[dimal]

I’m conflicted about this as well. I’ve had a range of chronic illnesses my whole life. I’d love it if there was useful research into them. But after seeing decades with no progress, I have to conclude that most medical research into chronic illnesses is going in the wrong direction.

Most research is still following a medical model that worked for infectious diseases in the 1950s but does not yield any meaningful information or treatments for chronic, complex disorders that have multiple interrelated factors.

And since doctors are trained primarily in the treatment of acute diseases, even the useful information that’s found by research is largely ignored in practice. The ignorance of the average MD about chronic illnesses is astounding.

I’ve been sick for the last two years and I’ve given up going to doctors. They are a waste of my time. I’ve done much better by doing my own research and treating myself. Much of what’s helped has been stuff that I’ve seen described as pseudoscience, even though it’s empirically based, because there aren’t enough RCTs for it to qualify as “evidence”. This makes me incredibly angry.

The system is utterly broken. I’d like to scrap the whole thing and start over. Hopefully, we’ll find a way to start over when the smoke clears.