‘The Lightning Process’ and chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis, 2022, Vallings

As Medical Advisor to the NZ ME Association (ANZMES) and having worked in this area of medicine for 40 years, I am concerned that recent GP educational events have promoted ‘The Lightning Process’,1,2 predominantly used for treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME). I do not consider that this is a treatment that GPs should be advocating for use in people with CFS/ME.

Open access, https://www.publish.csiro.au/hc/Fulltext/HC22078#R1

 

Yeah, I thought her condemnation was pretty weak. Also frustrating to see her use CFS/ME.

 

Well, no. Obviously. What a weird thing to say. The widespread belief that any kind of psychological anything MUST have some sort of benefit is just plain bizarre. Never privilege a lie. Mental healthcare is decades away from having a viable product, is frankly basically at the level where medicine was at the time of the Humors. Just because they're selling an unviable product doesn't change that.

 

This part looks to me like a misguided attempt at "balance", a bit like journalists giving two sides equal airtime irrespective of the strengths of the respective arguments.

As far as I know there's no solid evidence for the LP being useful for any condition though there are some poorly done studies claiming to provide evidence in for example pain, and selected bits of the LP may well help anxiety. But it would have been better to not mention other conditions at all, they're irrelevant in this context. Though it's conceivable Dr Vallings had to insert this bit to get the article published at all.

I don't know Dr Vallings' thoughts but I rather suspect the main intention behind this article was to give patients and patient organisations in NZ something published against the LP to point to. It may work, I certainly hope so, though it's difficult to know how people not deeply familiar with the ME debates read and interpret an article like this. Given Dr Vallings clearly, and rightly, states her association with ANZMES, do readers unfamiliar with the ME debates interpret her arguments as biased or do they on the contrary take her experience with ME patients as authoritative expertise?

We do have a huge problem with the LP in NZ with believers firmly ensconced in key positions of authority in the health and medical education systems. Some are passive obstacles to progress, which is quite bad enough, but others use their power to promote LP and mind-body ideas in general, including CBT/GET, and to obstruct counter views. As 'evidence' they like to present the Crawley paper and, for good measure, to 'prove' mind-body ideas, also papers by the likes of Fink and Wyller. Nuff said.

So I hope Dr Vallings' article can be a small counter to all that. We also need some solid published literature documenting the harmful effects of LP. Currently we're stuck with your anecdote of recovery against my anecdote of harm. Time to step up to playing your published paper against my published paper but we're currently behind on that score. So if anyone is able to get something written and published, please please pretty please...

 

Bruce Arroll, head of the Goodfellow Unit, Auckland University and LP supporter (training in it from what I understand) and Jenny Oliver, LP practitioner, were given the opportunity to respond to Dr Vallings article in the Journal. However, Dr Vallings was not given the chance to respond to Arroll, as would be normal practice.

https://www.publish.csiro.au/hc/Fulltext/HC22105

 

That's actually pretty poor. I perceive that BPS doctors consider their interventions curative or at least powerful. Those figures make the effectiveness seem minimal, even when flawed studies are taken at face value. If GET was actually curative, it would be stupid simple to implement. It could even be done on a self-help basis with an exercise bike. You'd just ride for 10 minutes, then 12, 14, 16 and so on. If it actually worked your PEM threshold would gradually rise until you stopped experiencing it.

Now I'm starting to wish GET worked . This is starting to sound easy. I feel like doctors misunderstand this point. I'm not against GET because I have some unjustified condition my illness is physical. I'm against it because it's an unproven therapy that harms people. It's scientific, not ideological.

 

Clearly, something bizarre happened at the NICE Guideline on CFS as four people with serious conflicts of interest resigned after having approved the guideline.

What was bizarre was that good sense prevailed in such a murky world.

 

None of the numbers they cite here are even real. They mean absolutely nothing. What nonsense.

 

I don't understand what you've quoted there. The phrase "CBT is UK pound" doesn't appear in the article being discussed.

 

Redfox quotes part of the quote from this post, https://www.s4me.info/threads/‘the-...halomyelitis-2022-vallings.29760/#post-440868

 

Thank you.