The Hiccuping Girls of Old Salem

[mfairma]

When the world is stumped, the public cries for answers, and doctors risk admitting the limits of knowledge, only one man can save us from the horrors of moral and intellectual ambiguity: Simon Wessely, The Patient Blamer . . .

https://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/salem-hiccups-mystery?utm_term=.bmexawxKmO#.yc11b31NxL

 

[Snowdrop]

I thought this was going to turn out to be a limerick. Oh well. I skimmed the article (kinda long for me).
A lesson in letting unusual things be if not causing harm, let them flame out and don't fuss about medicalising it or needing to weigh in with weighty opinions on the matter.

Hiccups came and hiccups went. Life goes on.

Aww, I'm gonna give it a try:

There once was a girl with a hiccup
diagnosed as having eaten much ketchup
she went very red
and it was said
it was all quite a tempest in teacup

 

[mfairma]

Sorry to disappoint!

 

[Snowdrop]

@mfairma It was quite momentary you can be sure.

 

[mfairma]

I am continually amazed by the lack of self awareness among doctors and psychologists of the ridiculousness, facileness, and unkindness of labeling as psychosomatic every problem that defies easy explanation. I went yesterday for follow-up on a cardiac ablation that took place in early July. For the first five weeks or so following the procedure, the palpitations were far more frequent and severe than beforehand and I experienced more intense heart rate awareness, but those symptoms began to taper off in the last week or so. I explained this and the doctor spent most of the visit laying down the groundwork for future visits that any continuing problems are probably just anxiety. This, even though the surgery wasn't a rousing success; they couldn't replicate the palpitations, but treated an errant pathway that they assume could have been causing the problem. It's such a one-note act that I never quite manage to adjust to its prevalence.

 

[zzz]

I thought this was going to turn out to be a limerick.

Yes, that title is definitely the first line of a limerick. So here goes my version...

The hiccuping girls of old Salem
Had an illness that pretty much nailed 'em.
But they had more to fear
For Sir Simon was near
And he used BPS to impale 'em.

 

[Snowdrop]

I'm sorry to hear this @mfairma you deserve better. I hope they reconsider and take your symptoms seriously as in investigate.

I think one future solution might be to help, financially aid, and fast track people from disadvantaged backgrounds into medicine and just change the whole dynamic. They may be more sensitive to the fact that people really are ill even if the cause isn't clear.

 

[mfairma]

I'm sorry to hear this @mfairma you deserve better. I hope they reconsider and take your symptoms seriously as in investigate.

I think one future solution might be to help, financially aid, and fast track people from disadvantaged backgrounds into medicine and just change the whole dynamic. They may be more sensitive to the fact that people really are ill even if the cause isn't clear.

It wasn't particularly upsetting. At this point, after all the more aggressively negative experiences from when I first got sick, it's really only upsetting intellectually. I tend to notice this sort of behavior more than my wife does, but even she walked out of the appointment irritated.

Since I got sick, I've come to wish there was some way to give everyone the experience of being terribly ill for a short period, as some sort of dictatorial government requirement. Ridiculous, but the world would be a better place if more people knew what sickness was. It's hard not to become more empathetic and less cocksure if you've suffered. A younger relative of mine has rheumatoid arthritis and has become interested in becoming a PA since diagnosis. Having known suffering and years of mistreatment from doctors, she will be great in that role. If only doctors were taught engagement and humility. It may be that less advantaged people might have a leg up in that regard.

 

[A.B.]

The hiccups broke out in Salem
But doctors were of no help
It is dark magic, a job for an exorcist, they said
Sir Weasel answered the call
He proudly said: "I broke the spell!"
But the patients were still just as ill

 

[daisybell]

I've seen a number of patients with persistent hiccups in the years I was working - most were post brain stem stroke hiccups but a few were presumed to be virally induced - all of them had something that had affected their vagus nerve function.

 

[Seven7]

My dad had terrible hipcus for a month, it was a fungus.

 

[mfairma]

Interesting Daisy, Inester. You'd think, at the very least, if you are unwilling to trust patients, you might notice that everything around looks an awful lot like nails.

 

[Woolie]

The article is almost laughable!

On the one hand they say this:

“There is a popular perception that victims of ‘mass hysteria’ are somehow weak-minded or suffering from a mental disorder,” he said. “This perception needs to change, and I believe it begins with public health officials investigating these outbreaks.”.

Then spread throughout the article are subtle hints that we know its mass hysteria because most of the victims are "teenage girls"!

Most laughable is the idea that people had "evidence" that these hiccups and tics were psychogenic. Of course they didn't. You don't need any! Just an absence of any other explanation. That's why these explanations take hold and flourish so readily.

On the funnier side, apparently "psychogenic illness" flourishes when there is economic hardship and stress!

I wonder: under what conditions do "psychogenic illness explanations" flourish? Well, let's see, that would be ignorance, lack of understanding of disease and its consequences, and the capacity to link the episodes to a group that are held in some contempt (in this case, teenage girls). Think Freud, there's your case study.

 

[Little Bluestem]

they couldn't replicate the palpitations, but treated an errant pathway that they assume could have been causing the problem.

Because heaven forbid that they admit they can not find the source of the problem and do nothing. You probably didn't need that pathway anyway.

 

[Little Bluestem]

“Look at how yawning can become contagious. We pick up on other people, it’s part of the human condition.”

And the yawning goes on for weeks.

 

[mfairma]

Because heaven forbid that they admit they can not find the source of the problem and do nothing. You probably didn't need that pathway anyway.

Yeah, I was pretty upset about that when I woke up and they told me they couldn't find the problem but did something anyways . . .