New book

iris

The link below contains an article by Dr Gavin Francis summarising his book entitled recovery. He is very sure how to treat post-viral fatigue which is what he calls long covid. This book is full of psychobabble and misrepresentation of facts. It's all been said a million times before in reference to me/cfs which presumably he includes as a post-viral illness ( a new label since the nice guideline on me/cfs came out?).

My dog thought humans were tricky. She was right.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/04/we-need-to-respect-the-process-of-healing-a-gp-on-the-overlooked-art-of-recovery?utm_term=61d960a34135b254e6a83ca67596c639&utm_campaign=TheLongRead&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=longread_email

Simone_Em_Aus

Thanks for the review, @iris! I can’t see the link though?

iris

@simone_em_aus Daffy Dave will add it. It's from the guardian newspaper

Daffy_Dave

@iris Sorry for the delay, the link's up now Not sure I like the sound of the author's approach, though.

river

Thanks for sharing. Arghhhh this frustrates me so much. Because 99% of what he's saying is very reasonable... If applied to literally any illness other than ME/CFS.

Take the quote below.

Physiotherapists encourage people experiencing relentless post-viral fatigue to gently push at the limits of what they can do in terms of physical effort. They’ve found that if those limits are not tested, then the realm of the possible begins to shrink – horizons contract, muscles weaken and sufferers can become trapped in a cycle of effort followed by collapse. The effort required to provoke each collapse begins to dwindle.

"if those limits are not tested, then the realm of the possible begins to shrink" - this is the COMPLETE opposite of what happens in ME/CFS. But then the sentence that follows - "The effort required to provoke each collapse begins to dwindle" - is perfectly describing what happens if we test our limits.
Then there is this sentence: "the body does all it can to retain its energies, even going so far as to manipulate our sense of effort so that to take a short walk, or to climb a flight of stairs, is to risk exhaustion". Implying that the energy limit is perceived rather than actual.

People are going to read this and come to the conclusion that the only reason a sick person would refuse to "test their limits" is due to some kind of psychological block. This is so, so harmful.