Posted by helpme on July 10, 2006, at 11:14:21
In reply to Please be civil » helpme, posted by gardenergirl on July 9, 2006, at 15:22:47
I guess I didn't communicate well. I am very apologetic, didn't mean to offend anyone here..
By "imaginary disease" I am not meaning to say that anyone's experiences or symptoms are in any way imaginary, I refer to the practice of pathologizing conditions that are either not pathologies, or somehow labeling people as defective in some way, especially when they are normal- does that make sense? THATS what I think is offensive.
Ie, rough examples: "PMS incapacitates women so they can't take important positions. It is a disease and they need meds. If you meet an angry woman, it is her disease. Don't pay attention to anything she says- here we got a pill to calm her opinions". "Gay people have a disorder, it is a disease and we have a pill for it." (Homosexuality was an official disease in DSM until recently, and hence certainly a candidate for pills. I'd call that an "imaginary disease".) "We gotta find SOME use for xyz pill now that we developed it and it doesn't work for what we intended-oh that person looks like a deviant of somekind". Is ageing supposed to be a "disease"? Is wilfully staying up late to party or work or do whatever and getting by on 4 hours of sleep per night and the resulting tiredness a "tiredness disease" requiring amphetamines or a behavior/lifestyle/psychlogy issue? If your neighbor is noisy and you can't sleep through the noise do you have a "can't sleep through noise disease"??? A "sleep disorder"? I'd not call that a genuine sleep disorder. Should a pill be developed? And for which person, you or the neighbor?
Did you know all those pills pushed for "GERD" actually result in a loss of stomache acid production and loss of ability to properly absorb nutrition and even more pain? And they rob you of B vitamins? I finally found more relief from my stomache pain by cutting coffee, NSAIDS, and alcohol down. I'm 100% fine when I consume those items in moderation or not at all. Probably better off without them anyway. But my general practitioner thinks I have a "disease", wrote that down, and keeps prescribing the pills so I can drink more coffee.
I've studied some Medical Anthropology in college and that is where this perspective came from. Different peoples have recognized similar physical symtoms and packaged them and treated them in different ways. Very sincerely sorry if I offended.
The only people I am angry with are manipulative drug marketeers who overdose innocent people and thereby harm them with all kinds of drug interactions and side effects.I'm also very sorry that my liver is in such a strain after having so many "diseases" over the years.
> > and them insisting on all kinds of imaginary diseases.
>
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poster:helpme
thread:647397
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060709/msgs/665692.html