Elmo has aspergers, a form of autism. RFK says people with autism can’t use the bathroom by themselves.

  • andxz@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    From someone with two major surgeries behind me, one of them involving a tumour inside my head, this sounds outright idiotic.

    I’d be dead unless I realized something was wrong other than what the doctors at the time described as “just a few headaches”. Took me upwards of 10+ different doctors before they finally listened and found it. Exactly where I described the pain and pressure coming from.

    Listen to your body, and for fucks sake stop giving bad advice to people.

      • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        It’s certainly in the same vein, but you’re right, not exactly the same.

        Though as far as self diagnosis with autism is concerned, I don’t see that as a bad thing. Even if they aren’t on the spectrum, realizing they have some shared personality traits will cause more “normies” to have a sympathetic view towards autism, causing it to have less stigma. People hear that certain traits are related to autism and recognize those same traits in themselves, and then they can relate better. If only more people could do this with race, religion and gender, people would have more compassion for others as a whole.

        But Elon? Fuck that guy.

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I don’t agree this is self diagnosis unless you set up an MRI and analyzed the data yourself. Having self awareness to think that something wasn’t right? Yea. That’s what it sounds like.

          • andxz@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Setting up an MRI and interpreting the images yourself is obviously impossible, but I did work in a related field so it wasn’t just guesswork either. Do you think any of the doctors I met gave a shit about my thoughts on the matter regardless?

            • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Yes. Since I was raised around medical people. Most get into the profession because they like helping people.

              • andxz@lemmy.world
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                8 hours ago

                I’ve been a nurse for over a decade and I disagree strongly. Way too many of the doctors I’ve had to do with both outside and inside my work have been overworked, arrogant or simply too jaded to do their work properly.

                There have been exceptions, of course. I survived both surgeries, after all. Maybe I could have avoided having to learn how to walk again if someone had listened a bit earlier. Maybe not.

                But yes, we get into this line of work to help people initially, at least generally, I’ll give you that.

      • andxz@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I knew it wasn’t just random headaches but something else, potentially a lot worse. I was right in that instance, at the very least. You’re right that I couldn’t tell them exactly what it was, but since it was quite localised I had my suspicions.

        Trying to tell a doctor that you suspect something isn’t exactly easy unless they actually happen to listen, which they didn’t, for far too long.

        When they finally did the surgery it was a lot worse than it could’ve been. I was lucky enough that it was a pre-cancerous tumor though. A few months more and it would probably have been too late.

        I’ll admit that I worked in a related field at the time though, so I wasn’t entirely relying on guesswork. Not that that meant anything to a single one of the doctors I met before the last one that actually gave me the MRI scan I had begged for for months. I was in surgery the next week.

        So you tell me, was the right course of action to just listen to what the doctors said, or not?

        • You did the right thing. I’m not disputing that.

          I’m saying it’s a very different thing from people who self-diagnose psychological issues or other diseases, without confirming with a doctor.

          You didn’t go “I have a brain tumour, where’s the surgeon”, you persisted in getting a proper diagnosis from a doctor who finally did the right tests.

          • andxz@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            I’ll concede that there’s a difference between physical and psychological diagnoses, but I’ll stand by the main point I was trying to convey, which in this case is that simply blindly following whatever a doctor says can go very wrong.

            At the very least there’s always a good reason to get a second opinion if there’s even a little bit of doubt. Obviously there’s also the difference between a lifelong psychological issue and an acute medical emergency.

            I simply felt that OP was giving really bad advice and I’m fairly sure he’s got no medical training whatsoever, while I’ve been a nurse for over a decade. Maybe I’m wrong and he’s a doctor, but I highly doubt it.

    • 74 183.84@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      That is not self-diagnosis. Just google the term if you don’t know the meaning