Lupus and other Connective Tissue Disorders

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

Maria Bamford does a bit that goes “… diseases like Chronic Fatigue, Epstien Barr, Fibromyalgia. Like all the diseases where the only symptoms seem to be you had a really crappy childhood and at the prospect of full time work you feel kinda achy and tired.”

These “diseases” appear to effect predominantly older women and many of them share the same symptoms, one of which is that there is no apparent viral or bacterial cause. Pretty much the only way you can know someone has, say, Lupus, is that they tell you they have it.

It’s always been my theory that this entire class of conditions are basically psychosomatic illnesses that older women create for themselves so that they can avoid having to be self-reliant and garner attention for themselves once past their ability to attract sexual interest. Since no man will touch them and few men are willing to take care of them, they turn to health care workers who are duty bound to listen to and validate them.

Have any of you known anybody with one of these conditions? I’m not saying the pain and lethargy are not real and I suspect whatever medications they get put on (which are usually anti-depression medications, unsurprisingly) probably complicate things, but I’m saying there’s almost certainly no underlying genetic, environmental or biological basis for them.

Comments?

[Total LeeParticipant 1573]

You nailed it. I was in a cafe once and this women and I struck up a chat and in less than a minute she started telling me about her conditions like frybromyass and whatever else. I almost wanted to laugh, you know, like when someone gives you very bad news ands its so crazy unexpected you laugh. What a segue. Older women are always “oh my back” and “owie this” and their medicine cabinets are a buffet. Food allergies is another one. Women “can’t” eat this or that, that cheese makes her gassy, or she can mix vegetables with melon, just crazy ass s~~~. Headaches all the time too. I call bulls~~~ on all of it.

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