Depression Poll

[Hip]

A boy in his early teens couldn't get assistance to go to the bathroom as an inpatient at a hospital.

I've read this happens to the elderly in some UK hospitals as well (see this article). But that's not the same as starving someone or withholding water until they do as you say.

Hello hip, I try to sent you a personal post about above but did not figure out yet how...

You just have to click on my user name "Hip" in any of my posts, and then select "Start a conversation" from the pop-up box.

 

[Aurator]

Last March I attended the Stanford conference on CFS/ME and experienced something that was very interesting. I was sitting next to a Psychiatrist who also was attending the meeting. He claimed he had a number of CFS/ME patients and wanted to learn more about this disease. About 2/3 through the conference, he began to cry. I asked him if he was ok. His response was guilt for treating his group of patients with CFS/ME for depression and not realizing that they had a severe chronic disease and were suffering from non validation of their problem. He learned during his continuing education in psychiatry that "chronic fatigue syndrome" was a psychiatric disease, only to later learn from attending the conference the horrible misjustice that has been perpetrated by his profession on these ill patients.

Best,
Gary

That sounds fascinating, Gary. A vague and somewhat forlorn hope occurs to me that this psychiatrist is working feverishly behind the scenes right now to persuade as many of his colleagues as possible throughout the world to attend the next Stanford conference on CFS/ME. Following that I foresee spectacular falls from grace, public retractions and apologies, civil lawsuits beyond number, compensation payouts, a thousand-fold increase in the public-funding of bio-medical research, and in a year or two's time the discovery of an effective treatment for ME.

Sorry, I was rambling in my sleep.

 

[MeSci]

People talk of the different levels of depression and almost like if it's caused by an illness it's really not true depression.

When I first came down with Epstein Barr I was sleeping around the clock. 8 months that lasted. Then I went into not sleeping. I was up all night. My sensitivity to noise was through the roof, I was vomiting and having panic attacks. There was no color in my life. My boyfriend at the time was worried sick. I lost 15 pounds and was 18 and looked anorexic. If I had anxiety which would come on out of nowhere, I would throw up. The EBV was messing up my brain. My adrenals were spewing adrenaline. I was told, "welcome to your new life, you have Chronic Epstein Barr. Quit college, rest and try and get better but know you may never get better." Just fab.

A month later after weeks of NO sleep, vomiting, panic, depression and dizziness...I went to a crisis center. I couldn't go on like this. I was depressed. My mom tried telling me, "it's the illness."

Let me tell you something...I still remember it. It didn't matter if it was the illness. Life was black. There was no living color. I was 18 and obsessed with the idea of checking out. I was panicking, sweating, breathing into paper bags...my life was upside down. I needed help. Clinical depression, depression from a virus? Who cares! I needed help.

I went on Tofranil and finally slept. Things weren't as bad. I was still anxious, sick, fevers...but I wasn't vomiting anymore. I had to now learn to live with a bomb that stopped my life abruptly. Sudden onset.

To me, it doesn't matter if it's situational, clinical, if someone has true classic depression...how or why should they be offended if someone else has situational depression? Is it any less disabling or painful?

My friend was the caregiver of her husband who had a stroke at age 38. She took care of him but became depressed. They were married for 5 years, so happy and now he couldn't talk, was in a wheelchair and she was cleaning up his diarrhea. Next up, dialysis. Full time job on top of her full time job. They lost their house, their life. She became so depressed that she stopped going to work, started sleeping constantly and had diarrhea. Does it matter that it was situational? Why should a true depressive be insulted if thats a reason for someone's depression?

Pain is pain. It doesn't matter why, or how.

What matters is that you are in distress. Someone needs to take that seriously. If someone who was depressed and suffered with major depression told me or someone I know.."well for me, it's chemistry, but yours isn't as paramount, it's situational, I would tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine." Situational can lead to clinical. Look at PTSD. Some people never recover from traumas in their life.

Pain is pain.

What you describe does indeed sound like clinical depression.

I'm not aware of anyone here being offended by someone else having depression. What has offended some of us is the allegation that those of us who say that we are not depressed really are.

I'm not aware of anyone complaining about anyone else's claimed causes for their depression. Yes - situations can indeed lead to chemical changes. It happened in my case.

I think what most of us here want is solutions. If depression and other supposedly psychiatric illnesses are in fact due to inflammation, etc. (which itself may have been caused by situational stress, infection, etc.) then maybe treating the inflammation will cure the depression. That's why finding the causes is so important. The initial cause isn't always the one you need to treat, as it may have gone, leaving a downstream abnormality, e.g. the inflammation.

 

[GracieJ]

@Hip

Do you have any particular conditions in mind which you consider normal human behavior, but which psychiatrists have classified as a mental health disorders? ADHD is the example people often give of psychiatrists going too far.

Yes. This one did make it into the DSM 5. "Intermittent Explosive Disorder." Your child's temper tantrums can now be "treated." So can the person who loses their temper twice a year.

Oops. Just caught myself in sarcasm.

When it was DSM III, although skeptical at some of the descriptions of personality disorders, I bought into this believing it was research and science based. So do many others. DSM 5 has changed a good deal, but unfortunately is still holding up subjective definitions as science, and that is a problem.

There is no question that social problems exist that need resolution to reduce suffering and conflict. That part of the equation is legitimate, and I read and respect the work of several clinicians who are doing their best to combat it. I also know a few of them and hear their war stories in private open conversations.

Some physical conditions requiring medical help as well as behavioral support are in the domain of psychiatrists here. Enuresis? Really?? That is an older example.

The more enlightened practitioners I have encountered will use the definition criteria to focus on a plan to mitigate suffering, but will use ICD codes that are vague in the paperwork to avoid harmful labels that could be used against the patient later.

There is also a very long list of conditions for other consideration, cultural and social situations that may have little to do with mental disorder. Of course, these are things to consider when helping someone with a medical problem. One is homelessness. Another is military deployment. But to have ICD and diagnostic codes listed to bill insurance?

Some of the personality "disorders" were once on such a list. Now they are a "disease" that may have medications suggested. Practitioners argue that way, as well. "Well, look right here. It says it right here in this manual listing mental disorders. You need medication." Often it is behavioral changes and emotional support and healthy life skills that are the true need.

The above examples are from dealing with practitioners who saw family members over the years. I was sitting with them in the exam room.

I have met several young men and young women in a program to help wayward teens. They often have the Oppositional Defiance label attached and are medicated. I know many of the staff members who are working with them. The problems are real. These kids abuse themselves and others, break laws, and end up in court as juvenile offenders. They are in and out of detention facilities. Their personal life skills are deficient. Talking with them one-on-one is sometimes heart-breaking. They think they are weak, sick people who will always need to be medicated to control themselves.

That was a few points in a nutshell, long post as it is. DSM 5 is the summary and reflection of decades of clinicians working with social issues. It is not perfect. I just detest seeing it used to further damage lives instead of helping.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

I guess you're addressing the moderators and administrators, and not the author of the poll? Though the thought of @charles shepherd as my pet, or hanging on the words of @Jonathan Edwards (whom I at times argue with at length) is amusing. And very disturbing

Spooky, but pigs don't fly very often.

 

[MeSci]

Why on earth is PR asking people to vote about whether or not they're depressed? It's no wonder that so many people with M.E. (M.E., not the wastebasket diagnosis of CFS - one which includes so many people who do not have the physical disease, M.E., as defined by the WHO or the CCC or, even better, the ICC) avoid this forum, completely.

We're trying very hard to get biomedical research done on the physical disease, M.E., and all that this post and thread (not everyone) is doing is muddying the waters, which might be the purpose. Psychs would love this thread. Throw in the recent Wesselyian - 'people with depression have neuro and immune disorders' - and you're feeding them exactly what they want to hear.

You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick here, @Anabel. I understood the purpose of this poll was to find out once and for all how high the prevalence of depression was - or wasn't - in ME. I believe that @Valentijn - the person who started this thread - was of the same view as myself - that it was not much higher than that in the general population, and should therefore NOT be in a list of key symptoms for the illness. (I'm sure she will correct me if I'm wrong.) The intent, IMO, was to try to put this myth to bed so we can get on with the bio stuff.

The Wessely mob do not think that people with depression have neuro and immune disorders - quite the opposite. They deny physical causation such as neurology or immunology, and put it all down to psychology.

I don't think they will like the findings at all - I hope not!

But they would probably find a way to twist them to suit their own purposes anyway.

 

[Valentijn]

I believe that @Valentijn - the person who started this thread - was of the same view as myself - that it was not much higher than that in the general population, and should therefore NOT be in a list of key symptoms for the illness.

Mostly I was just chronically annoyed with the crappy methods used by BPS researchers to diagnose depression in ME/CFS patients, and with people repeating numbers from those studies as if they were reliable. I wanted a general idea of what actual prevalence rates might be, since the research wasn't helpful, and a poll seemed like a good place to start.

And now when someone starts on about "50%" (or 100%), I can send them here after the requisite lecture about grossly inappropriate diagnostic questionnaires

 

[alex3619]

Often pi**ed off and frustrated, but not depressed. At times sad over things I haven't been able to do? Yes - just as anyone would be.

Ditto. I am very happy with myself, but I am unhappy with my circumstances. I have a huge list of things I want to do ... and can't. I can be bright and cheerful.

I can get depressed if I dwell on the worst aspects of my life for long periods. I just don't go there any more.

Its completely understandable that some of us are depressed due to the circumstances though. Our lives are difficult, and the options to improve this are limited.

I suspect that if you eliminated ME symptoms from the questions for typical depression instruments then you might have a blank questionnaire. How does a doctor separate depression from ME? I agree with Lenny Jason that asking patients about what they want to do is a start. The other one is really really simple: ask them if they are depressed. Sure there can be some issues with what is meant by depression, and lowered mood, etc.

I am happy with who I am. I often have good mood - not hyper, but a kind of calm OK. My life circumstances suck though.

Greenberg in The Book of Woe makes a case that depression is not a well defined entity. There are a huge number of potential symptoms in the DSM. Its most likely a syndrome with many different causes. Smushing together many different things and getting confused by them ... does that sound familiar? CFS is just such a hodge podge of different factors. Even ME might be a collection of different diseases all thrown into the same basket, though not nearly as bad as CFS.

Edit: Greenberg wrote The Book of Woe. Frances wrote Saving Normal. I have both, though my copy of Saving Normal is out on loan right now.

 

[alex3619]

One thing that antidepressants have truly accomplished over the last few decades is making doctors particularly lazy, lumping anything they didn't know into the "psychosomatic" box, and dispatching the patient with antidepressant pills like it was candy. Big pharma made out like bandits too.

Hence the phrases "cook book" and "tickbox" medicine. Its been about efficiency, getting patients in and out of doctor's offices fast. Its NOT been about effectiveness, or properly dealing with the issues.

 

[alex3619]

Sadly there will always be insensitivity in forums.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I think we have an additional issue with ME. In order to function I have to be very focussed. So when I write a post I am addressing a very specific thing. Other considerations sometimes thus get overlooked.

We can say insensitive things, but that does not necessarily mean we are insensitive only that we cannot be sensitive and function at the same time. In replying to a seemingly insensitive post we can fall into the same trap. This says nothing about the person, it says a lot about how those with ME function.

 

[MeSci]

Spooky, but pigs don't fly very often.

I am now tugging my forelock and prostrating myself in worship of the great prof.

 

[MeSci]

Hi Valentijn,

Last March I attended the Stanford conference on CFS/ME and experienced something that was very interesting. I was sitting next to a Psychiatrist who also was attending the meeting. He claimed he had a number of CFS/ME patients and wanted to learn more about this disease. About 2/3 through the conference, he began to cry. I asked him if he was ok. His response was guilt for treating his group of patients with CFS/ME for depression and not realizing that they had a severe chronic disease and were suffering from non validation of their problem. He learned during his continuing education in psychiatry that "chronic fatigue syndrome" was a psychiatric disease, only to later learn from attending the conference the horrible misjustice that has been perpetrated by his profession on these ill patients.

Best,
Gary

Wow. I feel sorry for this guy. I wonder what he is going to do.

Is there a way to get more psychs to educational conferences like that? Obviously not in a way that they can dominate proceedings, but so they can learn about the science?

 

[Gingergrrl]

@Valentijn

They're usually intending to trash a very small subset of BPS practitioners - the ones who believe in and promote psychogenic theories. It sounds like you were doing the sort of thing which those psychobabblers merely use as a ruse to gain an abusive foothold in various biological diseases.

Thank you for your answer but I am not understanding what you mean that what I was doing was a ruse to gain an abusive foothold into biological diseases. I have re-read this sentence but don't get it! I worked in an outpatient mental health program that was part of a psych hospital for 12 years and prior to myself getting ME/CFS following mono/EBV, I never in my entire career heard the term "myalgic encephalomyelitis." That term was brand new to me when I found PR.

The term ME was not used by the psychiatrists that I worked with or by anyone I knew. I worked with patients with severe depression, bipolar disorder, suicide attempts, anxiety, OCD, schizophrenia, eating disorders, etc, and we did not give a final diagnosis until all potential medical and substance abuse causes of their illness had been assessed and ruled out. There was a huge emphasis placed on medical and biological causes and it was nothing like what you describe or assume.

Ironically it was the opposite of what you describe and psychiatry was given little status by the rest of the hospital and held no power. There was still a huge stigma against mental health which we were fighting hard to shatter.

BPS should be looking at all three factors, as you did, and assisting people struggling with them. But the psychobabblers have twisted the entire concept, attributing all physical problems to psychological origins. They only delve into the social realm to explain that our unfulfilling lives result in the psychological dysfunction, but perversely do not attempt any social interventions or assistance.

Since I have joined PR, I have found the term "psychobabblers" offensive but have just tried to ignore it. I was never really sure who it pertained to and felt like I should not disclose that I am a social worker/therapist. And in some ways I no longer am since ME/CFS ended my career. But it was a career that I loved for 16 years and I worked in many different settings as I said including five years in geriatrics doing home visits prior to working in mental health. Every intervention I have ever done involves looking at the person in their social environment and assisting them both psychologically and socially with whatever is needed and a HUGE part of that was as a case manager or care coordinator who helped people to get medical care.

I dare say that 99% of people who criticize psychologists are not talking about anyone beyond this very small group.

But they do not say that. Most posts make sweeping generalizations against an entire profession and lately it is getting very tiring for me to read and I leave PR feeling hurt and insulted unless I just stick with the birthday threads, doggie threads, joke of the day, and the Prayer Tree.

But people have a tendency to be a bit lazy with language, and will often just refer to them as "psychs", instead of specifying that they are talking about a unique brand of BPS psychosomatic quack typically owned by insurance companies, not actual therapists who want to help people.

I have not yet met one therapist who was owned by the insurance companies and literally spent half my career fighting against the insurance companies who were trying to deny people the care that they needed. We had patients begging to stay in our program but could not b/c insurance had denied them their treatment and meds. We were NEVER aligned with the insurance companies, and I mean literally never.

Hence psychologists and psychiatrists generally pose a serious risk to every patient in the UK and the Netherlands, and we have to avoid the entire profession as a matter of course. This leads to a lot of distrust and distaste for the profession in general, and some of it is warranted - why do these therapists not think critically about what they are told by an authority figure? Why do they not listen to patients and attempt to verify the truth of what the patient is telling them before dismissing it?

I am learning from you guys what is going on in the UK and Netherlands but it is new for me. Social workers and therapists here in the US very much think critically and if anything are the best advocates for patients than anyone I have ever seen. When a patient told me their story, I believed them and I helped them to the absolute best of my ability. Their diagnosis did not matter to me, what mattered was that they were suffering and in pain and I was there to listen and provide support. It was always a collaboration and I had no agenda other than the stated goals that the patient wanted to work on.

Most therapists and even doctors do fail us in these situations, even if it's not really their fault - they're just doing what they're told by people who they trust. So therapists can end up in a very bad situation - they become unwitting tools used by nasty bastards to hurt sick people. They are usually well-intentioned, but they all look the same to us when we're the ones being harmed.

This just has not been my experience. There are good and bad therapists (as there are good and bad doctors, teachers, attorneys, etc) but to say that therapists are tools to hurt sick people seems very extreme to me. Having worked in this field all my life (from a volunteer up to a licensed clinician) I just have not experienced this and have worked with thousands of people.

I have to say it feels really good to finally speak up about this regardless of what responses I do or do not get.

 

[A.B.]

Hi Valentijn,

Last March I attended the Stanford conference on CFS/ME and experienced something that was very interesting. I was sitting next to a Psychiatrist who also was attending the meeting. He claimed he had a number of CFS/ME patients and wanted to learn more about this disease. About 2/3 through the conference, he began to cry. I asked him if he was ok. His response was guilt for treating his group of patients with CFS/ME for depression and not realizing that they had a severe chronic disease and were suffering from non validation of their problem. He learned during his continuing education in psychiatry that "chronic fatigue syndrome" was a psychiatric disease, only to later learn from attending the conference the horrible misjustice that has been perpetrated by his profession on these ill patients.

Best,
Gary

I'm glad to hear this. If only more psychiatrists were like this. Wishing to learn and willing to acknowledge that their current approach is wrong.

 

[GracieJ]

@MeSci I appreciate your comments about the similarities in our stories.

It is knowing that my story is not unique that finally gave me the courage to talk and write about both depression and ME instead of once again co-dependently letting others squash it as not legitimate.

@Gingergrrl

Please always stay!!! I am functioning happy and strong and relatively healthy because of wonderful insightful LCSWs who could name the truth and name the lies wisely and accurately.

 

[Valentijn]

Thank you for your answer but I am not understanding what you mean that what I was doing was a ruse to gain an abusive foothold into biological diseases.

BPS should address all 3 factors, and that's what you did - it's a good thing. But the BPS psychobabbles who promote psychogenic theories do something very different, while trying to use the BPS label for legitimacy. Instead of addressing biological and social aspects, they twist the entire concept of BPS to mean that any biological factors are caused by psychological dysfunction. To a large extent, they are not actually BPS practitioners, but that's how they label themselves and that's what we usually call them. Or bioPSYCHO(social) if we want to be cute.

Since I have joined PR, I have found the term "psychobabblers" offensive but have just tried to ignore it. I was never really sure who is pertained to and felt like I should not disclose that I am a social worker/therapist. And in some ways I no longer am since ME/CFS ended my career.

Psychobabblers = Psychologist and psychiatrists who promote bizarre theories of psychological causes for obviously biological diseases. Basically they are a small group of quacks, not the larger group of psychologists and psychiatrists who are sane and well-intentioned (even if misguided at times).

Most posts make sweeping generalizations against an entire profession and lately it is getting very tiring for me to read and I leave PR feeling hurt and insulted unless I just stick with the birthday threads, doggie threads, joke of the day, and the Prayer Tree.

Feel free to tell them off or report it to moderators, until they figure out they need to be a bit more careful with their language. It's a violation of the rules to disparage forum members, etc, which they are doing if they're being too broad in their attempts to badmouth the few bad apples.

I have not yet met one therapist who was owned by the insurance companies and literally spent half my career fighting against the insurance companies who were trying to deny people the care that they needed.

I was referring to researchers, not therapists. And again, it's only a few small groups who aren't really active in the US anyhow. But those small groups do a lot of harm which spreads around the world.

This just has not been my experience. There are good and bad therapists (as there are good and bad doctors, teachers, attorneys, etc) but to say that therapists are tools to hurt sick people seems very extreme to me. Having worked in this field all my life (from a volunteer up to a licensed clinician) I just have not experienced this and have worked with thousands of people.

Yet it happens to European ME patients on a regular basis. Therapists are specifically targeted by psychogenic propaganda regarding ME, and taught that the only way to help us is by convincing us that we're not really ill and that we just need to force ourselves to become more active. There are clinics dedicated to this in the UK and the Netherlands - in fact, I don't think there are any biologically-based clinics funded by either government. Most of the therapists probably really believe it is true and that we are delusional, and they genuinely want to help us.

There is a great deal of resources supporting the psychogenic claims here. There is a manual supported by the Dutch government for treating ME as a psychosomatic disorder. The official guide on clinical treatment in the UK promotes CBT and GET. The psychosomatic Dutch researchers are considered the proper authority on ME/CFS in the Netherlands. A UK government agency very recently categorized ME/CFS as a mental/behavioral disorder on their website until widespread outcry forced them to remove it from that category.

So when a practitioner who has never heard of ME/CFS in these countries goes looking for some reputable info, the "trustworthy" sources contain a great deal of psychosomatic disinformation and suggestions for treatment. If a patient is lucky, their doctor will just read about the treatments and think that the CBT is for coping with ME/CFS, as it would be for other diseases. If a patient is not lucky, their doctor will believe the authorities who claim it's undeniable that ME/CFS is a psychosomatic disorder (at least one Dutch patient has recently died as a direct result). And because psychological therapists are expected to have some expertise with ME/CFS patients, they will have read all of the authoritative sources who state that only CBT and GET can cure ME/CFS.

To them, an ME/CFS patient claiming to have a purely biological disease is equivalent to a schizophrenic claiming to be the next prophet. They believe that we are delusional, or at least misguided, and that we must be made to see and accept reality.

 

[A.B.]

I am learning from you guys what is going on in the UK and Netherlands but it is new for me.

My father is a doctor, with a strong belief in psychological explanations for illness. In the entire time I've been ill, he has never thought that perhaps it would be useful to do some lab testing, or try some pharmacological intervention. On the contrary, he has discouraged it. It's not even possible to normally discuss the issue with him, since whenever the issue is discussed, he goes into "therapy mode" where the goal is to change the other person while denying that any problem exists.

The so called mental health professionals I've seen are only slightly better. Zero interest in biology. Fanatical belief in psychological explanations, despite a lack of success or improvement (or a scientific basis). Attitudes that legitimize the abuse and neglect of patients. I find myself agreeing a lot with Valentijn.

The school of thought in the psych fields is incredibly destructive and therapists seem completely unaware of this. Asserting that a problem is the result of behavior / thinking / whatever character flaw is in fashion, inevitably leads to abuse of the patient. Possibly by the same people the patient depends on to live. Possibly in the worst possible moment, when the patient's life is already falling apart.

I live in Italy so maybe these things are a European problem.

Edit: not all therapists are like this, some are just naive and think some talking will solve the problem.

 

[Misfit Toy]

@MeSci -you keep pointing out what I say and you are acting like I'm talking about you or talking to you. I don't even know you! I am not speaking of you, thinking about you when I write my posts so stop taking my posts to mean that I'm speaking of you. Please get over my "opinion" that more people are depressed with CFS then they claim. Keep scrolling and stop chastising or pointing out what I say. If you know you aren't depressed, then you are not depressed. There's nothing to keep proving because you've made your point numerous times. I don't know why you are almost responding to everyone's post and agreeing or disagreeing.

Gosh, my last post I was referring to what someone else said, sorry I didn't point out who.

And thank you for saying it sounds like clinical depression. You talk of how I shouldn't say how people are depressed on here; I don't know them. Do you know me? No diagnoses please.

I was speaking of something in my last post that happened 26 years ago when I got sick.

If we were all so smart and okay and even happy, none of us would even be on here. No one would keep quoting people and replying because they'd be out living their lives doing things that had nothing to do with illness. Days wouldn't be spent on PR liking, quoting or responding to posts.

We are all just patients. Not doctors. And ill patients, might I add.

And debating about something so nebulous with people we don't even know.

 

[Kati]

You saw patients at what sounds like a particularly well-organised establishment. You saw those who could get on the trials, those who could actually get there. The clinical trials are essentially to enable drug companies to get their drugs licensed. Then - at least sometimes - the companies put up the price of their newly-licensed drugs so that patients can't get funding for further treatment, and the companies go on to try to get their next new drug licensed via new trials, and so on.

If the make-up is to conceal the cancer or the effects of treatment, surely this and the wigs should just be available to all those patients who need them without having to travel, ill and exhausted, yet again for a special event? If the damage has been caused by treatment, it is iatrogenic, and it is the health service's job to fix it. If a more logical process were used to develop drugs (see my blogpost) these side-effects would not happen, and patients would be properly cured more quickly.

I would still rather have ME.

Actually, where I live, cancer belongs to a provincial program. There are protocols (best treatments) for every tumour groups, according to the histology/staging of cancer. Cost of all cancer drugs is covered 100% by our socialized health care.

Services for cancer range from social services (icvluding help with disability application) physio, counselling, nutrition, and referral for home care. It is impossible to get home care for ME.

Patients with cancer have access to a door to door volunteer services, so driving to the clinic (and paying for parking) is covered.

The 'look good, feel better' program (make ip and wig) comes from donations from beauty industry.

Research is funded by pharma. Participation to research is voluntary and many choose to participate. It is through research that the existing protocols in oncology provide the best evidence-based care to patients and the very best chance of disease-free survival.

Compare this to ME if you like.

 

[MeSci]

@Valentijn
Thank you for your answer but I am not understanding what you mean that what I was doing was a ruse to gain an abusive foothold into biological diseases.

It wasn't very clear, @Gingergrrl, but it wasn't accusing you of doing any of these things. You are very popular here - almost twice as many 'likes' as messages, so please don't think about leaving. You are valued.

But to get an idea of what UK patients are up against, the videos linked in this message are very revealing - and shocking.