UK General Election in May

[helperofearth123]

I did one better and spoke to Julian Huppert in person (Cambridgeshire lib dem MP)! He came round knocking on doors and I answered. Greasy haired and leaning heavily on the door frame I made a short and bumbled speech about ME/CFS urgently needing more funding and about it being hugely underfunded in comparison to other similarly disabling diseases. He made a note of it on his phone. I doubt anything much will come of it, but if he hears about it from a few more people I'd imagine that would make it 'an issue'!

The Lib dems are making funding 'mental health' a priority of theirs in this election, which is great, but it obviously doesn't help us. It does mean though that they at least recognise the need to fund under-funded diseases. Enough pressure could get them to widen the scope, who knows, if you have the energy give sending a letter, please try!

 

[PhoenixDown]

I think if we had health insurance instead there would be more chance that patients with ME would be able to get some kind of treatment.

Which treatment would that be?

 

[msf]

I just saw your post, Phoenix Down. I was thinking about my own case, which fulfills a lot of the ICC criteria, but which was triggered by a Yersinia infection. If we had health insurance there would be more chance of me being able to find a doctor who would be willing to prescribe antibiotics to treat this infection. I think many ME cases are actually caused by a chronic infection (I think the only question is what proportion of them are caused by this), and there are treatments for all of them if doctors are willing to prescribe them.

 

[ukxmrv]

Which treatment would that be?

I think some of the USA based patients are using private insurance for testing and treatment. We need the doctors though in the UK with an interest in this area to work in the private field. Also we need the GMC to let them practice freely.