BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid

[Kalliope]

The Danish public broadcaster has an article about a Danish study on Long Covid published in the Lancet. It's a big study with 10 500 Danes that have tested positive for Covid-19. It concludes that few get severe long terms effects. But it seems they define severe long terms effects by whether the patient has started a new prescription based medication or have had contact with a hospital.

- The conclusion is that mild corona rarely has serious late effects. Many are worried of chronic late effects if one has simply been infected with corona, but there is nothing to suggest that it is particularly frequent. The vast majority with a mild course have no or few serious late effects. It must be reassuring for especially younger people, where the infection is currently increasing, says Reimar W. Thomsen.

He emphasizes that the study does not look at the mild, general symptoms, but only at the more serious late effects that require hospitalization or medication.

Dr.dk: Har du været smittet med corona? Ganske få bliver ramt af alvorlige senfølger
google translation: Have you been infected with Corona? Quite few are affected by severe late effects

The Norwegian public broadcaster has the study and an article based on the Danish article as front page news right now with comments from a chief physician at the Department of Neurology at Oslo University Hospital and from a director from the Norwegian Institute for Public Health. At the end of the article it's a link to a recent podcast with Henrik Vogt talking about Long Covid.

- The study showed that there are few complications in those who have had covid-19 without having been admitted, concludes chief physician Anne Hege Aamodt at the Department of Neurology at Oslo University Hospital.

...
- For most people, this is an expression of more common and general symptoms that can hang in a little extra after the infection itself, but even then it is common that it passes after a few weeks, says Aamodt.

She says the results from Denmark correspond well with the experiences from Norway.
...

- There are many small and methodically weak studies that have been published. But this is a large study, with a control group, and from a country with which it is natural to compare oneself, Forland tells NRK.

He believes the results from this study are probably also valid for Norway.

- The Norwegian Institute for Public Health has also looked at the need for health services after undergoing covid infection, and we find that few of those who have had mild symptoms who have long-term ailments need follow-up by the health service. For those who have been hospitalized with a serious illness, there are more who report long-term effects, says Forland.

- Do people who have not been hospitalized with covid-19 have reason to fear late injuries?

- Probably to a relatively small degree. The Norwegian Institute for Public Health has also made a summary of existing knowledge on this topic . There are few good studies on long-term effects among those who have had a mild illness, but the results point in the same direction as the Danish study.

NRK: Gode nyheter for koronasmittede i fersk dansk studie
google translation: Good news for corona infected in recent Danish study

This is the study the articles refer to:
The Lancet Post-acute effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection in individuals not requiring hospital admission: a Danish population-based cohort study Lars Christian Lund et al

 

[Kalliope]

The Danish public broadcaster has an article about a Danish study on Long Covid published in the Lancet. It's a big study with 10 500 Danes that have tested positive for Covid-19. It concludes that few get severe long terms effects. But it seems they define severe long terms effects by whether the patient has started a new prescription based medication or have had contact with a hospital.



Dr.dk: Har du været smittet med corona? Ganske få bliver ramt af alvorlige senfølger
google translation: Have you been infected with Corona? Quite few are affected by severe late effects

The Norwegian public broadcaster has the study and an article based on the Danish article as front news right now with comments from a chief physician at the Department of Neurology at Oslo University Hospital and from a director of the Norwegian Institute for Public Health. At the end of the article it's a link to a recent podcast with Henrik Vogt talking about Long Covid.

NRK: Gode nyheter for koronasmittede i fersk dansk studie
google translation: Good news for corona infected in recent Danish study

This is the study the articles refer to:
The Lancet Post-acute effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection in individuals not requiring hospital admission: a Danish population-based cohort study Lars Christian Lund et al

Dr. Nisreen Alwan's comment to the study

 

[Wonko]

A problem with "The vast majority with a mild course have no or few serious late effects." is that it's both true and completely sidesteps the issue.

If only .001% of people who've had covid develop 'serious late effects', then given the number of people who've had covid, that is still a huge number of people they are saying can be totally ignored as inconsequential.

and I suspect the number of people with long covid is orders of magnitude higher than .001%.

I cannot of course prove this, as the same people who say things like "The vast majority with a mild course have no or few serious late effects." are the ones who control collection and release of the numbers.

 

[mango]

Gyll and company recently got another one of their opinion pieces published, this time in the newspaper Uppsala Nya Tidning (UNT). It's part of an ongoing debate about the plans to open up a BPS long covid clinic in Uppsala later this year. It's behind a paywall, so I haven't been able to read it:

Förslaget: Öppna postcovidmottagning i Uppsala
https://unt.se/bli-prenumerant/artikel/rx1pm9yl

Yesterday UNT published a reply to that piece, written by a pediatrician and an ob-gyn doctor:

Långtidscovid får inte förminskas
https://unt.se/bli-prenumerant/artikel/rg9e5xxj

We thank Gyll and co-authors for the response to the opinion piece on the management of post-acute Covid-19 syndrome (PACS) nationally and in Uppsala. Unfortunately, the response does not comment on the facts presented or the questions posed, nor do the authors justify why they go against WHO and National Board of Health recommendations that patients should be managed multidisciplinarily, and do not present any scientific evidence for the position that patients can be managed in primary care with a biopsychosocial approach.

Gyll has chosen to become a media mouthpiece to contradict the experienced scientists and clinicians who meet and research the patient population. He is an intern at a health centre and does not do research on PACS. However, he thinks he recognises the symptoms of PACS as fatigue after the flu and, based on this feeling, advocates a focus on "early identification of psychosocial and behavioural factors". He also claims that the diagnosis was created by patients on social media. [...]

Systematic clinical diagnosis and medical research is, in our view, a far better way than "chiselling out knowledge through debate" as Gyll wishes to do. We are therefore pleased that Gyll and co-authors now for the first time mention the importance of systematic investigation and differential diagnosis for patients with PACS.

However, the level of knowledge and the willingness to understand a new disease is still the dividing line in the debate. We are strong advocates of a biopsychosocial approach in our respective medical fields. However, we believe that there are significant risks in focusing mainly on the psychosocial. If we ignore the biological damage that has been demonstrated in a number of patients with PACS, there is a risk that we are providing the wrong treatment and rehabilitation.

 

[MEMarge]

From February, so perhaps discussed here before

Evaluating Patients Post COVID-19
RESOURCES AND TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONAL USERS OF THE AMA GUIDES

This is one of the references, but I don't know what part links to it:

Post above uses Larun Cochrane Review as reference @Caroline Struthers . Another one to add to the list?

 

[rvallee]

The Danish public broadcaster has an article about a Danish study on Long Covid published in the Lancet. It's a big study with 10 500 Danes that have tested positive for Covid-19. It concludes that few get severe long terms effects. But it seems they define severe long terms effects by whether the patient has started a new prescription based medication or have had contact with a hospital.



Dr.dk: Har du været smittet med corona? Ganske få bliver ramt af alvorlige senfølger
google translation: Have you been infected with Corona? Quite few are affected by severe late effects

The Norwegian public broadcaster has the study and an article based on the Danish article as front page news right now with comments from a chief physician at the Department of Neurology at Oslo University Hospital and from a director from the Norwegian Institute for Public Health. At the end of the article it's a link to a recent podcast with Henrik Vogt talking about Long Covid.

NRK: Gode nyheter for koronasmittede i fersk dansk studie
google translation: Good news for corona infected in recent Danish study

This is the study the articles refer to:
The Lancet Post-acute effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection in individuals not requiring hospital admission: a Danish population-based cohort study Lars Christian Lund et al

Again setting the standard at ICU. No ICU = no problem. Everything rated on that simple bit. And only diagnoses are considered, which is absurd. Utter foolishness.

 

[mango]

Gyll and company recently got another one of their opinion pieces published, this time in the newspaper Uppsala Nya Tidning (UNT). It's part of an ongoing debate about the plans to open up a BPS long covid clinic in Uppsala later this year. It's behind a paywall, so I haven't been able to read it:

Förslaget: Öppna postcovidmottagning i Uppsala
https://unt.se/bli-prenumerant/artikel/rx1pm9yl

Yesterday UNT published a reply to that piece, written by a pediatrician and an ob-gyn doctor:

Långtidscovid får inte förminskas
https://unt.se/bli-prenumerant/artikel/rg9e5xxj

Here's an excerpt from the original opinion piece, the one before the two articles I mentioned in my earlier post. It's written by the same people, the pediatrician and the ob-gyn doctor.

It should not be controversial that people with symptoms of illness and new-onset disabilities should have the right to full medical care in terms of diagnosis, investigation, treatment and rehabilitation. The [TV programme] SVT Morgonstudion on 13 April showed that this is not the case.

David Gyll, a doctor undergoing specialist training at a health centre in Uppsala, debated with Judith Bruchfeld, senior physician in infection medicine at Karolinska University Hospital and associate professor of infectious diseases at Karolinska Institutet. Bruchfeld is a pioneer in the care of patients with long covid. At Karolinska, she heads the clinic where 1000 patients have been assessed with severe long covid, 200 of whom are home-care patients and 800 previously hospitalised.

In his opinion pieces, Gyll argues that long covid is an elusive affliction that is not new. Prolonged symptoms following infections, concussions and car accidents are recognised from the past. He stresses the risks of researching the patient group. Patients receive medical assessments that do not lead to guidance on treatment, he and co-authors write, and say on television about the state of knowledge of organ damage that "no such findings have yet been presented". In doing so, he denies both the international and national publications describing damage caused by the virus, such as POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a blood circulation and heart rhythm regulation defect identified in a group of severely ill long covid patients). [...]

[Bruchfeld] says that organ damage has been found among patients her team has examined, both home-care and hospital patients. [...] Gyll bluntly claims that they do not exist, that there is no correlation between examination findings and symptoms, and that the diagnosis of long covid can be described as the first to be created on social media.

Another very important reason for systematic screening of patients with disabling symptoms such as shortness of breath, heart rhythm disturbances and fatigue is what in medical parlance is called differential diagnosis - ruling out other possible diagnoses that might explain the symptoms. The symptoms may be due to other diseases for which there may be curative or alleviating treatment, sometimes the time window for starting treatment is narrow. Urging caution in systematically investigating patients for fear that it will affect their rehabilitation potential can have serious consequences.

This is a very unclear and potentially dangerous message that Gyll is sending. Is he suggesting that research in specialist covid clinics on the effects of the virus on the body is redundant? That it would harm potential rehabilitation?

"Explanations can help or hurt rehabilitation," he says, clarifying his point that if the patient is told that the symptoms are due to organ damage from the virus, the focus shifts so that the patient finds it difficult to feel that there is anything they can do to affect their health. How does he know that? And how will he decide what rehabilitation is appropriate when the organ damage from the virus is not thoroughly investigated?

Viktigt med rätt insatser mot långtidscovid
https://unt.se/bli-prenumerant/artikel/jogxqxgr

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

ETA link to the S4ME thread about the long covid POTS study published by Bruchfeld et al.

 

[mango]

A Swedish radio programme today, Monday 17 May at 12.09 pm/noon local time:

Vetenskapsradion på djupet: Postcovid – därför bör det inte kallas kultursjukdom
https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1727018

Science Radio In Depth: Postcovid - why it should not be called a cultural disease
Today at 12.09

After covid-19 infection, some suffer from a wide range of symptoms that come and go, mild or severe. Is postcovid a disease, or a phenomenon of the times?

During the spring, the condition postcovid has been debated and the concept of cultural illness has been brought into the discussion. But what does the term "cultural illness" really mean, and has it been used correctly in the debate?

Health care representatives and medical historians see a term used in a misleading way. And that the focus should instead be on gathering more knowledge about post-covid in order to make the right diagnosis and provide effective care.

The programme features: Yvonne Nyman, postcovid patient in Vargön, Maria Josephson, medical historian at Karolinska Institutet and Södertörn University, David Gyll, general practitioner at a health centre, Lisa Norén, doctor and postcovid patient.

 

[rvallee]

It's truly amazing how much oxygen is given to people who promote something akin to HIV denial. Based on absolutely nothing more than that they exist. By which criterion HIV deniers should be given public platforms as their existence is the same basis of a "controversy". There is no basis for any difference in treatment here.

And of course the deniers turn this into a political debate, do not want science anywhere near the topic. Literally this is what this program above is, a fact-free debate over a scientific matter, which is a process that has never, NEVER, produced anything anywhere close to the truth. Whenever significant breakthroughs happened, not a damn person was anywhere close to the truth. This is exactly how none of this works, it's how science is stifled and progress choked out entirely. The very existence of such a debate is pointless and serves only to keep an unsustainable status quo alive, the only way it can be kept alive: by default.

 

[mango]

A Swedish radio programme today, Monday 17 May at 12.09 pm/noon local time:

Vetenskapsradion på djupet: Postcovid – därför bör det inte kallas kultursjukdom
https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1727018

I haven't been able to listen to this myself yet (PEM), but others have already written excellent comments. For example this blog by "Immunitetsexperimentets offer" (a long hauler who has made a fantastic effort reading up on ME, yay!):

Vem är egentligen kultursjuk?
https://ensamladbedomning.blogspot.com/2021/05/vem-ar-egentligen-kultursjuk.html

Google Translate, English

Please do click through (to give the blogger encouragement through visitor stats!) and read the whole thing. ME, Wessely and Swedish BPS extremist Reimer are mentioned too.

Who is culturally ill, really?

Today, Science Radio In Depth was about post covid. The programme, which by its own admission goes into the depths of research, had apparently made an exception this time. Instead, it wanted to highlight the heated debate about whether post covid is real or imaginary.

The countless research reports showing organ damage, autoantibodies and a long list of symptoms that are impossible to anxiously ponder into existence were not addressed in the programme. Instead, they chose to give space to David Gyll, a 32-year-old specialist physician trainee who for some reason likes to talk about fears, bad thoughts and social factors that "contribute to maintaining the symptoms."

The fact that there is no research showing this to be the case with post covid is not that important apparently, either to David or to the Science Radio. He has made it his business in the spring of 2021 to appear in the media and disparage thousands of Swedes who have lost their health. Quite unsavoury really, but that doesn't stop him from continuing to make a fool of himself. [...]

 

[mango]

A Twitter thread about Vetenskapsradion På Djupet by the secretary of the Swedish Covid Association:

Emma Moderato
We have slightly different realities - me and Gyll - about what happened there at the beginning of the pandemic >>

Postcovid - why it shouldn't be called a cultural disease 17 May at 12.09 - Vetenskapsradion På djupet
After covid-19 infection, some suffer from a wide range of symptoms that come and go, mild or severe. Is postcovid a disease, or a phenomenon in ...
sverigesradio.se
https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1727018

Gyll says that the healthcare system initially spread strong nocebo effects (negative expectations that reinforce symptoms). That healthcare professionals contributed to the long-term symptoms by their "it's important that you feel, if you have the slightest problem with breathing, come back.">>

What Gyll bases his description of the healthcare reality on is extremely unclear to me. As a patient in March 2020, I don't recognise it for a second. Rather, my experiences are as follows.>>

People were told not to seek care, the healthcare center wouldn't accept visits for reasons of contagion and 1177 told people, who live alone, with breathing difficulties to "call back when lips turn blue".>>

No long term symptoms had been heard of by the health care or authorities. No, "you can't be sick for that long". People were told that symptoms were due to anxiety and worry and "you shouldn't worry about your heart when you're young".>>

By Gyll's logic, the way we were treated by the health care system should have made us as healthy as nuts. Zero confirmation of symptom clusters or even acknowledgement of the existence of long term symptoms. Unfortunately, it hasn't really turned out that way. >>

Being out of touch with the reality on which you base your conclusions is rarely a good recipe for explanatory models. If we really want to understand the long-term symptoms, it's time to replace the cultural disease eyeglasses with a more open-minded version.

 

[mango]

Here's David Gyll (at 45 min 15 sek) speaking in English about "the XMRV trap and ME", "patients' narratives", and "Simon Wessely's great book about fatigue", among other things.

It's a webinar on long covid from October 2020, by Svenska Läkaresällskapet ("the Swedish scientific professional organisation of the medical profession that promotes science, education, ethics and quality in health care. The award around SEK 35 million in research grants each year and rewards good medical research through scientific awards.")

A follow-up to the spring meeting on action on long-standing Covid-19 now with UK experience. Special invited guest is Christine A'Court who is part of a research team at the University of Oxford and who, together with e.g. the renowned GP/research leader Trisha Greenhalg, wrote the article "Management of post covid-19 in primary care" published in the renowned British Medical Journal.

Christine A'court presents (in English) the research team's article and invites discussion and questions. Moderator: Magnus Isacson, President of SFAM the Swedish Society of General Medicine.

(Was linked in one of the Twitter threads by "Immunitetexperimentets Offer".)

 

[mango]

Opinion piece in Aftonbladet today, written by a boardmember of the Swedish Covid Association.

Tro mig – ingen vill ha långtidscovid frivilligt
https://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/a/kR74LQ/tro-mig--ingen-vill-ha-langtidscovid-frivilligt

Google Translate, English

Believe me - no one wants long covid voluntarily

The debater: absurd to say that we sick people are making it all up

[...] I wonder what kind of unsavoury view of humanity is behind the assumption that a large number of people (10% of covid-infected people according to the WHO, which means over 100,000 in Sweden) would be actively searching for an excuse to get out of their lives.

And we're not just talking sick leave from work, but pacs sufferers are forced to give up all hobbies that involve an increased heartrate, they have to adjust household chores to the bare minimum, turn down social events unless there's a bed to use if needed, and they have to say no again and again and again to children's requests for play and activation. [...]

It has also been suggested that some use the diagnosis to get time in the spotlight. In fact, over 99% of long-term sufferers definitely do not want to be in the spotlight.

Sick and injured animals have a tendency to want to hide, to sneak away from the herd. We humans often do the same.

Standing up in prime time sharing the misery of a life that has come to a complete standstill is not something any of us enjoys.

I don't mind the limelight, but how I wish I could tell you instead what it's like to be a single woman renovating an entire house. Or my (now abandoned) plans to climb Kilimanjaro.

Instead, I talk about breathing problems, racing heart rates and being distrusted by the health service. Declared guilty of lying before the opposite has been proven with a test result. Not my dream, I can tell you. But I do it anyway, because I know how much it means to other pacs sufferers. And because someone has to show how disgusting this "cultural disease" is. [...]

Although I exercise, sorry, used to exercise, a lot, I am a bit overweight, is that a cultural disease? Or maybe I'm not overweight at all, maybe I'm just imagining things? Maybe I feel too much and look too closely in the mirror? [...]

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

 

[Trish]

That's a really good response, showing up the awfulness of accusing sick people of malingering.

 

[mango]

Slightly off topic again, but still relevant. It's about harm/death caused by discrimination based on belief in "cultural illnesses". This took place in Sweden.

Stroke bedömdes som ”kulturell svimning” – regionen fälls för diskriminering
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/domen-stroke-kallades-kulturell-svimning

Stroke deemed 'cultural fainting' - [the regional healthcare system] found guilty of discrimination

The Gothenburg District Court today ruled against the Västra Götaland region, which was sued for discrimination by the DO [the Equality Ombudsman].

A man of Sudanese origin died as a result of a stroke, which was not properly prioritised and where an ambulance nurse considered that the man had engaged in "cultural fainting". The region held that the man had not been discriminated against - but the district court agreed with the DO.

The region is ordered to pay the man's estate SEK 80 000 in compensation for discrimination. The man's wife receives SEK 30,000 in discrimination compensation. In addition, the region must pay the DO's legal costs.

Disadvantaged

The district court writes that it has been shown that the ambulance staff disadvantaged the man "by dismissing his symptoms of loss of consciousness as simulated". This meant that he was treated worse than anyone else would have been in a comparable situation.

In retrospect, the court said it was clear that the man had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage when the paramedics treated him. "The recorded emergency call has given the court, which has no medical expertise, the impression of a severely dazed person, at times unconscious, who has difficulty speaking."

Cultural fainting

But the ambulance nurse wrote in the medical record that the man was alert at the time, and further that he "lies down and pretends to be unconscious" but wakes up on pain stimuli. It also says that the man "whimpers" and doesn't want to say much, as well as "cultural fainting??"

Although the patient was given the second highest priority (yellow) for the trip to the Eastern Hospital, the District Court points out that there is a big difference for a patient to be prioritized as yellow instead of orange (the highest priority). "An orange priority patient should have emergency care immediately while a yellow priority patient can wait."

And wait he did, specifically for an hour and a half before he received adequate care. By then, the brain haemorrhage had already caused major neurological damage. After a long period of care, he died of pneumonia.

Discrimination on grounds of ethnicity

The Gothenburg District Court found that there was a direct link between the man's ethnicity and the fact that he was not given the right priority. The fact that the ambulance nurse stated that they suspected "cultural fainting" is considered to indicate that the patient's level of consciousness was not assessed on the basis of a medically tested method but on the basis of ethnicity: "The note about cultural fainting is directly linked to the stated ground of discrimination."

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

ETA: Press release written by The Gothenburg District Court:

https://www.domstol.se/nyheter/2021...ngsombudsmannen-och-vastra-gotalandsregionen/

 

[mango]

A Swedish TV programme, tonight's episode was about long covid.

Sverige Möts
https://www.svtplay.se/video/30606346/sverige-mots/sverige-mots-sasong-2-2-juni-21-00?info=visa

Thousands of people are suffering from so-called long-term covid or post-covid, as it is also known. These are people who experience heart palpitations, breathing problems, abnormal fatigue, exhaustion, migraines, brain fog and difficulty concentrating. And the consequences are serious. Many are so ill that they can't work or live the life they're used to. But what is post-covid? Is it a "real" disease - a sequela of the Covid 19 infection? Or is it something else? A growing number of doctors and psychiatrists believe that the symptoms are caused by the body's reactions to stress and anxiety. At the same time, sufferers themselves are demanding that the healthcare system take their symptoms seriously. Program host: Magnus Thorén.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

I haven't watched it myself, but I'm seeing comments about Mats Reimer (infamous BPS extremist) and Paul Garner, and so on.

Mats Reimer is unabashedly caricaturing the ME/CFS Patients' Association of Sweden: "They [patients] want to rest themselves healthy and wait for a biomedical treatment." If you rest yourself healthy, you don't need treatment, do you? @MagnusThorn #SvMECFS

https://www.researchgate.net/public...ger_en_systematiskt_missvisande_bild_av_MECFS

"They don't want to see it as biopsychosocial rehabilitation, which is what's needed." The studies on which this is based have been heavily criticised not only by patient groups, but also by researchers and clinicians. Several health authorities are reassessing their treatment guidelines.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

ETA:

2 June 2021. "Sweden meets" on SVT about #långtidscovid. Pediatrician Mats Reimer says that the amount of suffering symptoms cause depends on the beliefs you have. Fear and anxiety make you experience the symptoms more strongly. Compares this to chronic Lyme disease, which Reimer says is transmitted via the internet.

 

[Kalliope]

A Swedish TV programme, tonight's episode was about long covid.

Sverige Möts
https://www.svtplay.se/video/30606346/sverige-mots/sverige-mots-sasong-2-2-juni-21-00?info=visa

I haven't watched it myself, but I'm seeing comments about Mats Reimer (infamous BPS extremist) and Paul Garner, and so on.

The interview with Paul Garner is towards the end and in English. He very exhausted and started believing that he would not get better because of the anxiety about the illness in society. Fed into his insecurity. But then he understood he could have some control over the symptoms by how he interpreted the feelings that were coming in.

He had a shower, thought about some nice things, jumped on his bicycle to his fitness class and goodness he felt so much better! It evaporated. These things are absolutely real, but you have agency over the perception of it. Complains about the violent negative reaction to his recovery story.

"Of course, the chronic fatigue/ME community believe that cognitive behaviour therapy is not helpful, and that exercise is not helpful. But the surprise really was the Long Covid Communities, particularly the Long Covid doctors who felt I was abandoning the cause and that I was leading to gaslighting, because I was saying it was in the head. And I was not saying it was in the head. I was saying that you can manage it by the way you think and with cognition. It's a balance between your body and your mind"

Promises long covid patients that they will get better.

starts at 46.48 minutes
https://www.svtplay.se/video/306063...asong-2-2-juni-21-00?position=2806&id=KA2ZgMz

 

[Midnattsol]

The interview with Paul Garner is towards the end and in English. He very exhausted and started believing that he would not get better because of the anxiety about the illness in society. Fed into his insecurity. But then he understood he could have some control over the symptoms by how he interpreted the feelings that were coming in.

He had a shower, thought about some nice things, jumped on his bicycle to his fitness class and goodness he felt so much better! It evaporated. These things are absolutely real, but you have agency over the perception of it. Complains about the violent negative reaction to his recovery story.

"Of course, the chronic fatigue/ME community believe that cognitive behaviour therapy is not helpful, and that exercise is not helpful. But the surprise really was the Long Covid Communities, particularly the Long Covid doctors who felt I was abandoning the cause and that I was leading to gaslighting, because I was saying it was in the head. And I was not saying it was in the head. I was saying that you can manage it by the way you think and with cognition. It's a balance between your body and your mind"

Promises long covid patients that they will get better.

starts at 46.48 minutes
https://www.svtplay.se/video/306063...asong-2-2-juni-21-00?position=2806&id=KA2ZgMz

How is that not in the head?

 

[Hoopoe]

My best guess is that to them "all in the head" means imaginary, whereas curing illness by changing one's attitude to the symptoms doesn't mean imaginary, but rather changing physiology through the power of the mind.

To those who don't believe that the mind has the power to change physiology, it's of course a claim that the illness was imaginary.

 

[boolybooly]

Is it too far fetched to believe there has been some kind of PR push in nordic countries from a hidden hand on behalf of the insurance agenda?

Specifically Sweden and Norway.

I just find the rash of antiscience propaganda from these places too frequent and concerted for it to be simply delusional handwaving.