John and Jane are unknown to each other but they both begin to have ME/CFS symptoms at the same time. They Google for treatment, find info on pacing, decide that is the answer to the problem, and begin to use it. The pain seems to be lessening but then a few days later it returns worse than ever. It makes sense to each of them that they weren't pacing enough so they lower their activity even more. Same thing happens - pain seems to lessen for a few days and then returns again. They both think to themselves that they better bring down the activity level even more. Once again, the same pattern plays out.
At this point, John gets frustrated and decides that he has to bring the activity level down even more. Meanwhile, Jane also gets frustrated, but instead of automatically continuing along the same path as John, she starts to sense that there could be something she is missing. Maybe pacing by itself is not going to solve her problem she thinks. She decides to give it one last try.
A few days later, they find themselves back at square one. Again, John decides that his pacing level hasn't been good enough and that he needs to pace even more. However, this time Jane feels that same sense that she felt before and it is even more compelling this time. She decides that she needs to figure out what she is missing beyond pacing.
The question I want to pose to the forum is how are we able to know when our treatment option is not going to work rather than increasing the levels of it? Similarly, how do we get to the point where we are able to realize a treatment option is not going to work WITHOUT EVEN TRYING IT? This is a real thing right? There might be a treatment that multiple people claim has cured them that we have never tried, but we can still be quite sure that it won't work. Where does that intuition come from? It is the same thing when it comes to certain theories. For those of us who have been dealing with this condition for several years, we are able to quickly dismiss a theory as a failure even though we might have believed it if the first doctor we ever saw told us the same thing when we first had symptoms.
It is not a matter of intelligence or reason. When I, or anyone else, initially get a diagnosis we know nothing about from an authority figure, we are going to believe whatever information we receive. If it were about intelligence, at least some of us would be able to see the information is wrong from the beginning even if it's completely new. Do we agree that the factor that allows us to not get stuck where others do is not the intellect? I'll stop here for now. I hope some of you guys will agree that this is a very important topic that deserves some focus.
At this point, John gets frustrated and decides that he has to bring the activity level down even more. Meanwhile, Jane also gets frustrated, but instead of automatically continuing along the same path as John, she starts to sense that there could be something she is missing. Maybe pacing by itself is not going to solve her problem she thinks. She decides to give it one last try.
A few days later, they find themselves back at square one. Again, John decides that his pacing level hasn't been good enough and that he needs to pace even more. However, this time Jane feels that same sense that she felt before and it is even more compelling this time. She decides that she needs to figure out what she is missing beyond pacing.
The question I want to pose to the forum is how are we able to know when our treatment option is not going to work rather than increasing the levels of it? Similarly, how do we get to the point where we are able to realize a treatment option is not going to work WITHOUT EVEN TRYING IT? This is a real thing right? There might be a treatment that multiple people claim has cured them that we have never tried, but we can still be quite sure that it won't work. Where does that intuition come from? It is the same thing when it comes to certain theories. For those of us who have been dealing with this condition for several years, we are able to quickly dismiss a theory as a failure even though we might have believed it if the first doctor we ever saw told us the same thing when we first had symptoms.
It is not a matter of intelligence or reason. When I, or anyone else, initially get a diagnosis we know nothing about from an authority figure, we are going to believe whatever information we receive. If it were about intelligence, at least some of us would be able to see the information is wrong from the beginning even if it's completely new. Do we agree that the factor that allows us to not get stuck where others do is not the intellect? I'll stop here for now. I hope some of you guys will agree that this is a very important topic that deserves some focus.