Heterodox and Orthodox Discourses in the Case of Lyme Disease: A Synthesis of Arguments, 2019, Hinds and Sutcliffe

[Andy]

In this article, we examine the arguments made by authors of published academic articles concerning the debates surrounding chronic Lyme disease (CLD). CLD is an example of a contested condition and shares problems of legitimacy with other medically unexplained conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome.

We use a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach to understand the arguments of the authors to establish the legitimacy, or not, of a CLD diagnosis. This enabled us to make sense of the nature of the stalemate between patient groups and advocates of the medical establishment, as performed by authors of academic articles. In this article, we bring together the arguments to explain the polemical debate and to support accounts that avoid the impasse to give us greater insight into the experience of chronic illness.

Paywall, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1049732319846170
Sci hub, https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1049732319846170

 

[duncan]

A confused pretzel that imagines it's a straight line?

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

A confused pretzel that imagines it's a straight line?

I didn't catch the straight line part.

 

[Hutan]

In response to a lack of a linear causal narrative, doctors may resort to psychosomatic explanations. Patients react against these explanations because of the stigma associated with them and thus the result of the therapeutic encounter can be a polemical polarization (Greco, 2017).

Nope, we don't react because of the stigma.

We react because the idea doesn't fit with our experience. In my case, the idea that three previously active, generally happy people in my family without any history of psychological issues suddenly became ill at the same time and stayed ill for an extended period/indefinitely because of some shared buried trauma or some sort of secondary gain or some fear of something just doesn't make sense.

We react because treatments based on a psychosomatic explanation don't work.

 

[rvallee]

Nope, we don't react because of the stigma.

We react because the idea doesn't fit with our experience. In my case, the idea that three previously active, generally happy people in my family without any history of psychological issues suddenly became ill at the same time and stayed ill for an extended period/indefinitely because of some shared buried trauma or some sort of secondary gain or some fear of something just doesn't make sense.

We react because treatments based on a psychosomatic explanation don't work.

Yeah, the reaction would be the same if the suggestion was demons, wichcraft or aliens. Wrong is wrong. If you go to a group of diabetics and tell them their disease is actually caused by a fear of sugar you will get the exact same WTF? reaction as we have. It has nothing to do with why it's wrong, wrong is wrong because it contradicts our experience. It's not leprechauns, miasma, karma or any other wrong thing.

The whole "you just don't like it because it says it's psychological" is literally a thought-terminating cliché. Those are universally bad and shouldn't even have to be challenged anymore. It's freaking $CURRENT_YEAR and we still have to remind people that it's not about their little person, they're just wrong, period.

Especially the whole "exercise and you'll be fine" when so many of us have not only tried that but were very active, driven, passionate people who did not and still do not need external motivation to get moving. That has not left us or changed. We still want to do those things, we just can't. This is all so stupid.