No, I don’t think it would help you. You will go on to become another unhelpful doctor who gets a steady paycheck in spite of not actually diagnosing and treating your patients’ problems. And you will go home from work each day with new stories of all the fat, lazy patients who complain of pains that you can’t palpate…

Oh great, your empathy is really showing. Maybe try a field where you don’t have to deal with sick people and their “vague symptoms. “

Does your med school offer classes in empathy?

It’s anecdotes like this that do damage. That aunt faked symptoms so everyone else must be too.

And the reason it does not show up on blood tests? Because its a spirochete. And spirochetes can burrow themselves out of the bloodstream and into tissue. But this is somehow some heresy voodoo crap to the medical world at large. I’m still trying to figure out why.

Insurance is a whole other cluster fuck....the sore foot patient can get every test they ever wanted, but a person who has a stroke gets their therapy cut off because they are not progressing at some mathematically-based pre-determined pace.

I think the arrogance of the medical community is, at least in part, what helps draw people to these “new” diseases as the source of their unidentified pain. Doctors are constantly discounting these peoples’ pain and refusing to admit there is something they do not know. OF COURSE there are things out there we have…

I do not disagree with you, and I do not think our points are mutually exclusive. I think the frustration comes in (at least for me) when you are doing everything “right” (and have the food diary and heart rate monitor log to prove it) and are still miserable ... and all the tests routinely come back negative. Trying…

Right. And 90% of people who think they’re allergic to gluten aren’t. Just make sure you don’t dismiss the 10% who are suffering from real symptoms because of all the delusionals. Something to keep in mind as your studies progress

Great point. And considering how little is known about the disease itself, I'm not entirely convinced by the medical response of "it's not real". I mean, that's what they said about menstrual cramps right? That being said, I am all for evidence based research and medical practices so I'm not sure what the right answer…

I think in fairness to people, they can be aware that they are experiencing pain or discomfort that the medical community is unable to diagnose. I actually spent much of my mid-t0-late 20s convinced I had a thyroid problem because I had every classic symptom you could have...but every test or every type came back…

You don’t need to be an M.D.

Why is she a terrible spokesperson for chronic Lyme? I watch real housewives and I not only appreciate her experience with Lyme but I feel sick when the women attack her for faking it and I think she's done well in the face of all that harassment.

I’m currently suffering from Lyme. I suppose you could call it chronic since the initial round of treatment didn’t take care of it.