Search results

The only way to improve on LP is a therapy that attempts to convince patients that answering questionnaires of the kind used in clinical trials in the most positive way possible regardless of the truth will cure them thanks to (insert neuropsychobabble here). Since this is so weird, they also...

Not that it matters much. The whole trial is rubbish because it completely fails to control for bias affecting subjective outcomes.

If disbelievers had been sent to do LP, they could plausibly drag down the average of the LP group because they might find it weird and inappropriate and form a negative opinion of the clinical trial. By not sending them to do LP, they could plausibly be inflating the average. I now checked and...

Yes and this dragging down of scores can be avoided by simply not giving LP to people that don't believe in it, even if they were originally assigned to it and then counting them as having received LP (unless I'm misunderstanding that part). Unless they switched these presumed LP refusers over...

The patients in the LP group who didn't actually end up doing LP were probably not random events. If the reason they didn't do LP was because "they were not ready" (didn't believe in the treatment), it could have plausibly inflated the efficacy of LP. Any way it's nonsense to count them as...

51 allocated to SMC+LP, but 9 only got SMC, and 3 got SMC+1 day of LP (which must be less than the full dose). Only 39 received SMC+LP in the intended dose. Only 42 received any LP at all. Their statistical analysis for the SMC+LP group includes 44 participants. That's what is left after not...

Here are the transcripts. Nothing stopping you from using copy and paste.

The patients that don't stick to their assigned treatment arm should in my opinion be counted as having dropped out. I wonder if that would change any of the conclusions or moves the outcomes over the magical 0.05 threshold. After all, 12 people assigned to LP either didn't get the intended...

There's hardly a better way to destroy the credibility of a condition claimed to be a serious, incurable neurological disease by its sufferers than hyperbolic claims that positive thinking and exercise is very helpful and can even cure a significant minority of patients.

Journalists that believe everything Wessely and co say without question are a problem.

Maybe we need guidelines that say patients with confirmed or suspected CFS or OI should lie down for 10 minutes with lightly elevated feet before the consultation proceeds.

Maybe a part of the problem is that patients cannot communicate effectively when before actually talking to the doctor they have probably spent a while under orthostatic stress and their brain isn't well supplied with blood.

One of the prevalent sensations in my body, especially when exhausted, could be described as a feeling similar to that of lack of air. It's more on the subtle side though.

The reason that oxygen levels start high and drop sharply right after is because the machine that controls the oxygen levels in the medium is turned on or begins taking effect. These reduced oxygen levels more closely reflect physiological levels. That's how I understood it anyway. Morten...

Yes there is some psychosomatic ideology in this document but it's not too bad. It is not clear why the placebo arm improved and as much fun as it is to speculate, an article about treatment should refrain from it.

The number n, after a 0.6 fold change, is n * 0.6

It says in the paper that the SOE patients had a clinical diagnosis of ME/CFS. Maybe I missed it but I don't believe the paper says that a ME/CFS diagnosis was retrospectively established.

"Let's bring in mental health and social influences" is approximately what they've always done. The historical view was that functional neurological symptoms were caused by a conversion of emotional distress and trauma into physical symptoms. You can't treat effectively if you don't understand...

His first symptom was a high pulse that wouldn't go down. I wonder if he had POTS?

The perfect hospital is the one that cures me.