Beyond awesome:
Thanks to Annaham.
I'll note that "Have you tried XYZ? My mother-in-law's second cousin's neighbor tried it and was like totally cured!" (usually a dietary supplement or one of the many other placebo treatments packaged and marketed to the suffering—and this is not meant as a criticism of alternative therapy in general, because some of it has proven actually effective) is another way to get me pissy rather quick. It's hard to let these people down without using the word "bullshit," which they're probably not going to take well to, and after all, they are well-meaning. But well-meaning does not forgive all wrongs.
Let's make things simple. Anyone claiming to be able to cure you? Is probably scamming you. In fact I'm completely confident I could remove the word "probably" from the preceding sentence, but I try to be generous. I know a lot of people have legitimate beefs with the medical industry and grow understandably disillusioned, but in general, if a treatment can't stand up to the scientific method we all learned in the fourth grade, it's bullshit. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is.
To take a different (and somewhat blunter) tack: I've been living with this illness my entire life. Trust me, I've had plenty of time to do the research, and I'm pretty familiar with the range of treatments available. I've tried a good many of them. And a good many of them do work on a lot of people, but didn't work on me. I've figured out, so far, what does work on me. So thank you for your suggestion, but in the future, consider allowing me the trust and respect of considering that maybe, being someone who's lived with the disease for over twenty years, I have a bit more knowledge on it than you, someone who's only connected by degree, do, and a better handle on how to deal with it. Thanks.
