Just My Honest Opinion

In this Part 2 of my review of the December 2017 Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee meeting, I'll address a question discussed there: Should we target specialists or primary care doctors in a physician education project? Dr. Jose Montoya said in the meeting that the best place for the type of clinical care SEID (systemic exertion intolerance disease) patients need is in the specialist setting. I absolutely agree. Those who are our experts now give a long time to each patient, an amount of time that is not profitable for each patient in a primary care setting. Our medical care system is still set as a pay for service. "It's not unusual for primary care doctors' appointments to be scheduled at 15-minute intervals," says a 2014 USA Today article . This is not a match for our multi-system, multi-symptom, multi-treatment disease. Setting aside the time element, there is also the level of knowledge needed. Specialists are specialists because the...

The December Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee meeting reflected much progress. It's refreshing to see some new faces taking up the advocacy. As one group let's go or moves on or dies, another takes hold of pushing the government forward, giving voice to the patient experience. And they do so with such credibility, bringing passion and reasonableness, and real-world patient and professional experience. Our patient and patient organization advocates are themselves experts. They are impressive in what they bring to the discussion. And I just can't get over the difference in attitude and effort and knowledge of our current ex-officios (except a few, of which I'll address later). I remember when the FDA ex-officio slept during the meetings--and when he had to participate, showed himself to be a real prick. I just can't get over how knowledgeable the current FDA rep Dr. Keith Hull is about our disease. And I've not seen him before. Very impressive. He...

Those who follow my blog know I was disheartened at the negative reaction to the Institute of Medicine's report suggesting "systemic exertion intolerance disease" be the new label for "ME/CFS." I predicted that insisting on "myalgic encephalomyelitis" will leave us with the status quo, which means the disease will continue to most commonly be known as "chronic fatigue syndrome." My prediction, thus far, has proved true. I have spoken to others who share my view and actually prefer "SEID." I said, "Shouldn't we also be advocating for what we think is best?" I was told, "Give it up. The ship has sailed. It's over. Move on. Science will solve it." This greatly disturbs me to the point of tears. We have this opportunity, and we are squandering it. How many more years must we be stuck with harmful disease names? The reason the name wasn't changed in 2003, our last opportunity, was because science would...

ME/CFS patients find themselves in a deep hole of darkness and despair. Trying to crawl out of that hole requires great courage in the face of ignorance, bias and worst, apathy. Imagine decades of spooning away the dirt to make progress while people pass over the hole concerned only with their own schedules and recreation. Oh, occasionally, a passersby will say, "So sorry to see you in that hole." And then to add insult to injury, literally, a person will say, "How did you get in that hole? What did you do? Why can't you get out?" It's even worse when someone says, "Maybe if I pour some dirt on you, you will get out of the hole." The frustration, the fear, the anger builds and builds. And there the ME/CFS person is, still digging away at the hole, trying to get out. Many children who suffer from neglect and abuse will channel that anger into destructive, unproductive behavior. They do things that hurt themselves as much as the object of their a...