no worse feeling in the world than hearing a doctor confidently tell you that it's all in your head and that you're wasting their time. Ask me how I know..
it's wild to me, because ME/CFS can, in rare cases, be terminal. autopsy reveals various findings: inflammation of the dorsal root ganglion, degeneration of the frontal lobe, metabolic issues and tangles of proteins in neurons and glia.
RIP to the author of "The Sleepy Girl's Guide to SSDI", who died young to ME/CFS, attributed to neuroinflammation in her autopsy.
Nocebos, the opposite of placebos, are extremely interesting. [1] The thing most people don't appreciate about placebos (and nocebos) is that the effect isn't just 'in your head.' It actually physically manifests - people can e.g. recover from illnesses measurably more quickly with placebos.
And the opposite is true of nocebos. So for instance one of the most common examples of nocebos is somebody will be given a terminal cancer diagnosis but then die long before the cancer could have been the cause of their death. They're so convinced that they're dying imminently that it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I expect a similar phenomena is why elderly couples tend to follow each other into the grave in short order. Dying of heart break or loneliness is not necessarily just rhetorical.
if only we could objectively (and easily) measure pain and energy levels (feeling tired) and even stress. stress is used here as a dismissal (not by you but the hypothetical doctor you are parodying) but stress too is a real health factor that people need help with.
Nobel Laureate Barry Marshall (co discoverer of Helicobacter Pylori, cause of stomach ulcers) gave a talk to a graduating class at the university he went to (can't find link, but it's on the net somewhere). He talks about "stress" being a fertile area of research for medical advances. His argument is that stress is rarely the direct cause of anything. It might be a secondary cause, or it might be a symptom, but research into ailments currently attributed to "stress" is a really good direction for the aspiring young medical research scientists out there.
Yeah, sorry, that wasn't meant to be dismissive of stress or burnout. There's probably a reason doctors always ask about it, but it can be an annoying to have to talk about your job when you've got physical symptoms.
(As a sidenote, why do doctors always assume stress is work related? Work is fine, but have you looked at the world...)
that wasn't meant to be dismissive of stress or burnout
just to be clear, i knew it wasn't.
why do doctors always assume stress is work related? Work is fine, but have you looked at the world
oh absolutely so much. i hide in my work when i have stress at home. i can think of two factors. as far as the world is going, most people don't care enough about it to let that stress them, so they do't even see it. myself i avoid stress from world affairs by actively working on making things better (within my means, by showing my friends and neighbors that there is hope yet for the future). but there is also stress at home, and that seems to be also overlooked. i think the reason here is that the doctors are not trained to deal with that and also don't want you to come to them to handle your family problems. there are other trained professionals for that. though personally it would really be nice if we had a family doctor who not only deals with physical but also mental health.
I agree with this, as a monist. Unfortunately medicine is still very much in its infancy in this regard - many things are too subtle or just still hidden.
RIP to the author of "The Sleepy Girl's Guide to SSDI", who died young to ME/CFS, attributed to neuroinflammation in her autopsy.