News about Long Covid including its relationship to ME/CFS 2020 to 2021

'Not Yet Diagnosed, Nervous'. Originally used as a code by doctors to describe symptoms of shellshock.


Edit: in a pejorative way. If there were no physical wounds, it was often dismissed and veterans were not entitled to the recognition and pensions they'd have got if they'd been injured by a bomb or bullet.

 

But the officers would be diagnosed with neurasthenia. And we have been told by eminent authority that effort syndrome was merely a form of neurasthenia. And the work of those studying effort syndrome was promoted as having been about PVFS or CFS.

 

Can only post in graphic form since WSJ is paywalled but not bad:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1285582056429285376

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1285669247394418689

 

It is deeply chilling to look back on the calculated cruelty inflicted on WWI soldiers when society decided it couldn't afford for so many to be ill or disabled – so it gaslighted them, as well as physically torturing them with 'therapies' – and what happened when society decided it couldn't afford to support people with a range of chronic illnesses.

I supposed we should be grateful that modern attitudes are much more sympathetic, so at least we're not shot as cowards.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1285698894681300996

 

Was just about to post that! Good interview. Straight on the topic of ME. Worth watching.

It's getting really bizarre to have this acknowledgement and talking about the upcoming NHS service without mentioning the fact that as far as the NHS is concerned, ME is a trivial psychological condition of temporary inconvenience that anyone can simply get over with happy thoughts and exercise. Even though Dr Jarvis was pretty spot on in how she described PEM, though without naming it. And advised pacing, which the NHS technically advises against as driving the primary delusion.

But I think the cat's out of the bag and is not going back in. There will be an adjustment going from "it's all your head" to "well, oops, let's move on, then" but there is no wind left in the lie that ME is a psychological condition. And then there's the doctors and nurses. Bound to be a few former strong skeptics in there. The narrative of a small vocal minority of borderline terrorists / antivaxxer-like is about to get a bit more complicated.

 

Twitter bio of Michael L. Barnett:
Assistant professor of health policy at
@HarvardChanSPH @HarvardHPM
. Primary care physician @BrighamWomens
. Editor @HC_TheJournal

https://twitter.com/user/status/1285676435873640448


https://twitter.com/user/status/1285678351894614018


https://twitter.com/user/status/1285692091138551814

 

Sick for over 100 days, COVID-19 patients want more help to cope with disease's 'long-haul' effects

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent...pe-with-disease-s-long-haul-effects-1.5647886

Bit silly that Moreau's research proposal doesn't get funded but whatever, I guess we can chalk up this silliness under "medical research" things.

 

Is this common knowledge? I don't recall hearing about it before.

 

@ScottTriGuy mentioned it a while ago, not really made public.

The proposal rated well but the government only funded the top 1%, I think, and it just came short. There should have been exceptions for targeted programs but having a strategy based on meeting specific needs and medical research are apparently mutually exclusive concepts, gotta be maximum random.

 

"COVID-19’s Long-Term Effects Raise the Stakes of the Game"
https://humanevents.com/2020/07/22/covid-19s-long-term-effects-raise-the-stakes-of-the-game/
https://twitter.com/user/status/1286109359546806272

https://twitter.com/user/status/1286108917735489538


That discussion of ME/CFS is not particularly in-depth but thought the article might be worth a mention.

 

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health declares an estimation of 96% recovery in Norway among people with covid-19. They define recovery as being alive and not hospitalised 14 days after having tested positive for covid-19.

 

So their definition of recovery is even more nonsensical than in PACE.

 

Who would have guessed thy set the bar so high? Is there almost 100% recovery from ME in Norway?

 

To be fair, in terms of Covid-19, “recovery” seems to been used in lots of countries in this way.

 

Is the corollary of this that, if you were not admitted to hospital, you were never ill in the first place?