The Cruddy Daily Mail
My blood is boiling folks. The supposedly reputable Daily Mail is
running a poll asking, Is ME a genuine/real illness?
Can you believe it? They wouldn't ask if any other illness was genuine. Now I know why they call it the Invisible illness. This type of thing does nothing to help awareness and it filters through to whoever decides where the money goes for research. Obviously, it is close to home, so I am more incensed than any of you will be. Some of my ME chums are compiling a dossier, with vignettes of how our lives have been affected, to send to the Dail Mail. I have also written to the editorial staff. If any of you feel like voting, I would be very grateful.
Here is the link.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/polls/poll.html?pollId=1015226
A big thank you to all of you that do vote.
Edwina xx
Can you believe it? They wouldn't ask if any other illness was genuine. Now I know why they call it the Invisible illness. This type of thing does nothing to help awareness and it filters through to whoever decides where the money goes for research. Obviously, it is close to home, so I am more incensed than any of you will be. Some of my ME chums are compiling a dossier, with vignettes of how our lives have been affected, to send to the Dail Mail. I have also written to the editorial staff. If any of you feel like voting, I would be very grateful.
Here is the link.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/polls/poll.html?pollId=1015226
A big thank you to all of you that do vote.
Edwina xx
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27 Comments
You do, however, have my support!
xx
I would say its a journalistic toe in the water, notice how they do this under the guise of a survey as they are too chicken to make the statement themselves.
Perhaps my kneecap missing is all in my head?
Yes, I've voted. And I've also had a quick look online at some of the other stories they're running. One of the headlines on today's Femail page, which gets lots of hits each day, is 'Spruce up your home…and spice up your marriage. More housework means more sex for couples'. That is the level they're aiming for. Very intellectually stimulating, isn't it?
It may help to remember the old adage that today's newspaper is tomorrow's fish and chip wrappings.
xxx
chris
Anyway, please don't take anything I've said as an affront, I just thought you might find it useful to hear what I'd heard from medical circles. I do think it's quite unfair for the Mail to engage in a campaign against those with it. Even if it were only a psychological illness and not neurological, it would still be an illness. I think a lot of lessons need to be learned in society about depressive disorders, as it's not a simple case of "bucking your ideas up" as most people believe.
My ME consultant said that had they got their hands on me at the beginning, I wouldn't be as bad, but because I had a bigot that thought ME and depression were the same thing, he made me worse. I am now housebound, in constant pain, constantly fatigued and feel like I have bad flu permanently, the one thing I am not, is depressed. I have been on anti depressants in the past, for depression. I am not on them now as I am not depressed, and the single worst thing I could do is exercise. If I do slightly too much, I get what is called payback fatigue. So all these bigoted medics continue to call the world health organisation liars, and we, the ME sufferers pay for it. This is exactly what they did with MS thirty years ago.
I think the problem is just a lack of any clear research on the disorder. As such, there will be people with "real" ME, and there may be those who say to their doctor they have ME but in reality are just tired because they are depressed. Lack of knowledge about cause and the ability to tell the difference will cause doctors who have not encountered real ME to be sceptical (they are only human after all). The fact that it's a new disease is certainly going to add to it, because if it isn't caused by a pathogen entering the body, there will always be questions as to why people never got it before. When this happens, scientists often look for societal/mental causes, as they change far more rapidly than human physioligy.
Anyways, no offence to you or any sufferers. I have no doubt that ME exists in some form and has affected many people; all I'm saying is I don't think you should discount a possible psychological cause for the condition. Mental illness is the most poorly understood area of medicine after all. Most of us understand very little of our own minds, and classifications of mental disorders are changing all the time.
And yes, scientific communities can get a bit tetchy about these things. When national institutions work separately instead of together it can make things more difficult as one criticises the other. It may be a while before we discover who's research is right. =S
This is the link to a previous blog which has a video re this virus. It's quite interesting, give it a look.
Secondly, I'd like to say that while it's true that mental illnesses are very poorly understood, the same applies for neurological illnesses especially as new mutations are occuring all the time. I have experience in both areas, albeit limited, and I would actually suggest that there is more known about mental health problems than there is clear information on neurological diseases and illnesses.
For example, my daughter suffers from numerous physical disabilities which are thought to have been caused by a neurological disorder. She also becomes tired easily, quickly agitated and frustrated. Now, she was diagnosed with scoliosis and hip dysplasia two years ago, but as for the 'neurological disorder' - we're no further forward.
With someone who displays signs of mental illness, there are options available for treatment (though I will say that these are not always selected or executed with much professionalism, and I say that based on factual experience). For those who suffer from undiagnosed potential neurological disorders, there is no real option until their condition is satisfactorily defined. All they get is months upon months, possibly years of genetic tests and various other medical investigations. And in the case of ME, this is particularly true - it hasn't been thoroughly defined. That doesn't detract from it's validity as a neurological problem. I don't doubt that it may well be a combination of both - psychological and neurological - but again, these two stems are very closely related. But I am an advocate of justifying these 'new' illnesses, of course they exist! Nothing in this world remains stagnant, and that includes ailments of all kinds.
The first person, is a good friend and I watched her decline in the space of a few weeks. Some days she just couldn't get out of bed, others she'd be able to push herself to get to work, but always she'd feel dreadful. It turned out, unbeknown to anyone other than her son and daughter, that her partner was extremely abusive, and as they didn't live together it would be the days or a couple of days before he was due to come over to see her that her body would basically collapse. It took her a good couple of years to recover from this, long after the court case where he was sent to prison for several attacks on her.
Another woman, the wife of a work colleague, discovered her business partner had taken out loans for the business without her knowing and ended up owing thousands. When she found out, the same thing happened to her, her body just wouldn't and couldn't cope with getting out of bed. She obviously had some days better than others because she got pregant and it was that, that changed everything for her, her body just seemed to snap back into action.
The third person is the father of one of my daughter's friends. He has suffered for years with ME. Sometimes he can go for weeks, repairing cars in his garage (his business) other times he can barely open his eyes. He too suffered a massive emotional trauma - his wife left him with three kids when the youngest was only 5. That was 15 years ago and he's still suffering both physically and emotionally.
I don't know whether these traumas have been the cause of their ME or a trigger that sets something off that's already in you - I don't know. What I do know is all three of these people have had to show great courage, motivation and self discipline to face their everyday lives and to try to cure themselves because so many people brush ME off as a made-up illness, or have no idea how dibilitating it can be.
I have disliked the daily mail from my 4th year in high school, a very stereotypical article on the "Emo" music culture was published by Sarah Sands. Numerous more on the same topic have been published since. Now i tend to ignore anything that is published in it.
I was going to vote on that poll but it seems to have been removed. My advice to anyone is to simply avoid The Daily Mail like the plague. Nothing decent can come out of that ridiculous paper.
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