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

MrMagoo said:
Did he have Covid and long Covid or did he have ME/CFS?
Click to expand...
This is the problem with the 'hurry' for people to get an ME/CFS diagnosis. Most descriptions of ME/CFS begin with something like "ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) is a chronic, debilitating illness characterized by profound fatigue, post-exertional malaise, and multi-system symptoms that significantly impair daily functioning."

Chronic is the key word here. If you 'recover' a couple of months after a diagnosis, then presumably the diagnosis was wrong(?)
 
Sly Saint said:
This is the problem with the 'hurry' for people to get an ME/CFS diagnosis. Most descriptions of ME/CFS begin with something like "ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) is a chronic, debilitating illness characterized by profound fatigue, post-exertional malaise, and multi-system symptoms that significantly impair daily functioning."

Chronic is the key word here. If you 'recover' a couple of months after a diagnosis, then presumably the diagnosis was wrong(?)
Click to expand...
He says that he was told he met the Canadian Consensus Criteia for ME. He wasn’t diagnosed. He really should have got himself referred if he was concerned, but then he recovered so I guess there wasn’t time.
 
MrMagoo said:
He says that he was told he met the Canadian Consensus Criteia for ME. He wasn’t diagnosed.
Click to expand...
So he can't say he recovered from ME.
Unless there is a foolproof biomarker test involved, people can meet the diagnostic criteria for all sorts of things.
They don't then go around claiming they've recovered from if they get better, and therefore other people with it can as well.
 
rvallee said:
Same guy who would personally, along with his whole coterie, that meeting the clinical criteria means nothing, and yet his whole argument rests entirely on that. Self-diagnosis, too.

Ridicule has no guest limit, once you've got one inside they're all invited to the party.
Click to expand...
It’s cognitive dissonance but squared? Cubed?
 
Mij said:
"Come across some docs, and charities telling me that #longcovid is "biomedical" and not compatible with "psychological" recovery narratives. My goodness, these people are so out of touch! I asked Mats about this and here is his response"


Link to youtube video

Click to expand...


I think anyone will have seen this show and pony before on repeat every few years over decades so can guess the spiel?

Let me guess - whoever it is talked about the same thing they’ve been pushing for decades as the default pretending by reversal that their denial isn’t being out of touch (which they officially were since Nice guidelines and know) ‘cos Sometimes it’s got a new name’ so no you’re out of touch for thinking that, silly.

Is this the new new new new wine in old new bottles or have I missed a rebrand or pr campaign out in counting the roll out the barrel? Then saying if anyone objects, says it might not be ‘cutting edge’ or finds it doesn’t help them then [insert insinuation] formula. As if that attitudes refreshing?

Trying to pitch themselves as if they are the obvious epitome of the enlightened bunch. Again. Trust us. Again. This time. Are we?

‘Paul didn’t to it himself but he says it’s good for you’ never gets mentioned so much ?
 
Last edited:
"I spoke to someone who recovered from #mecfs. NHS "expert" she was ill for life. "So I decided to find my own way". The NHS is captured by an ideology that denies recovery, is regressive, and discriminates against people in desperate need of help. Shame on you
@Nicecomms your guidance harms people"
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
He's a bit like the old man with the placard in Golders Green that says "The Lord Shall Judge You" or some such. Most people in Golders Green don't do that particular Lord these days..
Click to expand...
In Liverpool it is the guy who used to be on Oxford Circus years ago until he got an ASBO “don't be a sinner, be a winner”. He must have moved back home. He wants to ditch the PA system and get on X!
 
Mij said:
"I spoke to someone who recovered from #mecfs. NHS "expert" she was ill for life. "So I decided to find my own way". The NHS is captured by an ideology that denies recovery, is regressive, and discriminates against people in desperate need of help. Shame on you
@Nicecomms your guidance harms people"
Click to expand...

It’s annoying but it’s really better to just ignore them, he sounds hyperbolic and irrational, let him crack on, lol an him @ Nice Comms, which will probably be an NHS social media intern casting an eye over and going “ok mate, not worth replying to”. Scarlet for him.

This framing and language about institutions being “captured” as if there is a war being waged between the boorish bumbling bedbound biomedical believers vs the neutral measured silenced excluded benign brain trainers, is interesting isn’t it? Keeps happening.

Science has been captured, governments captured, and dissidents silenced by the dominant yet dumb ME patient advocates (aka people who have ME and a twitter/insta/reddit account).
 
Last edited:
“The NHS is captured by an ideology that denies recovery, is regressive, and discriminates against people in desperate need of help.”

I have said this before, but has anyone actually come across an NHS doctor who has outright said that people with ME/CFS can never recover?

In the thirty years of my ME I have interacted with some dozen or so doctors: GPs, consultants, researchers, occupational health specialists, etc. However only one has said that recovery was improbable, and he was a private neurologist (not NHS). I imagine even the doctors here would not go as far as to say recovery was impossible, only based on current evidence for most unlikely.

More recently, I have not asked my current GP his views on this, but I suspect he would say that ‘we don’t know, all we have to go on is what has happened so far’, which is what the GP, who first provisionally diagnosed me over thirty years ago, said. The only consultants/registrars I have seen over the last few years, in Urology for a non ME issue, have had to have what ME is explained to them.

More relevant is that if the NHS uniformly believes that recovery is impossible, why on Earth are the current ME/CFS specialist services based on a rehabilitation model, with their clinical lobby group BACME containing many of the people Prof Garner is working with to promote these anecdotal recovery narratives.

[edited to correct some grammar and typos]
 
Last edited:
Peter T said:
“The NHS is captured by an ideology that denies recovery, is regressive, and discriminates against people in desperate need of help.”

I have said this before, but has anyone actually come across an NHS doctor who has outright said that people with ME/CFS can never recover?

In the thirty years of my ME I have interacted with some dozen or so doctors: GPs, consultants, researchers, occupational health specialists, etc. However only one has said that recovery was improbable, and he was a private neurologist (not NHS). I imagine even the doctors here would not go as far as to say recovery was impossible, only based on current evidence for most unlikely.

More recently, I have not asked my current GP his views on this, but I suspect he would say that ‘we don’t know, all we have to go on is what has happened so far’, which is what the GP who first provisionally diagnosed me over thirty years ago. The only consultants I have seen over the last few years in Urology for a non ME issue have had to have what ME is explained to them.

More relevant is that if the NHS uniformly believes that recovery is impossible, why on Earth are the current specialist services based on a rehabilitation model, with their clinical lobby group BACME containing many of the people Prof Garner is working with to promote these anecdotal recovery narratives.
Click to expand...
It’s not about the specifics, it’s about the framing.
You can’t fight a rumour.
The most basic form of NLP is to have a bit of truth then build agreement (obviously having some truth in your lies predates NLP but surely neuroplasticty fans are on the NLP train too?)

Yeah no NHS has ever been able to give me a scooby doo (clue) about deterioration, stability or recovery. It’s literally “we dunno”
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom