Esther Rantzen on what was really wrong with her daughter
Esther Rantzen, for years, has been the go-to celebrity in the UK when it comes to ME, and has written of her daughter's supposed battle with it in the press (mostly the Daily Mail) on a number of occasions. Two separate "cures" have been reported, one involving Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and the infamous graded exercises which mysteriously prove so harmful to pretty much every other ME sufferer. The second time it involved the Lightning Process, which is some sort of talk therapy based on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), life coaching and osteopathy (although those who attended said they couldn't see any evidence of any osteopathy). At times, her evangelising has comfortably crossed the boundary of good taste; promoting this kind of therapy as part of coverage of the story of Lynn Gilderdale, who could not talk and probably could not have made it to wherever they were holding their course, is one example.
Now, she reveals that what had been affecting her daughter Emily was in fact coeliac disease, an autoimmune disease triggered by gluten (a protein found in wheat and some other grain), the symptoms of which are explained here. I don't want to trivialise that as some of the symptoms are pretty unpleasant, but it's not the same as ME and what works for it won't work for ME. Even so, coeliac disease is not something that can be talked away; it can be suppressed only by not eating what triggers it. The range of illnesses that the people behind the so-called Lightning Process claim to be able to cure or relieve is astonishing:
ME, chronic fatigue syndrome, PVFS, adrenal fatigue, acute and chronic pain, back pain, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, migraine, injury, PMT, perimenopausal symptoms and menopause, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety and panic attacks, OCD and PTSD, low self-esteem, confidence issues, hay fever, asthma and allergies, candida, interstitial cystitis, urinary infections, bladder and bowel problems, IBS, coeliac disease, crohns disease, food intolerances and allergies, blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, type 2 diabetes, restless leg syndrome, hyper / hypo thyroidism, insomnia and sleep disorders, autistic spectrum disorder, dyspraxia, ADHD, lymes disease, glandular fever, epstein barr virus, weight and food issues, anorexia and eating disorders, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, parkinsonian tremor, motor neurone disease
This is a huge range of conditions, some of them physical and others not, but you cannot talk away a physical illness. Several of these have proven drug treatments - as someone who has been on thyroid supplements since I was five, I find it amusing that they claim that you can relieve hypothyroidism with talk. It may help with some of the psychological burdens, with getting someone out of a rut, but that's not the same as curing the physical symptoms. Others are treatable with changes to diet, but others are for life. The LP costs hundreds of pounds to participate in, and surely there are books which are just as effective which cost a tenth (or less) of what you pay to go on the LP. (I'm reminded of the British radio host, Jumoké Fashola, who used to repeat her mantra, "I aam faaaabulous!" after the midnight news every morning on the BBC London station, and you didn't have to pay to take part in that.) It has been said that if curing ME was as simple as is sometimes claimed, nobody would still have ME and certainly not severe ME; the same is true of many of the conditions listed above.
There are those who would call the LP a fraud; personally, I would say that its advertising claims should be tested, and if they are found not to be demonstrably true, they should be required to withdraw them, as is the norm for advertising claims in this country. (Recently, this was extended to include online advertising.) It is highly irresponsible for Esther Rantzen, someone of considerable social standing in the UK (despite her miserable failure in standing for Parliament last year, she remains popular as a radio and TV host, although she appears less frequently than before), to be promoting a simplistic, unproven and potentially very damaging "cure" for a serious and distressing disease. One hopes we will hear no more out of her on this subject now that she has admitted that she in fact has no experience of the subject. This entry was originally posted at http://indigojo.dreamwidth.org/4426.html and you can also comment there, using your LJ username to log in with OpenID.
Now, she reveals that what had been affecting her daughter Emily was in fact coeliac disease, an autoimmune disease triggered by gluten (a protein found in wheat and some other grain), the symptoms of which are explained here. I don't want to trivialise that as some of the symptoms are pretty unpleasant, but it's not the same as ME and what works for it won't work for ME. Even so, coeliac disease is not something that can be talked away; it can be suppressed only by not eating what triggers it. The range of illnesses that the people behind the so-called Lightning Process claim to be able to cure or relieve is astonishing:
ME, chronic fatigue syndrome, PVFS, adrenal fatigue, acute and chronic pain, back pain, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, migraine, injury, PMT, perimenopausal symptoms and menopause, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety and panic attacks, OCD and PTSD, low self-esteem, confidence issues, hay fever, asthma and allergies, candida, interstitial cystitis, urinary infections, bladder and bowel problems, IBS, coeliac disease, crohns disease, food intolerances and allergies, blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, type 2 diabetes, restless leg syndrome, hyper / hypo thyroidism, insomnia and sleep disorders, autistic spectrum disorder, dyspraxia, ADHD, lymes disease, glandular fever, epstein barr virus, weight and food issues, anorexia and eating disorders, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, parkinsonian tremor, motor neurone disease
This is a huge range of conditions, some of them physical and others not, but you cannot talk away a physical illness. Several of these have proven drug treatments - as someone who has been on thyroid supplements since I was five, I find it amusing that they claim that you can relieve hypothyroidism with talk. It may help with some of the psychological burdens, with getting someone out of a rut, but that's not the same as curing the physical symptoms. Others are treatable with changes to diet, but others are for life. The LP costs hundreds of pounds to participate in, and surely there are books which are just as effective which cost a tenth (or less) of what you pay to go on the LP. (I'm reminded of the British radio host, Jumoké Fashola, who used to repeat her mantra, "I aam faaaabulous!" after the midnight news every morning on the BBC London station, and you didn't have to pay to take part in that.) It has been said that if curing ME was as simple as is sometimes claimed, nobody would still have ME and certainly not severe ME; the same is true of many of the conditions listed above.
There are those who would call the LP a fraud; personally, I would say that its advertising claims should be tested, and if they are found not to be demonstrably true, they should be required to withdraw them, as is the norm for advertising claims in this country. (Recently, this was extended to include online advertising.) It is highly irresponsible for Esther Rantzen, someone of considerable social standing in the UK (despite her miserable failure in standing for Parliament last year, she remains popular as a radio and TV host, although she appears less frequently than before), to be promoting a simplistic, unproven and potentially very damaging "cure" for a serious and distressing disease. One hopes we will hear no more out of her on this subject now that she has admitted that she in fact has no experience of the subject. This entry was originally posted at http://indigojo.dreamwidth.org/4426.html and you can also comment there, using your LJ username to log in with OpenID.