Do you have Forer’s Disease?

[cleanhippie]

A hidden disorder may be making you ill. It’s quite common, but many people don’t know they have it and conventional doctors tend to ignore it. Medical tests fail often enough, turning up negative while patients continue to suffer a plethora of symptoms. Few people will have all of these symptoms, and most symptoms will be intermittent, and at least partially resolve when the patient is more active, so there will be great variability between patients. An estimated 80% of people experience Forer’s Disease at some point in their lives, yet it is frequently overlooked and misunderstood by the medical community. Forer’s Disease is becoming a popular topic in the medical community; as a result, it is important to recognize the symptoms of this particular condition. Sufferers typically experience a wide assortment of symptoms, and it’s important to learn how to recognize them.

Most sufferers of Forer’s Disease experience some or all of the following symptoms:

Fatigue
Backache
Mood swings
Digestive upset, such as nausea, indigestion, and gas pains
Headaches and migraines
Insomnia
Low energy/malaise
Joint pain
Decreased libido
Constipation
Skin irritation
Memory problems
Cravings, especially for sugar, salt, and fat

Sound familiar? Of course it does, because the actual condition that leads to these symptoms is “being human.” Pretty much every person (in an affluent nation at least) will experience many of these symptoms at some point in their lives. And people are more likely to experience many of them during periods of high stress or, let’s face it, when we’re getting older.

I borrowed the name Forer from the Forer Effect, in which subjects assign a high level of accuracy to a list of vague and generally applicable descriptions, when the list is presented as a personalized profile of the subject. It is most often used to discuss horoscopes and personality tests (“You are a caring person, but sometimes you fail to live up to your own ethical standards. You enjoy being with other people, but sometimes feel shy and reticent”), but I think a similar effect occurs when someone suffering from obnoxious symptoms reads a list like the one above, paired with a proffered cure. The list of symptoms seems to be so accurate, even tailored to the reader. It’s easy to believe that the web site or book you’re reading is accurately diagnosing what’s wrong with you.

Deliberate quacks and misguided natural health gurus alike have a tendency to cobble together a similar list of “if you’re human you have them” symptoms and assign a disease to them. If you have many of the above symptoms you qualify for Systemic Yeast, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Gluten Sensitivity (with negative Celiac test), Subluxations, Adrenal Fatigue, Electromagnetic Sensitivity, and Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome, and probably a dozen more fad diagnoses that have come and gone over the years. The problem is that aggregating a bunch of common symptoms and deducing a particular disease isn’t reliable. As you can see, it casts far too wide a net.

http://skepticalmothering.com/2013/01/16/do-you-have-forers-disease/

[Arkansas Granny]

1. I knew it! And, modern medicine being what it is,

*there's a pill for that*, just ask your doctor.

[cleanhippie]

2. Thats not really what the article is saying.

[HuckleB]

3. You are far too kind.

Goodness.

[HuckleB]

4. Thanks! It looks like worthy blog.