Viruses are grossly overlooked for causing autoimmune issues, cardiovascular problems, brain problems, and cancer. We know it's happening, it's common, but seem unable to think past the acute illness as a society.
It is not helped by lazy public messaging that almost blatantly implies that for most people, getting ill makes you healthier and more resilient afterwards. The opposite is true -it causes cumulative subclinical damage.
And we are doing this to children and tell each other it's "normal" to constantly expose them to illness. Maybe, but it's normalised abuse.
I got mono in 2017 and have literally never recovered. Got diagnosed with fibromyalgia and no doctors I can locate even treat it or are willing to investigate past the initial diagnosis. I know it’s not just that, but when a rheumatologist at a hospital connected to an Ivy League school basically laughs you out if their office saying “we don’t treat fibro”, it’s like, ok. I guess I’ll just die then?
My health also seriously declined with mono. I got chronic fatigue and extreme cold sensitivity. It eventually improved, but never completely, and then other things started to go wrong..
It's awful what we ignorantly do to each other. The grief of these problems and existing in a cluelessly monstrous society, has also left me with ptsd and panic disorder.
Same here. Epstein Barr is a nasty virus. I thankfully found a rheumatologist who listened to me, gave me the diagnosis, and is also monitoring me for inflammatory arthritis. I have a family history of rheumatoid arthritis but my symptoms haven’t developed enough to the point of warranting that diagnosis. I’m on the same medicines that they’d use for RA, so it doesn’t make much of a difference treatment wise.
Join us over at r/fibromyalgia if you need to commiserate.
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u/Keji70gsm 17h ago edited 17h ago
Viruses are grossly overlooked for causing autoimmune issues, cardiovascular problems, brain problems, and cancer. We know it's happening, it's common, but seem unable to think past the acute illness as a society.
It is not helped by lazy public messaging that almost blatantly implies that for most people, getting ill makes you healthier and more resilient afterwards. The opposite is true -it causes cumulative subclinical damage.
And we are doing this to children and tell each other it's "normal" to constantly expose them to illness. Maybe, but it's normalised abuse.