Chronic Illness
A community/support group for chronically ill people. While anyone is welcome, our number one priority is keeping this a safe space for chronically ill people.
This is a support group, not a place for healthy people to share their opinions on disability.
Rules
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Be excellent to each other
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Absolutely no ableism. This includes harmful stereotypes: lazy/freeloaders etc
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No quackery. Does an up-to date major review in a big journal or a major government guideline come to the conclusion you’re claiming is fact? No? Then don’t claim it’s fact. This applies to potential treatments and disease mechanisms.
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No denialism or minimisation This applies challenges faced by chronically ill people.
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No psychosomatising psychosomatisation is a tool used by insurance companies and governments to blame physical illnesses on mental problems, and thereby saving money by not paying benefits. There is no concrete proof psychosomatic or functional disease exists with the vast majority of historical diagnoses turning out to be biomedical illnesses medicine has not discovered yet. Psychosomatics is rooted in misogyny, and consisted up until very recently of blaming women’s health complaints on “hysteria”.
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Respect the Group’s Purpose. It’s a support forum for people with chronic illness to vent and share and talk together. It’s not a place for healthy people to come and give their opinions.
Did your post/comment get removed? Before arguing with moderators consider that the goal of this community is to provide a safe space for people suffering from chronic illness. Moderation may be heavy handed at times. If you don’t like that, find or create another community that prioritises something else.
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That behavior was pretty par for the course among all the doctors I've visited. A little more blatant than usual maybe, but the sentiment was one I'm used to. I stuck with him because he was the first ever GP out of the many I've tried to not dismiss symptoms I was describing.
I'm a 4th year medical student and I make a point of listening first and openly admitting if I don't know something and then I go look it up. I really detest the old-school doctors that are overly confident and paternalistic. It's a terrible way to practice medicine.
Honestly, it sounds like you want to be one of the good ones. Piece of advice, you were a bit dismissive with me. I said I had a bad experience that was common (among the chronically ill) and you told me you 'just get a different doctor'. As the experience is common, like I said, it genuinely isn't that easy. Most of us have tried many doctors and had an experience like this on some way with every one. So, I guess, the advice is, listen to patients who are disillusioned with the medical system and believe them when they share their experience. You seem to be super genuine and to have just had a small blind spot, so please don't take this the wrong way, I'm telling you this because I think you really want to do right by us and I think this could help.
I meant to be dismissive about that doctor's medical knowledge, not to be dismissive of your experience. I have my own complex health problems and I know that switching providers is not always easy, but if a physician who has been practicing for years doesn't know something that they put on the first and second levels of board exams, I would be suspicious of their expertise in other areas. Even before starting medical school, I would "fire" a doctor and get a new one if they told me something that was provably nonsense/wrong. Health is precious and should not be entrusted to people without the knowledge and humility to keep learning throughout their lives as medical providers.
May you never lose that sentiment or burn out over it.