is being 'subjective' the reporting patient or the diagnosing doctor?

If pain without a currently identified origin can be so severe as to result in vomiting or fainting, is it a subjective symptom? Are sleep disturbances that produce measurable changes in sleep patterns subjective?

It feels to me, though I can be as guilty as the professionals, that there is so much loose language, fuzzy thinking and philosophical woolliness in the whole area of somatoform disorders (real or imaginary in the minds of the clinicians).

 

Surely that should be "Lowlights"? Grrr.

 

It seems to me that whether or not a symptom is subjective just has to do with the nature of the symptom.

The problem is when the conclusion or implication is that subjective --> psychogenic/psychoperpetuated. When an article such as this one uses the term 'Somatoform Disorders' apparently without caveat, this sort of subtext would be unsurprising.

 

"...but neither the persistence of the bacterium nor effectiveness of antibiotics are currently reported in the literature."

I don't think they looked very hard. There is an entire school of thought in the Lyme medical community that has published about the limitations of current abx protocols and persistence of bacterium, but that aside, there is a long line of case studies - eg, Vicky Logan and Neil Spector - that speak to both. Remove this statement in quotations and their argument falls apart.

What has happened to Science?

 

Not much. It's just that most of the easy problems have been solved, those that can revolutionize science overnight by chance. Most of scientific research has been like that, it's just more obvious when you don't have the sheer luck of stumbling on breakthroughs anymore to get everyone past the whole "is this even real?".

The remaining problems require much more resources to get traction. Usually that step was skipped over because chance gave the first few insights, giving confidence that it was worth pursuing. And since exploratory research is usually not funded, the remaining problems are tackled with all the efficacy of a wet noodle trying to hammer something into hardwood.

We always get the same answer to our questions: we don't ring-fence specific diseases. Well, this is what it gets you when chance can't solve those problems. It looks bloody ridiculous and useless.

 

I couldn't get past the first sentence to be honest.

 

It should be "Gaslights".