Miranda Hart - British comedian

SNT Gatchaman said:
In this very public context though it would of course be proof that the stress of the online assault from those militant patients caused the physical symptom deterioration. BPS, being an unfalsifiable religion, can never lose.
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I guess if you can “think yourself better” it makes sense that other sick people can “think you sick” too. I didn’t realise my ME gave me psychic powers! Amazing. There should be more promotion of that.
 
Lou B Lou said:
A number of high profile people, including celebrities, have gone public that they have long term Lyme. Off top of head, Daryl Hall (of Hall and Oates music duo) and Kris Kristofferson, who was very sick but misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's for years. KK was much later accurately diagnosed and had treatment for Lyme, his illness improved considerably then, though not fully cured. Daryl Hall also had treatment, and some improvement.

But none of the high profile/celebs with Lyme ever call it ME, only Miranda. They all call it long term Lyme. None of the celebs say that their Lyme 'turned into ME', I guess because they already have a name for their awful symptoms - long term Lyme Disease. Sure there are overlap symptoms. But Miranda seems to want to call her Lyme disease ME.


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martine mccutcheon having started with ME also says she has Lyme. She seems to go between the two in various interviews.
 
MrMagoo said:
I guess if you can “think yourself better” it makes sense that other sick people can “think you sick” too. I didn’t realise my ME gave me psychic powers! Amazing. There should be more promotion of that.
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Like voodoo but without the totems. Which makes it even more laughable, but it's considered cutting edge medical science.

Humans are soooo freaking weird. Either we are the weirdest species in the galaxy, which, wow. Or there are even weirder species out there, which, WOW!
 
duncan said:
Maybe she's been told she has both.

They are both diseases that boil down to belief systems. They are beliefs in a disease, whether held by the patient or the clinician. Usually neither diagnosis is concrete.
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But surely there is no comparable 'think yourself better by never thinking or speaking about your symptoms/by eliminating negativity from your mind' culture of commercially driven 'recovery courses/books/ear seeds etc' aimed at Lyme disease. Or is there?

UK newspapers do not regularly feature stories such as

'I went from bedbound to climbing mountains as I recovered from my Lyme disease by telling my symptoms to STOP and choosing The Life I Love', etc etc.

 Whereas people with ME are bombarded with the stuff, largely because of the UK media's apparently inexhaustible appetite for ME 'recovery stories', which exploit our disease for clickbait.

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Lou B Lou said:
But surely there is no comparable 'think yourself better by never thinking or speaking about your symptoms/by eliminating negativity from your mind' culture of commercially driven 'recovery courses/books/ear seeds etc' aimed at Lyme disease. Or is there?
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That's fair, although I'd venture they're out there. The mind-over-disease thing doesn't seem to pervade Lymeworld like it does ME/CFS (at least not that I've seen).

But because Lyme is purported to be caused by a bacteria, and persistent Lyme supposedly occurs in the face of failed antibiotics treatment, what you do find is a culture of alternative cures, which range from hopeful to unfortunate to outright nonsense.

Both cultures can be toxic to patients.
 
duncan said:
That's fair, although I'd venture they're out there. The mind-over-disease thing doesn't seem to pervade Lymeworld like it does ME/CFS (at least not that I've seen).

But because Lyme is purported to be caused by a bacteria, and persistent Lyme supposedly occurs in the face of failed antibiotics treatment, what you do find is a culture of alternative cures, which range from hopeful to unfortunate to outright nonsense.

Both cultures can be toxic to patients.
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I don't remember Martine McCutcheon talking about Alex Howard or OHC, but she did Lightning Process and names Lightning Process in a video of Martine being interviewed by Alan Titchmarsh about her illness, ME, and her career.


This video of Martine advertising Lightning Process on UK TV (by name dropping it when asked what she'd done to get back into her life and career after illness, ME) .... Phil Parker still displays Martine's interview on the main Lightning Process Website, even though the TV interview was 10 years ago.






Not a recommendation, scroll down for the Titchmarsh interview video.
https://lightningprocess.com/


On the video Martine says she was diagnosed with ME, said it came from pushing herself, working in a West End show, also caused by (“Manifested itself”) "a lot of heartache", "a lot of unaddressed issues" she "hadn't dealt with" which "manifested as a sort of 'Dis-Ease".

Interviewer Alan Titchmarsh asked Martine what she did to get back to where she is now …. Martine says eating well, Lightning Process, Juicing Retreat, resting as much as she could then gently got back into exercise. Now she is 'back in a place where she can work again'.

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Do just want to mention, lest we forget, that all this mind-over-disease thing is rampant in the cancer world too though.

My mother was told, by an nhs nurse, during her chemo, that if she didnt let go of her (perfectly normal justifiable) anger, the cancer would kill her, that negative thoughts would prevent her recovery.... yes thats right, an nhs nurse. It's everywhere in the cancer world, its repugnant.

See Barbara Ehrenrieich's books & talks for more on that
 
Haveyoutriedyoga said:
A very well meaning family member texted me about this tonight, suggesting I watch the Graham Norton clip. It really upset me. I don’t have the resilience to engage with that kind of discussion tonight.
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Big hugs HYTY, thinking of you.

I feel the same, its becoming distressing.

Its such a tragedy. From being a fan of hers for some yrs, I'm certain that distress is the very last thing she'd want to be causing. But that doesnt change the effect and impact of it all. :(
 
JemPD said:
Do just want to mention, lest we forget, that all this mind-over-disease thing is rampant in the cancer world too though.

My mother was told, by an nhs nurse, during her chemo, that if she didnt let go of her (perfectly normal justifiable) anger, the cancer would kill her, that negative thoughts would prevent her recovery.... yes thats right, an nhs nurse. It's everywhere in the cancer world, its repugnant.

See Barbara Ehrenrieich's books & talks for more on that
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That's true. When my mum was an inpatient receiving chemo for lymphoma, she was told by an NHS physiotherapist that her emotions and mindset would affect the outcome of her treatment. She was extremely unwell and there was a very real chance that she wouldn't survive. It was completely unsolicited an inappropriate advice. It's the arrogance and unacknowledged privilege of people like this that really annoys me.
 
Tia said:
That's true. When my mum was an inpatient receiving chemo for lymphoma, she was told by an NHS physiotherapist that her emotions and mindset would affect the outcome of her treatment. She was extremely unwell and there was a very real chance that she wouldn't survive. It was completely unsolicited an inappropriate advice. It's the arrogance and unacknowledged privilege of people like this that really annoys me.
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Awful. So sorry.

Yep. It is everywhere. People are constantly making false claims and launching cult success off the back of people with Cancer.

Then every random is picking up this toxic wellness ideology. But a lot of it comes from medicine originally. So doctors would not tell their patients that they were dying incase it caused them to give up hope and die sooner than they would if they didn’t know.
 
Tia said:
It's the arrogance and unacknowledged privilege of people like this that really annoys me.
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It's often individual healthcare staff abusing their position to foist their personal beliefs on a captive audience. It's rampant in Germany too, I've had it from doctors (offering to dangle a pendulum to diagnose my son's allergy) and physiotherapists (insisting on twiddling my toes, her own personal version of reflexology, even though I went in with a bad back). There's a chart of acupuncture points hanging on the wall of my dentist. It really annoys me every time I come across it, which is often. These people really need to decide what it is they want to be, and if that's a woo-merchant then please get out of healthcare.
 
I’ve got a “zinger” for unsolicited wellness advice “oh really? No that’s not a study I’ve heard of, do you know who carried it out or published it? Oh it’s on the internet? Have a look for it and send me the link so I can share it!”
 
JemPD said:
Do just want to mention, lest we forget, that all this mind-over-disease thing is rampant in the cancer world too though.

My mother was told, by an nhs nurse, during her chemo, that if she didnt let go of her (perfectly normal justifiable) anger, the cancer would kill her, that negative thoughts would prevent her recovery.... yes thats right, an nhs nurse. It's everywhere in the cancer world, its repugnant.

See Barbara Ehrenrieich's books & talks for more on that
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It's the last great respectable universal belief system. Whereas many beliefs are still OK as long as they are kept private, this is the last one to be publicly approved. Go back a century ago and things like mentalism, hypnosis, telekinesis, ghosts, astrology and so on were very common. There was nothing shameful about being a world-renowned expert in something or another and also being very into some spiritual mumbo jumbo.

Humans just deal poorly with death and illness. So much that even for health care professionals it's basically expected that they espouse this nonsense. It's actually a fringe position to dispute it, hardly anyone actually speaks out against it.

It too will pass but it just sucks to be stuck as collateral damage for the last remaining belief system to have legal power. Outside of societies where organized religion rules anyway, but those are always very specific beliefs, not universal enough to allow completely generic nonsense to be promoted.
 
Accusations of ‘pseudoscience’ against Miranda Hart are deeply unfair

by Clare Wilson

The accusations levelled at the TV star are unfair - there's evidence for the techniques she used to alleviate her ME

Miranda Hart is getting attacked for writing a book about how she recovered from chronic fatigue and illness by reducing stress in her life and using other techniques to improve her mental and physical wellbeing. Such approaches are pseudoscience, say the critics, who are largely other people with the poorly understood condition known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

(...)

To take a few examples of where Hart’s approaches chime with mainstream medical advice, talking therapy is recommended by official NHS guidelines for people with ME/CFS. While it is no cure, such therapy helps some people manage their symptoms and improve functioning. So that’s hardly pseudoscience.

Lifestyle approaches such as gentle exercises and talking therapies are also recommended by the NHS for anyone who has long-term pain, whatever the cause.

(...)

There is also a group of related conditions called functional neurological disorders – with symptoms ranging from seizures of unknown origin to inexplicable paralysis – which are thought to be caused by faulty brain processes. Distraction techniques are emerging as the mainstay of treatment for this group of disorders – for instance, trying to name everything in a room that is a certain colour is a recommended technique for stopping this kind of seizure. Hart’s approach of spotting everything in a room that is a nice colour sounds similar, but with a “Miranda” twist.​

Full article: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/accusat...gainst-miranda-hart-are-deeply-unfair-3338148
 
The writer of the article completely misses the point that there is no evidence to support brain rewiring as a treatment for ME/CFS, and she doesn't mention harm suffered by many from the likes of LP which is based on the same ideas. It is pseudoscience, and should be called out as that.

I wish Miranda well, but I don't think pwME should be criticised by the author of this article on such weak grounds, bringing in other nonsense related to FND and pain management is irrelevant.
 
Miranda Hart: Seven things we learned when she spoke to Kirsty Young

In her BBC Radio 4 podcast Young Again, journalist and broadcaster Kirsty Young asks fascinating people what advice they would like to give their younger self.


Miranda Hart became one of Britain’s biggest comedy stars when her sitcom, Miranda, debuted in 2009. Since it ended in 2015, she’s been largely absent from our screens but has just returned to public life with a new memoir. In a very frank conversation, Miranda tells Kirsty about the illness that has affected her for years and how a proper diagnosis changed her life. Here are seven things we learned.

1. A childhood misdiagnosis had huge consequences
For much of her life, Miranda says she has felt “a lot of shame and difficulty about being weak”. Much of that goes back to her childhood, particularly an illness that was wrongly diagnosed and has affected her ever since.
“In a nutshell, it came under the bracket of ME [myalgic encephalomyelitis], a fatigue-based condition caused by misdiagnosed Lyme disease way back when I was a teenager,” she says. “It had wreaked havoc with my immune system.” The condition meant Miranda regularly suffered severe exhaustion, but for decades she was told there was nothing medically wrong. She was only properly diagnosed a few years ago. She felt she “couldn’t share [how I was feeling] without a clear diagnosis. I felt very lost and alone.”
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rest of article BBC Radio 4 - Young Again - Miranda Hart: Seven things we learned when she spoke to Kirsty Young
 
Wyva said:
Accusations of ‘pseudoscience’ against Miranda Hart are deeply unfair

by Clare Wilson

The accusations levelled at the TV star are unfair - there's evidence for the techniques she used to alleviate her ME

Miranda Hart is getting attacked for writing a book about how she recovered from chronic fatigue and illness by reducing stress in her life and using other techniques to improve her mental and physical wellbeing. Such approaches are pseudoscience, say the critics, who are largely other people with the poorly understood condition known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

(...)

To take a few examples of where Hart’s approaches chime with mainstream medical advice, talking therapy is recommended by official NHS guidelines for people with ME/CFS. While it is no cure, such therapy helps some people manage their symptoms and improve functioning. So that’s hardly pseudoscience.

Lifestyle approaches such as gentle exercises and talking therapies are also recommended by the NHS for anyone who has long-term pain, whatever the cause.

(...)

There is also a group of related conditions called functional neurological disorders – with symptoms ranging from seizures of unknown origin to inexplicable paralysis – which are thought to be caused by faulty brain processes. Distraction techniques are emerging as the mainstay of treatment for this group of disorders – for instance, trying to name everything in a room that is a certain colour is a recommended technique for stopping this kind of seizure. Hart’s approach of spotting everything in a room that is a nice colour sounds similar, but with a “Miranda” twist.​

Full article: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/accusat...gainst-miranda-hart-are-deeply-unfair-3338148
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Unfortunate.

Who’s the author CW?

If anyone is clever and energy filled enough I wouldn’t mind a non inews link?
 
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