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Disclaimer: I know very little about long covid, so speaking more generally here. I’m also not a doctor. While that is indeed a logical fallacy, doctors are in

Disclaimer: I know very little about long covid, so speaking more generally here. I’m also not a doctor. While that is indeed a logical fallacy, doctors are in the business of evidence-based care. How could a doctor responsibly recommend a course of treatment for something which has little evidence, as something unproven would have. Many treatments have both positive and negative effects, and a doctor would typically only recommend a treatment when the good outweighs the bad. On the flip side, there many unproven or proven ineffective treatments patients frequently self-prescribe/self-administer which a doctor would let slide on the basis of it also being harmless. After all, the placebo effect is powerful in and of itself. Taking a wholistic view, medicine is about maximizing the quality of life for patients, as opposed to just being about curing everything. It’s not clear to me how a doctor could responsibly recommend any treatment with potential downsides to a patient with an unproven diagnosis. Such a treatment might indeed help the patient, but it’s a risk/reward tradeoff that needs to be balanced, and while the patient should absolutely be involved in deciding where to draw the line, the vast majority are simply not knowledgeable enough to accurately assess the situation.

chairmansteve 2y ago
I agree with you. The problem is some doctors think they know more than do. You are ill. You go to the doctor. They run tests. The tests come back negative (ie no evidence of illness). The doctor insists you are not ill. But you know you are. But... new tests are being developed all the time. Maybe in 5 years a test will find that you are ill. But for the 5 years up to that point the doctor will insist you are not ill. A better logical position for the doctor would be "you may be ill, but we can't figure out what it is".

chairmansteve 2y ago

I agree with you. The problem is some doctors think they know more than do. You are ill. You go to the doctor. They run tests. The tests come back negative (ie no evidence of illness). The doctor insists you are not ill. But you know you are. But... new tests are being developed all the time. Maybe in 5 years a test will find that you are ill. But for the 5 years up to that point the doctor will insist you are not ill. A better logical position for the doctor would be "you may be ill, but we can't figure out what it is".