Femminist "Researcher" gets told they don't have Lyme disease, Sneeds so hard that they write a whole article about it

Longpost about an ultra-obscure spergout from a "sociology researcher"

While searching for some unrelated shit on my universities database, I came across a paper titled "Queering Gendering: Trans Epistemologies and the Disruption and Production of Gender Accomplishment Practices" . Bored and on holidays, I decided why the frick not and decided to follow the link and read it. Like many articles, it wanted me to download the PDF but I said frick it and whas going to leave when I saw:

WORDS WORDS WORDS... Also the author of... "Contesting Lyme Disease"

(DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190842475.013.21)

As a med-cel, I knew at once that this was going to be a juicy article full of sneed, and boy it does not disappoint; over 6600 WORDS WORDS WORDS of cope and seethe

In this chapter, the author examines his embodied experience with Lyme disease to chart how power and knowledge within the dominant biomedical framework were produced via engagement with medical providers. Analyzing the medical governance of Lyme disease through actors’ everyday decision-making practices, the author shows how, in failing to accurately diagnose and treat his sick body and depriving him of treatment, credentialed health care providers reproduced culturally dominant, institutionalized, yet inadequate formations of medical power-knowledge.

A lot of words to say that they think they have lyme disease, the doctors said no, so they are about to make shit up to say "well i feel like i do so medicine is wrong"

In this chapter, I examine my experience with Lyme disease to analyze how medical knowledge about this disease and my body was produced via my interaction with the medical system, and to advance an alternative, embodied knowledge of Lyme disease. I argue that Lyme is what I call a contested disease marked by what I call contested care. My embodied knowledge, which I present as an analytical narrative, is part of a growing, counterhegemonic knowledge formation that we who are sick with Lyme disease are collectively constructing.

For those who don't know, a lot of crazy people think they have lyme disease because it's trendy, it's so trendy that people claim to have contracted it here in AUS when the bacteria and tick that cause it literally doesn't exist here. The author is one of them and decided to invent medicine 2

Two conflicting biomedical frameworks have developed around Lyme disease, illustrating how it is a contested disease.... Within the dominant biomedical framework, Lyme disease is constructed as an acute (sudden onset, short-term) infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which is transmitted through a tick bite, detectable via antibody tests and a bulls-eye-shaped rash, and treatable with a short course of antibiotics... From the perspective of an alternative biomedical framework, Lyme is constructed as a complex disease that, if left untreated or undertreated, can progress, disseminating into and damaging multiple organs and bodily systems and causing varied symptoms

Bla Bla Bla, I want to have lyme disease so I'll change the definition.

They then say the same shit over and over again in different ways which reminds me of how all social "sciences" is just wank

Unlike autobiography, autoethnography is a research method. Autoethnographers examine personal experiences to analyze culture and make scholarly contributions... From the perspective of conventional social science, autoethnography is limited, as it does not utilize the scientific method and, in writing about one’s own life, researcher bias is inevitable... Autoethnographers do not necessarily begin by asking research questions. Their research may not explain phenomena. Analysis methods may not be systematic, involve coding or comparison, or produce theory. Some social scientists perceive that autoethnographers are merely writing about personal experience and selectively observing, coming to conclusions prematurely, and overgeneralizing...

So basically "I think this, therefore it's true". A load of shit that even social scientists call bullshit

Autoethnographers have a different perspective.

Oh

Contesting science’s assumption of objectivity, they acknowledge and examine the ways their own perspectives shape their research and the knowledge they produce. These scholars view knowledge as partial, contingent, manifold, and constituted in and mediated by context and discourse.

They basically go on to write how the article is basically just a blog and because they use big words it is just as valid as anything in the NEJM

The next section is literally just them recounting the whole journey they went through, a lot of doctor shopping and surprise surprise, a diagnosis of depression (among other weird things). Importantly they started getting sick in the winter which makes a tick-bite almost impossible because bugs are almost all inactive in the winter.

I won't share the section because it's a useless read, but I want to point out as a med-cel that if you look hard enough at anyone, you'll eventually get a false positive on a test or another and get a whole list of weird and wonderful diseases that you probably don't actually have and also are of dubious significance anyways. In glorious USA as well, there's a lot more quack doctors who peddle bullshit and/or will tell you anything you want to hear because the country is poorly regulated and they earn a shit ton of money from preying on crazy hoes.

Eventually they get their diagnosis of Lyme disease from a "specialist" who i can only assume is one of these quacks since one of the authors BPD friends reccomended it. And they had a IGeneX test to back it up. Only problem is that the lab is not approved to do diagnostic testing and they are under investigation for the amount of false positives and pseudoscientific interpretation of all their results.

After being sick for almost 2 years and being treated for Lyme disease for a year and a half, although my health has dramatically improved, I am still not “better.” My most debilitating symptom, fatigue, has diminished considerably, but my cognitive impairment persists, dizziness comes and goes, and new symptoms have arisen.

Surprise surprise, even after being treated for their non-existent disease, they still aren't better

The conclusion is more schitzo ramblings about how medicine is wrong and science is wrong

The built environment, which includes medical categories and treatments, is designed to serve the needs of those whose illness manifestations fit within the dominant biomedical framework, excluding from medical care those whose illness manifestations do not fit.

Yea, if you have chest pain, a high D-dimer and a big dark thrombus on your CTPA, you have a pulmonary embolism and if you have none of that, you don't. The logical extension of this authors paper is that I should pump anyone who asks full of chemotherapy because they feel like they have cancer.

Also the author is a so take that as you will