Paul Garner on Long Covid and ME/CFS - BMJ articles and other media.

And his views developing over time in public could even have an extra benefit.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1263078140622131200

 

Exercise is good. I always loved exercise. I miss exercise. It is not a treatment for post-exertional... let's go with exacerbation. I have a feeling the name PEM may vanish from vocabulary soon enough. Though maybe not the best choice of acronym.

The BPS cult will promote their exercise regime. This will hurt COVID patients the same way it hurt ME patients. Let's end this disaster before it begins and rely on scientific evidence, not ideological zealotry.

 

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Some more recent coverage.

40 Percent of Coronavirus Patients Have This One Symptom for Weeks

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...-one-symptom-for-weeks/ar-BB15r3Ed?li=BBnbfcL


Man who had coronavirus symptoms still feels 'possessed by a demon' 83 days after falling ill
The man is professor Paul Gardner. Doesn't appear to have improved much.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/man-who-coronavirus-symptoms-still-18420073


Kiwis infected with Covid-19 still battling debilitating symptoms, despite being cleared of virus

One thing I find disappointing is all this "not a big deal, just take months off work and it will be fine" coming from doctors. Most people can't do that, just take months, possibly more, to recover. Without income. Many who have children who don't somehow pause needing parents. Not a big deal. That's completely unrealistic, especially as the most common advice is to ignore it and push through it.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new...litating-symptoms-despite-being-cleared-virus

 

Gawd. 5 km. When will he LEARN?!

 

Different people have different limits. 5km is not a lot of walking for a healthy person.

 

I would love to see the exercise folks in America put covid cases through a two day exercise test and see if they come out exactly the same as m.e. folks. Wonder if professor Garner's seen that piece of research? It's something he should be interested in.

 

It's an interesting question, but I think there would be serious ethical issues – Covid survivors may still be experiencing their precipitating infection, they haven't been ill long enough to understand their own limits and symptom profiles, and they may still be capable of making a full recovery if not pushed too hard. Unless a protocol exists that doesn't precipitate full-blown PEM, it's probably too soon?

 

BMJ - Paul Garner: Covid-19 at 14 weeks - phantom speed cameras, unknown limits, and harsh penalties

What is worse is that there is increasing evidence that some doctors are dismissing this illness. People write, “I am desperate! My doctor says I have anxiety, but I know this stuff is real”. Health services are largely institutionally prejudiced against people with chronic fatigue and ME, and in some cases these attitudes are framing the service response to covid-19. Yet for us “long haulers” the symptoms are the same, the management schedules are the same, even if we don’t quite fit the somewhat arbitrary definition of “chronic” at 4 months.

A post-viral tsunami is hitting our health services right now, yet in the UK it doesn’t even seem to be on the national agenda. NICE have issued 28 rapid reviews and guidance on covid-19 this year, but their guidance on the chronic fatigue syndrome/mylagic encephalomyelitis is 13 years old.

 

Paul Garner: Covid-19 at 14 weeks—phantom speed cameras, unknown limits, and harsh penalties
June 23, 2020
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/06/2...d-cameras-unknown-limits-and-harsh-penalties/

https://twitter.com/user/status/1275461386240491522

https://twitter.com/user/status/1275463852432506892

 

Paul Garner: Covid-19 at 14 weeks—phantom speed cameras, unknown limits, and harsh penalties
June 23, 2020

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/06/2...d-cameras-unknown-limits-and-harsh-penalties/

 

Nothing beats living illness to understand it. Even when you are an expert on the topic. Very sad to see him not recovering, even with early advice there is no guarantee that rest and pacing improve things.

I highly appreciate Garner's mention of those less fortunate than him, people living on a strained budget and who simply cannot afford time off work. It brings hope to see empathy in this dark area of medicine, that even in his suffering he recognizes that others are in even more dire need of help.

Strong and important words:

Muirhead echoed the same in the interview shown on the Times article, plainly called the BPS model of ME wrong and harmful. Medicine has been doing harm to us for decades, the very thing that medicine is never supposed to cause.

Let's end this cycle of mindless institutional violence. It has gone on well past a reasonable point. It will be critical to study and acknowledge the failures that created this human rights disaster, so that we make sure it never happens again. It has been ongoing for over a century and brought nothing but pain, suffering and death.

All on the promise of imaginary savings that will never materialize. Austerity isn't just morally wrong, it doesn't even make economic sense.

 

While it's of course horrible he's going through this. I'm really happy with his writing and impressed with his advocacy.

On top of that with his Cochrane connection. This is going to be good! Watch out BPS.

 

He seems to be increasingly taking the view that this post-covid syndrome is probably often ME/CFS.

 

Generally excellent I thought, is he in any way involved with the Cochraine exercise review ?

That part sounds a bit like unsupported psycobabble though.

 

yes, the use of the word "bust" worried me slightly...although I am not an expert by any means. He is definitely in contact with Hilda Bastian about the review.

 

I really dislike the term ‘long haulers’- it edges on the derogatory side, almost blaming the patient for not recovering as quickly as they should.

 

That sounds very much like the BACME use of ‘boom and bust’?