4 ms·

> CFS is a recognized disorder by the medical community, although the causes are unkown. My point was, it wasn't even a recognized disorder until fairly recent

by kortex 5y ago

> CFS is a recognized disorder by the medical community, although the causes are unkown. My point was, it wasn't even a recognized disorder until fairly recently. As I understand it, part of the problem is a cottage industry of quackish medicine sprung up around the unfalsifiability of chronic Lyme and CFS. But instead of the medical community taking an agnostic stance "we see you are suffering but we can't explain it", there was a strong push in the opposite direction, asserting that it's psychosomatic / "only in your head" / "here's some antidepressants." And you see this pattern again and again. I think the dismissive attitude is starting to abate among the younger medical professionals but you still see this air of "anything I wasn't trained on isn't a thing" among many of them.

emerongi 5y ago
Right, I understand your point better now and agree. I'm not sure what medical training consists of today, but improvement on this issue should start there.
dkarl 5y ago
> there was a strong push in the opposite direction, asserting that it's psychosomatic / "only in your head" / "here's some antidepressants." As a counterpoint to this, my first exposure to chronic fatigue syndrome came while I was dealing with depression and getting psychotherapy for the first time. CFS popped up in the news, and a friend guided me to a web forum where I'd get the "unfiltered" version from people who suffered from it. What jumped out to me about that community, given my struggle with depression at the time, was that it was a cesspool of stigma against mental illness. The experiences people reported varied over a wide spectrum, but there was a significant contingent of people with classic symptoms of depression along with the vague physical complaints that most people have, outraged that doctors would be so insulting as to suggest depression or other psychological explanations. If there was one belief that united the community, one shared credo, it was that they deserved a physical diagnosis because their dignity required it, and they would not accept a psychological diagnosis because it would render them unworthy of sympathy. One person summed up the consensus succinctly by saying it was an outrage for doctors to suggest that they were "just too lazy and too stupid to get their lives together." That was unwelcome, but valuable, confirmation of how some people saw depression, and it made me more guarded about when and how I talked about it. So it cuts both ways. I'm sure there are doctors who arrogantly label any patient they can't figure out as "crazy," but I'm just as sure there are patients who overreact, angrily, to any mention of psychological causes or treatments.

by kortex 5y ago

emerongi 5y ago

Right, I understand your point better now and agree. I'm not sure what medical training consists of today, but improvement on this issue should start there.

dkarl 5y ago

> there was a strong push in the opposite direction, asserting that it's psychosomatic / "only in your head" / "here's some antidepressants." As a counterpoint to this, my first exposure to chronic fatigue syndrome came while I was dealing with depression and getting psychotherapy for the first time. CFS popped up in the news, and a friend guided me to a web forum where I'd get the "unfiltered" version from people who suffered from it. What jumped out to me about that community, given my struggle with depression at the time, was that it was a cesspool of stigma against mental illness. The experiences people reported varied over a wide spectrum, but there was a significant contingent of people with classic symptoms of depression along with the vague physical complaints that most people have, outraged that doctors would be so insulting as to suggest depression or other psychological explanations. If there was one belief that united the community, one shared credo, it was that they deserved a physical diagnosis because their dignity required it, and they would not accept a psychological diagnosis because it would render them unworthy of sympathy. One person summed up the consensus succinctly by saying it was an outrage for doctors to suggest that they were "just too lazy and too stupid to get their lives together." That was unwelcome, but valuable, confirmation of how some people saw depression, and it made me more guarded about when and how I talked about it. So it cuts both ways. I'm sure there are doctors who arrogantly label any patient they can't figure out as "crazy," but I'm just as sure there are patients who overreact, angrily, to any mention of psychological causes or treatments.