A.B.
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According to a survey by the Autoimmune Diseases Association, over 45 percent of patients with autoimmune diseases have been labeled chronic complainers in the earliest stages of their illness. In addition, another AARDA survey found that it takes most autoimmune patients up to 4.6 years and nearly 5 doctors before receiving a proper autoimmune disease diagnosis.
And guess what kind of diagnosis those other four doctors are going to make (and then likely never hear from the patient again).
https://www.aarda.org/autoimmune-information/autoimmune-disease-in-women/
According to this same organization, the symptoms in autoimmune diseases tend to fluctuate a lot, are often vague and unspecific in the beginning.
Fluctuating symptoms can very easily mislead the doctor and patient into believing that some truly ineffective intervention (such as talking therapy) worked wonders when all that happened is that the disease has gone into remission for a while.
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