I just tried saying “poop dope post dupe” ten times fast, and I didn’t get very far.
ETA: Seems to be working now
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Please, don’t change the subject.
And I don’t fault your skepticism. I just don’t agree with the degree of it, for me.
well, you come across as having a near perfect understanding of her experience and motivations, and I cant empathize with that as an authentic statement, or one that supports a ‘firm belief in alternative healing methods’.
To be clear, you may well have more firm belief in it than I do, I generally do not have that belief in alternative methods.
But my personal experience with the biome, my own backgroun in microbio and toxicology, and the limitations she put on her own experiences in the piece leave me wondering if you read the same article I did. No worries, no need to take it or make it personal.
(edited per mod request)
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Personal anecdotes and stories are fine. But this is not just presented as her opinion as to what happened. For example where it has “Eventually, she learned that her microbiome (the colony of microbes in her body) was dangerously unbalanced and was not functioning as it should.” This is not saying “She thought this might be unbalanced” it says she learned it was unbalanced. It also says “She was not breaking down any food” - it does not say “She felt like she was not breaking down any food”. And so on. Many parts of the story are presented as facts when they are simply theories that she has come up with, and ones that are dubious too. For example, “not breaking down any food” is almost impossible. Just too much in this article is guesses presented as facts.
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She is a microbiologist. Are you?
Just too much in this article is guesses presented as facts.
Nope, they’re presented as opinion and experience, educated guesses maybe, but ‘guesses’ from a post-doc in the field. (in science we call these ‘theories’ and respect them as having inherent limitations) (you are free to mistake these as ‘facts’ presented by ‘experts’ who know nothing, if you like.) I’m gonna assume she knows more than nothing, and more than me, and more than you, too, on the subject.
I think you may have mistaken them as ‘presented as fact’, and are responding in part to your own mistake there. We might disagree, but I don’t need to know your opinion on that, please. Lets move along.
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I know a couple microbiologists. One is basically a lab tech for the county health department. The other chiefly works with things like yeast and soil bacteria. Neither is qualified to diagnose or treat medical conditions because that’s not what microbiologists do. And neither of them are qualified to conduct medical research.
I also know a History PHD who absolutely knows Aliens are real and you’re all alien hybrids out to get him. And an awful lot of Nurses and doctors who believe Obama is a secret Muslim.
Just because she’s a microbiologist does not mean she actually knows what she’s talking about. Is qualified to test and draw conclusions about human gut flora. Or is capable of diagnosing and treating actual medical problems. Pointing to that as validation of her claims is simple appeal to authority. A Person who has expertise in one subject does not magically also have expertise in all things. No matter how superficially related their expertise may seem to the casual observer. And even if her specialty in microbiology does cross over with some of this it does not automatically make her right. Or even credible.
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…
oh snap
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Oh yay. More poop! 
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so, no, not at all.
have you, perchance, stayed at a Holiday Inn Express lately? 
And neither of them are qualified to conduct medical research
that’s just not what this article IS. This is not ‘medical research’. Please, read the article.
Just because she’s a microbiologist does not mean she actually knows what she’s talking about.
Ah, I see, your degree in non-microbiology makes this just THE CASE. Got it. As an aside, what is required for someone to actually “know what they are talking about”? Do they have to agree with your preconceptions? Good luck out there.
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Credentials in the actual field concerned. A credible track record. Replication. And not making borderline impossible statements like “not breaking down food”.
Her first hint that something was wrong must have been when she started shitting fully formed burgers!
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What on Earth gives you the idea Lyme disease is… not real? I had a good friend in college who was one of the very first diagnosed cases. She grew up in Old Lyme, CT. Nice girl. At the age of 20, she appeared to have devastating arthritis.
I don’t think it was fake.
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Mary Roach’s book “GULP!” has a nice section touching on this.
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having an opinion is all the credential she needs to share one.
She is an active post doc at a university. Are you dismissing the capacity of her superiors at that institution to determine if she has the track record to have earned a doctorate?
This isn’t research. This isn’t research. This is not research. Not peer reviewed, not published in a medical research journal, nor presented as anything other than her own experiences. If I elevate something to something it is not, and I am subsequently disappointed, it was just not that thing’s fault.
What do you think that was supposed to mean? I read that as “not fully digesting food” and yes, the microbiome DOES do some of that for us. Quite a bit really. Some of our nutrition is from the waste products of the biome ‘breaking down food’. [quote=“Ryuthrowsstuff, post:29, topic:103444”]
Her first hint that something was wrong must have been when she started shitting fully formed burgers!
[/quote]
???
I’m not even trying to convince you, I am trying to understand the depth and breadth of your superiority to her, and how much will is involved in maintaining that facade. Be well. Enjoy your friends, be sure to tell them they’re not qualified if they have doctorates to have respectable opinions or share theories on their own body.
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Because, man. just because.
Do you think there is any sexism or perhaps some sort of jealousy on display in this thread?
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Many more shit eating grins on the podium to come.
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@anon61221983, do you see anything, for lack of a better term, “anti XX” in this line of thinking? I lean on you to spot it where I might miss it! Thanks!
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Lyme’s is 100% real. I live not too far from where it was first identified medically. And not too far from from where it was first non-medically identified as “Montauk Knee”. The section of the country with the highest and most frequent incidence of tick borne illness. My dog has had Lymes thrice. Most of my family has had it at least once, though I’ve lucked out in never picking it up.
What is not real is the claimed chronic form of the illness. Chronic Lyme’s is claimed to be a persistent, degenerative form of the illness that crops up years after the infection has been cured. That must be treated with mega doses of broad spectrum anti-biotics. Or mega doses of vitamin C. Or Light therapy. Or reiki. Or Chelation or…
Your friend’s arthritis is a different story. Prompt treatement of Lyme’s is incredibly important because it will destroy your joints in short order if left un-treated. Its much less common these days that it goes that far. But in times past, especially before the bacteria responsible was identified, it was pretty common to end up with fucked up knees and elbows from even a fairly asymptomatic case.
The arthritis is sometimes pointed to as proof that chronic Lyme’s is a thing. Since arthritis doesn’t go away. But the important fact there is the damage is done before you treat the Lyme’s. And again arthritis doesn’t go away, it hangs around and gets worse even without spirochetes to fuck up your joints. More commonly the claimed symptoms are your “symptoms of life”. General feelings of unwellness, sleep problems, aches and pains, headaches, digestion problems, weight gain or loss. ETC. Many of which line up rather well with symptoms of depression. And are universally found in your catchall diagnosis pseudo diseases like morgellons, chronic fatigue etc. I’ve also heard it blamed for Autism. Electromagnetic sensitivity. And even met a person who claimed their diagnosed bi-polar disorder was not bi-polar disorder but undiagnosed Chronic Lyme’s. Now we can add “I don’t bike good” to the list.
One of the more interesting developments is that a lot of claimed Chronic Lyme’s cases these days have no actual preceding case of real Lyme’s. So you’ve got people claiming to have a Chronic form of a disease noone can prove they’ve actually ever had the acute form of.
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lyme disease is absolutely a real thing. what is less clear is “chronic lyme disease” and “chronic fatigue syndrome” which she is said to of had and subsequently been cured of. these are certainly real illnesses in the sense that there are a huge number of people that identify as having them and absolutely suffer real pain and suffering from them. however the etiologies are much less clear. even the definitions by which someone can be diagnosed with these illnesses are uncertain/controversial. and they incite a lot of heated arguments. to me, it seems very similar to conversion disorder (functional neurologic disorder), in which people have real neurologic deficits not compatible with physical exam findings and no identifiable organic cause. it’s wrong and unhelpful to say “it’s all in their head”. they are true symptoms and there has been some evidence that there are disrupted neural pathways. treatment is supportive, as opposed to medical or surgical, and people often have full recoveries.
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It’s slightly helpful, for me, as i find it helps me determine if the person talking at me that way is someone i will choose to take seriously, or wish to be taken seriously by. In the NOPE sense, in this case.
“And if God cannot turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, that we may know them by their limp”
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There is something of a long history of medical science generally focusing on white men as study/test subjects in understanding physiology more generally. In generally women’s pain and symptoms are often ignored or underestimated (often by male physicians) and I’d guess that things like chronic fatigue or this chronic lyme disease are maybe more often associated with women, even if they aren’t gender specific diseases? That could be part of the reason so much uncertainty exists around them in the first place. But @music_ismath seems to have some insights into this, at least in terms of the uncertainties.
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Yep, as usual, the person using and respecting nuance is the one making more actual sense. Thanks!
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