Unrest/The Telegraph: Could this documentary change the way we perceive chronic fatigue syndrome?

Cheshire

Cheshire

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
It has been more than 60 years since a bewildering epidemic swept through the Royal Free Hospital in north London, rendering almost 300 members of staff incapacitated and forcing the place to close for three months.

At the time, in 1955, the mysterious, polio-like outbreak (called simply ‘Royal Free disease’ for a while) had no obvious cause, certainly no cure and varying symptoms – extreme tiredness, headaches, sore throats, depression, inflammation of the spinal cord – in each victim, frustrating doctors more than it fascinated them.

In the same year, the new condition was written up in the medical journal The Lancet as “myalgic encephalomyelitis”, later shortened to ME. The mystery remained, though. By the 1980s, despite further cases having been identified all over the world, the entire Royal Free episode was put down to “hysteria”, while the illness received the dismissive nickname “yuppie flu”. At best, doctors (and employers, and friends and family, and strangers) were sceptical of victims’ insistence their problems were physiological, not psychological. At worst, they were denounced as malingerers.
Click to expand...

A long and comprehensive article, you can read it there:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-f...ronic-fatigue-syndrome/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw
 
Telegraph said:
“I hope the UK will look at the science and update the guidelines,” says Brea, whose condition has improved considerably over the past year or two. At lunchtime today, she will present Unrest to MPs and members of the House of Lords at an event held by John Bercow at Speaker’s House. “ME patients in the UK have access to only two treatments which are, at best, ineffective and in many cases actually cause harm. There’s an urgent need to ramp up funding for biomedical research so patients have more options.”
Click to expand...

Good to see this in the article.
 
This is such a good article. And I'm glad they included the fact that she's only able to function at any level because of drugs prescribed off label. I think it's the best article I've seen in the British press, and the Torygraph is read by a lot of politicians and doctors, I suspect.
 
Ended up sending this one to my family instead of the express....got a lot of stick for sending the daily mail one, so this seemed a lot better ...don't want to become a bore and all that.

I thought the article definitely was far more pro biological. I hope Jen doesn't run out of steam or cause herself a relapse

If she's up for a big challenge, converting the guardian would be a real boon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom