New NICE Guidelines on ME
Well, this took long enough...
Treat ME more seriously, doctors ordered
Although this is a long time in coming, my cynical self with way too much experience of the health care system in this country isn't going to be holding her breath over this. For one, I expect that there'll still be a goodly number of doctors who choose to continue to ignore these and all the other guidelines (sad fact: once a GP has qualified, he doesn't have to do anything else to keep 'up-to-date' with changes in the medical field. This can lead to cases of doctors with seriously outdated knowledge of things like HiV and AIDS, never mind ME/CFS) - because really, if they've been ignoring the World Health Organisation's definition they're probably not going to pay much attention to this one either.
Secondly, the NICE guidelines still seem to be placing a little too much emphasis on GET and CBT (Graded Exercise Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) as viable treatments for ME. The problem is that these stategies don't work for everyone (CBT, for example, was never going to work with me because my depression was a seperate condition to the ME), and yet we're just told we're not trying when we point this out.
Still, it's a start, I guess...
Treat ME more seriously, doctors ordered
Although this is a long time in coming, my cynical self with way too much experience of the health care system in this country isn't going to be holding her breath over this. For one, I expect that there'll still be a goodly number of doctors who choose to continue to ignore these and all the other guidelines (sad fact: once a GP has qualified, he doesn't have to do anything else to keep 'up-to-date' with changes in the medical field. This can lead to cases of doctors with seriously outdated knowledge of things like HiV and AIDS, never mind ME/CFS) - because really, if they've been ignoring the World Health Organisation's definition they're probably not going to pay much attention to this one either.
Secondly, the NICE guidelines still seem to be placing a little too much emphasis on GET and CBT (Graded Exercise Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) as viable treatments for ME. The problem is that these stategies don't work for everyone (CBT, for example, was never going to work with me because my depression was a seperate condition to the ME), and yet we're just told we're not trying when we point this out.
Still, it's a start, I guess...