There was a half hour segment about ME on a daily show ("5op2" on channel "Nederland 2") this afternoon. My Dutch is not great, but I was able to follow most of it. There were three guests: a patient (Sonja Silva), an ME specialist that works as the spokesman for a Dutch ME patient organisation (Theo Wijlhuizen), and a medical historian.
The ME patient had the real thing, and (I think) mentioned that she is currently in a remission. She talked about doctors being dismissive and sending ME patients to psychologists when they can't find a cause for it. She also said we get "written off".
I couldn't understand most of what the historian said, but the others were in agreement with him.
Theo Wijlhuizen spoke about the wide variety of symptoms, and something about vitamins. He also spoke about the "between the ears" (psychological) perceptions, I think, in a manner that indicated he didn't agree with ME being psychological.
The show did a flashback to Dutch news footage about ME from 1990, 2001(?), and 2010. Some of that was pretty crappy, and had Sonja Silva looking pissed off. I think some of it was simplifying ME as "fatigue".
The host was sympathetic with the guests (not adversarial), and the whole segment seemed pretty positive. Though I'm not sure I agree with Sonja's assertion that ME necessarily gets worse in the fall and better in the spring
The ME patient had the real thing, and (I think) mentioned that she is currently in a remission. She talked about doctors being dismissive and sending ME patients to psychologists when they can't find a cause for it. She also said we get "written off".
I couldn't understand most of what the historian said, but the others were in agreement with him.
Theo Wijlhuizen spoke about the wide variety of symptoms, and something about vitamins. He also spoke about the "between the ears" (psychological) perceptions, I think, in a manner that indicated he didn't agree with ME being psychological.
The show did a flashback to Dutch news footage about ME from 1990, 2001(?), and 2010. Some of that was pretty crappy, and had Sonja Silva looking pissed off. I think some of it was simplifying ME as "fatigue".
The host was sympathetic with the guests (not adversarial), and the whole segment seemed pretty positive. Though I'm not sure I agree with Sonja's assertion that ME necessarily gets worse in the fall and better in the spring