ME
- Books
I first learned about ME in 1989, when I had it for 10 years.
Before that I had not heard of it, which is not odd, since there was no real
internet, and since I have not studied medicine (but philosophy and
psychology).
What's more disconcerting, is that the medical people who had
investigated me and my common law wife, who also fell ill in january 1979,
with the same disease, also had not heard from it, apparently, even though it
turned out in 1989 that I had very clearly listed the typical symptoms of ME
in letters to medical doctors in 1980.
In 1989 and 1990 I have read several books about ME. Some
were by medical people; some were by patients. Not one of them was really
good, though the reasons why differed, and some of my reasons are probably
personal: I am myself rather in favor of real science, and know a considerable
amount about it.
The problem I have with views of patients with ME is that
many patients with ME have less scientific knowledge than I have, and similar
bad experiences with medical doctors as I have had. The result is that they
tend to be far more dismissive of science and ordinary medicine than I am.
The problem I have with books by medical doctors about ME is that those I
have read were addressed to patients with less knowledge of science and
medicine than I have.
In earlier versions
of my site I have listed some books, but in the present version
I have avoided them, because those I have read I was not much impressed by,
and they are now out of date, and because if you have access to the internet
it is more helpful to find out what is currently on the net. Here is a link to
a file containing some
Sites
concerned with ME that I found helpful, and where you may find
many more links.
The generally most helpful site about ME I know of is by
David Axford. This
also has a lot of scientific information mostly assembled and written by Ellen
Goudsmit Ph.D.
