5 ms·

>Peterson had considered the possibility of psychosomatic illness but felt it improbable, because many of the patients were otherwise well-adjusted, with no his

>Peterson had considered the possibility of psychosomatic illness but felt it improbable, because many of the patients were otherwise well-adjusted, with no history of mental instability or trauma. “I’d seen almost all these people for three years when they were well,” he told me. Any psychological theory just “wasn’t right.” in other words, he has no psychological theory. in reality conversion symptoms do not depend on "mental instability" or "trauma" in the popular sense. but of course why would you expect an m.d. to be trained in psychoanalysis? anyone claiming that this is a settled problem and that CFS is an "organic illness" (because the CDC says so) should study the rise and fall of stomach ulcers.

gowld 7y ago
What happened to stomach ulcers ?
- staticautomatic 7y ago
  There is a strong association between certain psychological disorders and gastrointestinal problems.
- internet_user 7y ago
  H.Pylori was discovered, and we realized it could be treated with a combo of two-three antibiotics + acid suppressants + ancillary drugs. Totally psychosomatic.
  - H_Pylori 7y ago
    Psychoquacks have no shame. Even when the cause is discovered, and the illness cured, there is still some "psychosomatic aspect to the illness". As far as I know, there's never been a Nobel Prize awarded for someone in the field of psychosomatic medicine.
- interpenetrate 7y ago
  stomach ulcers were an epidemic problem in the western world in the 1970s and have since virtually vanished. in 1982, a bacteria named helicobacter pylori was discovered and was said to cause IBS, cancer, stomach ulcers, and so on. nevermind that two-thirds of the world's population have this bacteria present in their gut (most showing no symptoms). a medication targeting the bacteria was discovered and then the incidence rate for stomach ulcers plummeted dramatically. not the cure rate, the incidence rate: people stopped contracting stomach ulcers in the first place. somehow, the illness no longer served its purpose (!). this is a confounding proposition so most are quick to come up with alternative explanations (maybe pry internet_user, resident M.D.). indeed the medical industries will offer you some explanations if you can't come up with any on your own that explain away any possible psychosocial etiology.
  - erentz 7y ago
    So you're saying: 1. People thought they had stomach ulcers. 2. Then we learned a lot more about what stomach ulcers actually are and how to treat them. 3. With that improved knowledge it turned out a lot of those people didn't actually have stomach ulcers. 4. So naturally the incidence rate of stomach ulcers goes down, because people are no longer misdiagnosed as having stomach ulcers. 5. ... 6. Somehow jump to conclusion that all those who thought they had stomach ulcers were making it up and it was a psychosocial illness, for which no evidence is provided. It seems like people had symptoms that were mistaken for stomach ulcers in the popular knowledge of the time. The incidence rate going down for stomach ulcers after learning more about stomach ulcers tells us nothing about what happened to those people. We don't know what they were really suffering from, what they might now-a-days be diagnosed with, etc. And we aren't told anything here about what other environmental factors may have led to a decline.
    - interpenetrate 7y ago
      stomach ulcers of course exist. these things are really messy and are a source of internal bleeding. no one was "making it up" (?). the question is one about etiology. the history suggests that the popular etiology (bacteria and probably also NSAIDs linearly cause stomach ulcers) is entirely insufficient. the questions you're asking ("we don't know what they were really suffering from") are important, but to most people these questions don't matter anymore. there is practically no medical research being done on these questions today. why bother? the "psychosomatic school" is the only school who takes the issue seriously anymore. their work is worth considering, that's my point.
- sjg007 7y ago
  H. Pylori
- xsmasher 7y ago
  Stomach ulcers were thought to be caused by "stress," and increased acidity in the stomach caused by stress, and diet. It wasn't until 1982 that the bacterial cause was found, and it took years for the medical community to abandon the "caused by stress" explanation and apply real treatment. partly explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori
  - kirsebaer 7y ago
    Most people with this bacteria do not develop ulcers. Psychological stress does seem to increase development of ulcers -- it's a contributing factor. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25111233 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25111233 I notice in myself that I often get a sore throat after being stressed and not sleeping enough.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    I keep hearing this supposedly revelatory anecdote, as if caused by stress and bacterial infections are mutually exclusive factors. It's well known that chronic stress weakens the immune system, and makes it easier for a bacterial infection to take hold. So a more complete hypothesis is that stress can be the cause, whereas weakened immunity and consequent bacterial infection is the mechanism. Of course, anything else that causes the immune system to be weakened can also be a cause.
    - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
      I don't think that's much more useful than saying a flu is caused by stress, is it?
      - tomhoward 7y ago
        It's not useful to try and explain an illness by a singular cause, when multiple factors are extant and important. Susceptibility to flu is influenced by immune system fortitude; that's uncontroversial. That stress is one factor (among several) that can weaken the immune system in an otherwise healthy person, is surely useful to consider when making life choices.
revel 7y ago
I personally believe that it's extremely unlikely that CFS has a silver bullet cure like stomach ulcers because CFS is an umbrella diagnosis for several distinct conditions manifesting with similar symptoms. The DSM condition is diagnosed through tests by exclusion rather than a single diagnostic test that shows up positive. More apt comparisons are, therefore, migraines or fibromyalgia than ulcers. Patients with CFS have a diverse range of symptoms and comorbidities. I have two relatives with CFS with radically different symptoms and health backgrounds. One has an autoimmune syndrome and has been through several sleep studies. He literally never experiences REM. For him, tiredness is a constant but sleep is never restful. This isn't a psychiatric condition; it's physical. It's also completely debilitating. For years he tried to power through it (he was a management consultant for years and destroyed his health trying to keep going) but this is not a condition that you can will away. The other relative had a bad reaction to medication following a virus and never quite recovered. I will readily admit that her condition's roots could be autoimmune too, but she suffers from physical fatigue rather than tiredness. She has to be extremely careful not to overwork or overexercise, but her life is otherwise unimpaired. My relatives rather clearly don't suffer from the same condition but they're diagnosed the same way. Having said all this I doubt I changed your mind, so let me make a slightly different point: what are the minimum and maximum amounts that you could sleep tonight? If you wanted to, could you sleep for 12 hours straight? How about sleeping for 12 hours for back-to-back days? I know that I can't! I'm literally physically incapable of it. I cannot sleep for more than 10 hours, even if I've accrued a massive sleep deficit (and usually it's more like about 5-7 hours). CFS is not laziness
- interpenetrate 7y ago
  i'm not saying that CFS is "fake", or that ulcers, fibromyalgia, or migraines are "fake." to say that you can "will" these away is an infantilization of psychoanalysis. i would never classify CFS as "laziness." (although i will note that the DSM has historically had no problem about enforcing moral judgements like this in its taxonomy.) people take "psychosomatic" to be synonymous with "it's all in your head," when the point is that it is precisely not "all in your head." i very much agree with you that part of this discussion is about the questionable validity and reproducibility of the official diagnostic categories. what i disagree with you about is that anything could be exclusively either physical or psychiatric. that's obviously false.

gowld 7y ago

What happened to stomach ulcers ?

staticautomatic 7y ago
There is a strong association between certain psychological disorders and gastrointestinal problems.
internet_user 7y ago
H.Pylori was discovered, and we realized it could be treated with a combo of two-three antibiotics + acid suppressants + ancillary drugs. Totally psychosomatic.
- H_Pylori 7y ago
  Psychoquacks have no shame. Even when the cause is discovered, and the illness cured, there is still some "psychosomatic aspect to the illness". As far as I know, there's never been a Nobel Prize awarded for someone in the field of psychosomatic medicine.
interpenetrate 7y ago
stomach ulcers were an epidemic problem in the western world in the 1970s and have since virtually vanished. in 1982, a bacteria named helicobacter pylori was discovered and was said to cause IBS, cancer, stomach ulcers, and so on. nevermind that two-thirds of the world's population have this bacteria present in their gut (most showing no symptoms). a medication targeting the bacteria was discovered and then the incidence rate for stomach ulcers plummeted dramatically. not the cure rate, the incidence rate: people stopped contracting stomach ulcers in the first place. somehow, the illness no longer served its purpose (!). this is a confounding proposition so most are quick to come up with alternative explanations (maybe pry internet_user, resident M.D.). indeed the medical industries will offer you some explanations if you can't come up with any on your own that explain away any possible psychosocial etiology.
- erentz 7y ago
  So you're saying: 1. People thought they had stomach ulcers. 2. Then we learned a lot more about what stomach ulcers actually are and how to treat them. 3. With that improved knowledge it turned out a lot of those people didn't actually have stomach ulcers. 4. So naturally the incidence rate of stomach ulcers goes down, because people are no longer misdiagnosed as having stomach ulcers. 5. ... 6. Somehow jump to conclusion that all those who thought they had stomach ulcers were making it up and it was a psychosocial illness, for which no evidence is provided. It seems like people had symptoms that were mistaken for stomach ulcers in the popular knowledge of the time. The incidence rate going down for stomach ulcers after learning more about stomach ulcers tells us nothing about what happened to those people. We don't know what they were really suffering from, what they might now-a-days be diagnosed with, etc. And we aren't told anything here about what other environmental factors may have led to a decline.
  - interpenetrate 7y ago
    stomach ulcers of course exist. these things are really messy and are a source of internal bleeding. no one was "making it up" (?). the question is one about etiology. the history suggests that the popular etiology (bacteria and probably also NSAIDs linearly cause stomach ulcers) is entirely insufficient. the questions you're asking ("we don't know what they were really suffering from") are important, but to most people these questions don't matter anymore. there is practically no medical research being done on these questions today. why bother? the "psychosomatic school" is the only school who takes the issue seriously anymore. their work is worth considering, that's my point.
sjg007 7y ago
H. Pylori
xsmasher 7y ago
Stomach ulcers were thought to be caused by "stress," and increased acidity in the stomach caused by stress, and diet. It wasn't until 1982 that the bacterial cause was found, and it took years for the medical community to abandon the "caused by stress" explanation and apply real treatment. partly explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori
- kirsebaer 7y ago
  Most people with this bacteria do not develop ulcers. Psychological stress does seem to increase development of ulcers -- it's a contributing factor. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25111233 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25111233 I notice in myself that I often get a sore throat after being stressed and not sleeping enough.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  I keep hearing this supposedly revelatory anecdote, as if caused by stress and bacterial infections are mutually exclusive factors. It's well known that chronic stress weakens the immune system, and makes it easier for a bacterial infection to take hold. So a more complete hypothesis is that stress can be the cause, whereas weakened immunity and consequent bacterial infection is the mechanism. Of course, anything else that causes the immune system to be weakened can also be a cause.
  - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
    I don't think that's much more useful than saying a flu is caused by stress, is it?
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      It's not useful to try and explain an illness by a singular cause, when multiple factors are extant and important. Susceptibility to flu is influenced by immune system fortitude; that's uncontroversial. That stress is one factor (among several) that can weaken the immune system in an otherwise healthy person, is surely useful to consider when making life choices.

revel 7y ago

I personally believe that it's extremely unlikely that CFS has a silver bullet cure like stomach ulcers because CFS is an umbrella diagnosis for several distinct conditions manifesting with similar symptoms. The DSM condition is diagnosed through tests by exclusion rather than a single diagnostic test that shows up positive. More apt comparisons are, therefore, migraines or fibromyalgia than ulcers. Patients with CFS have a diverse range of symptoms and comorbidities. I have two relatives with CFS with radically different symptoms and health backgrounds. One has an autoimmune syndrome and has been through several sleep studies. He literally never experiences REM. For him, tiredness is a constant but sleep is never restful. This isn't a psychiatric condition; it's physical. It's also completely debilitating. For years he tried to power through it (he was a management consultant for years and destroyed his health trying to keep going) but this is not a condition that you can will away. The other relative had a bad reaction to medication following a virus and never quite recovered. I will readily admit that her condition's roots could be autoimmune too, but she suffers from physical fatigue rather than tiredness. She has to be extremely careful not to overwork or overexercise, but her life is otherwise unimpaired. My relatives rather clearly don't suffer from the same condition but they're diagnosed the same way. Having said all this I doubt I changed your mind, so let me make a slightly different point: what are the minimum and maximum amounts that you could sleep tonight? If you wanted to, could you sleep for 12 hours straight? How about sleeping for 12 hours for back-to-back days? I know that I can't! I'm literally physically incapable of it. I cannot sleep for more than 10 hours, even if I've accrued a massive sleep deficit (and usually it's more like about 5-7 hours). CFS is not laziness

interpenetrate 7y ago
i'm not saying that CFS is "fake", or that ulcers, fibromyalgia, or migraines are "fake." to say that you can "will" these away is an infantilization of psychoanalysis. i would never classify CFS as "laziness." (although i will note that the DSM has historically had no problem about enforcing moral judgements like this in its taxonomy.) people take "psychosomatic" to be synonymous with "it's all in your head," when the point is that it is precisely not "all in your head." i very much agree with you that part of this discussion is about the questionable validity and reproducibility of the official diagnostic categories. what i disagree with you about is that anything could be exclusively either physical or psychiatric. that's obviously false.