Pulse Today ("the leading publication for GPs in the UK"): "Long Covid: Explaining the unexplainable?"

[Andy]

"Long Covid is affecting 2 million patients in the UK, and GPs are struggling to treat them. But the volume of patients may prompt more research into treatment for medically unexplained symptoms. Emma Wilkinson reports

While the world remained in lockdown in the early waves of the pandemic and intensive care units were still filling up, another story was unfolding, initially on social media, of a group of ‘long haulers’, who were suffering from a wide range of ongoing and often debilitating symptoms after a Covid-19 infection. Medics infected in the first wave were among those who warned the symptoms of Covid could persist.

More than two years on, the Office for National Statistics has put a figure of 2 million people in the UK – or 3.1% of the population – as experiencing self-reported long Covid symptoms.1 Around one patient in five has had symptoms for at least two years and 19% say their ability to carry out day-to-day activities has ‘been limited a lot’.

The majority of cases involve ambiguous symptoms that GPs have struggled to deal with in other scenarios – fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle ache and brain fog. Such symptoms may have previously been labelled fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME)."

https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/analys...ases/long-covid-explaining-the-unexplainable/

and with some 'lovely' comments at the bottom of the page to round the article off....

 

[Arnie Pye]

I knew what to expect as soon as I saw where you had posted this thread. And I've also read Pulse in years gone by when it was easier to register for members of the public, and the medics writing comments were making snide and nasty comments about all sorts of patients even then.

 

[chrisb]

Pulse seems to have a house troll. I recall coming across the name ot the double poster before in similar vein.

 

[Charles B.]

Absolutely appalling remarks in the comments section. These are the people responsible for ending this crisis, and they’re publicly mocking it. Reprehensible.

 

[BrightCandle]

Absolutely appalling remarks in the comments section. These are the people responsible for ending this crisis, and they’re publicly mocking it. Reprehensible.

Pretty common in my experience anywhere you see Long Covid and medical staff commenting about it. The vast majority seem to believe its a fake illness. There is a reason the Psychologists were given free reign on ME/CFS and are now circling and inching in on the Long Covid territory too, there is a widespread systemic prejudice here that is going to take some serious burning out.

 

[rvallee]

Sometimes the comments tell the story better than the article.

It's easy to see why little progress is happening considering how much ignorance and indifference there is to what is obviously a taboo subject.

A little knowledge can be very dangerous in the wrong hands. And it's frankly becoming impossible not to think of how much progress is hindered simply because of cultural baggage and the continuous creep of pseudoscience. Because behind the creep of pseudoscience is a culture that is entirely OK with the kind of thinking that leads to pseudoscience.

 

[Ariel]

This is just so sad.

 

[bobbler]

Pulse seems to have a house troll. I recall coming across the name ot the double poster before in similar vein.

I recognise 2 of them as being 'regulars'

 

[Saz94]

I don't think the article is bad? This isn't a psychosomatic article, it's talking about long covid as a real physical condition. There are a couple of nasty comments though.

 

[BrightCandle]

I don't think the article is bad? This isn't a psychosomatic article, it's talking about long covid as a real physical condition. There are a couple of nasty comments though.

It wouldn't have been bad 2 years ago. Nowadays I would have expected a lot more in there about blood and other tests GPs can use to find the condition that they have access to. Its not like we know nothing, we know a bunch of things about these conditions and doctors do have access to blood tests that will produce abnormal results in these patients to objectively assess them. Its just out of date and suggesting the condition is a lot more nebulous and unknown than it is. The comments are more telling of their audience and the problem we face with recognition in the NHS and this is a prime example of why just giving GPs the right information isn't going to fix the problem.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Sometimes the comments tell the story better than the article.

I'm actually glad that these comments appear, they show the true colours of the medical profession. It's far more valuable insight than the diplomatic doublespeak we get from the BPS Brigade.

Looking for a biological mechanism to explain a psychosocial phenomenon has little likelihood of success.

I wish more ME skeptics would join the forum so we can have a proper debate and highlight the fact that they have no evidence for their claims of psychogenic attribution. I really am curious as to what their responses are. See: https://www.s4me.info/threads/chall...-the-medical-profession-where-are-they.24361/

 

[Shadrach Loom]

I'm actually glad that these comments appear, they show the true colours of the medical profession. It's far more valuable insight than the diplomatic doublespeak we get from the BPS Brigade.


I wish more ME skeptics would join the forum so we can have a proper debate and highlight the fact that they have no evidence for their claims of psychogenic attribution. I really am curious as to what their responses are. See: https://www.s4me.info/threads/chall...-the-medical-profession-where-are-they.24361/

Why would they bother? I can see why someone who is personally invested in BPS treatments might lurk here with interest, if anonymously, and occasionally could find themselves posting, perhaps even debating the issues.

But an average overworked and not particularly bright GP, whose ragbag of unexamined prejudices, as vented on Pulse, includes a grudge against TATTs, and so by extension ME skepticism? What would be in it for them?

I totally agree that these posts are salutary, and that when we explain our symptoms to clinicians, we should look behind the flimsy professional mask of solicitude, and remember what the majority of them really think. It makes it easier to focus on whatever it is you really need from the conversation.

 

[duncan]

Why would they bother? I can see why someone who is personally invested in BPS treatments might lurk here with interest, if anonymously, and occasionally could find themselves posting, perhaps even debating the issues.

But an average overworked and not particularly bright GP, whose ragbag of unexamined prejudices, as vented on Pulse, includes a grudge against TATTs, and so by extension ME skepticism? What would be in it for them?

In a word, ego. Hubris is wrecking the discipline anyway. There's no reason I can think of that that deficit wouldn't manifest as a juvenile need to set us straight in our own back yard.

 

[SNT Gatchaman]

Meanwhile —

 

[BrightCandle]

Meanwhile —

So tempting to respond "sounds like anxiety to me", it is after all what my GP diagnosed me with so its probably what you have too, its what all Covid Long haulers have according to their doctors. I wonder how many anxiety diagnoses they gave out to long haulers?!

 

[Peter T]

So tempting to respond "sounds like anxiety to me", it is after all what my GP diagnosed me with so its probably what you have too, its what all Covid Long haulers have according to their doctors. I wonder how many anxiety diagnoses they gave out to long haulers?!

The uncertainty about diagnosis is potentially more anxiety provoking for people with some medical knowledge.

I know in the first few months of my ME I suspected I had some form of neurodegenerative condition as that was my main clinical experience; though none really fitted well, the nearest fit I could think of was the form of MND (ALS) with associated dementia. Fortunately I was diagnosed pretty promptly, at six months my GP stated he suspected ME and referred me to an infectious disease consultant for confirmation. For me the ME diagnosis relieved my anxiety about possible worse diagnoses.

 

[Sean]

I'm actually glad that these comments appear, they show the true colours of the medical profession. It's far more valuable insight than the diplomatic doublespeak we get from the BPS Brigade.

Good idea to keep screenshots of them for the record, and/or save a copy of the whole article (with comments) to archive.org, or archive.is (where it is harder to get articles removed from than the .org site).

The uncertainty about diagnosis is potentially more anxiety provoking for people with some medical knowledge.

In part, I would suggest, because they know what is coming about how their colleagues will (mis)treat them. Also possibly because some of them will have to face up to the fact that they themselves have mistreated patients previously, albeit maybe in good faith by relying on directions from the senior 'world experts'.

Nobody likes finding out they have been a gullible prat, and worse allowed themselves to be used by malevolent forces. But progress in situations like this is not possible without facing up to it.