FWIW there are a fair number of people who report good results for this and the original post issues with keto, fasting and related things on Reddit. A bunch of claims around gluten too.
Mental inflammation included.
You may be approaching this with good intentions, but don't do this.
> Chronically ill people research their diseases ad nauseam. They try more treatments than they can count. In many cases, great scientific minds can’t crack a cause or cure. So unless someone asks for your advice, don’t offer it.
No, please don't. On HN, it's necessary to make your points respectfully and neutrally, regardless of how wrong others are or you feel they are. If you can't or don't want to do that, please don't make them here. We certainly did not need the dozens of comments' worth of petty bickering that this thread devolved to.
More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19210528.
So while I understand and appreciate your point, I don't think you understand how corrupted medicine has become. It's now a necessity to do your own research.
Dr Wahls curing of her own MS would be another example.
Edit: here's the goop tweet: https://twitter.com/drjasonfung/status/1095550994430058496?s...
I've spent ten years with a chronic disease with no known cause. I am currently on two trials. You are not capable of naming any suggestion that I have not heard, and that is common in the community.
You don't appreciate my point - you're insulting by making your suggestions. You're suggesting that they haven't investigated something that affects every single part of their life.
When my users are trying to tell me what is causing a bug and they're drastically wrong, I don't feel insulted that they think I don't know my own system. I just smile and have a nice conversation with them. There is no point in picking fights, and the person trying to help is not the one picking the fight.
I'm sorry for your chronic disease, and I can't imagine what it's like. I can't speak to that. But I believe you're taking it too negatively too personally when there's no need to do so. I imagine that isn't too great for personal happiness either.
I don't know if this is true even in the general case. It is entirely possible to insult someone with no ill intent, such as "you speak well for a black" or "you're funny for a female" or "you're alright for a homosexual".
I don't believe "have you tried keto?" to a chronically ill person requires different cognitive faculties here.
Note: I am also an objective third party. I don't have a chonic illness and have no dog in this fight. It seems to me that a chronically ill person is saying "while your intentions may be good, they are deceasing my quality of life", and I'm choosing to believe them.
No, this is a common frustration of the entire community. People feel powerless, so they try and help, but you aren't helping. You either cause irritation because it's then ten thousandth time I've heard that advice, or frustration because you are showing a deep lack of understanding.
> When my users are trying to tell me what is causing a bug and they're drastically wrong, I don't feel insulted that they think I don't know my own system. I just smile and have a nice conversation with them. There is no point in picking fights, and the person trying to help is not the one picking the fight.
No. Don't. The relationships are not the same. An illness that affects every part of your life is deeply personal, and you are faced every day with stigma because of it. You're not suggesting useless information, because of the culture and proxy you have to it, you're suggesting the affected person hasn't tried hard enough.
> But I believe you're taking it too negatively too personally when there's no need to do so. I imagine that isn't too great for personal happiness either.
Getting told that I need to listen politely when someone is suggesting an idea of how to fix my genetics is personal. You don't tell someone that they shouldn't be using a wheelchair, or should be using a different one, unless you have a direct and professional connection with their health.
> Where there is no ill intent, insults should not be taken.
Insult was not immediately taken. They were repeatedly informed that this avenue of conversation is insulting. They responded by telling me I'm wrong. As have you, now.
You can't imagine my life with chronic disease? Fine. I'm happy to guide you in interacting with someone with it.
Step one, is not assume you know better. Your suggestions are unwelcome, because they carry stigma. They remind me of all the people I have faced who have told me that my disease is either not real, or able to be overcome by one simple trick.
I'm not angry at you - but I have to say, you have been very... Unhelpful.
More unhappiness comes from misguided altruism, than quiet acceptance.
I realize this is the internet but that's a stretch to find an insult.
The assumption of providing advisement is 1) your advice might be helpful, 2) advising isn't itself a harmful act, 3) you have something worth advising about. In the specific case of a chonic illness, the probability is high that all these assumptions are not correct. Therefore, advising a chronically ill person requires exceptional behavior compared to someone who is not chronically ill.
It's also important that this(unwanted advice) is a common issue that adversely affects a person's QoL, as they are forced to re-address the same ground consistently when they already have limited productive resources.
But that's not what happened here. Steve didn't prompt anyone for a response of any kind. He offered a quick one-liner of a suggestion. Shakna wasn't even part of that thread, and just dropped in to tell him to shut up.
It's the internet man. You're quite free to disregard the advice.
By criticizing Shakna, you are also participating in a social cue to try and prevent Shakna from continuing to apply inappropriate social behavior (in this case, criticizing others unnecessarily). Does "It's the internet man. You're quite free to disregard Shakna's criticism." not apply also to you?
If another comment was somehow insensitive, it's fine to gently offer some information about that. It's not fine to blame one another or take a thread massively off topic.
Don't get me wrong, I'm totally capable of being offended by inane low-content posts on the internet. But I also put some effort into filtering my responses in deference to the recognition of my own biases and insular perspective. I fail a lot, but I try.
Shakna's response seemed to lack any such self awareness. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe i'm speaking from a bubble again. But I do know, and I hate to point out the obvious here, that this is HN -- pretty much the opposite of any sort of health-issue-specific forum. If you post a note regarding a health issue here, you will get advice, likely involving keto nowadays.
I understand Shakna's desire to mold HN into a place better suited to the specific needs of folks like Shakna. Nothing wrong with that. But Shakna's "decade of experience in the nuances of social dynamics in the context of chronic illness" is a lot of weight to expect a random techy internet forum thread to bear, and politely hand-slapping a random dude in a forum replete with dedicated keto experimenters is... well... it clearly risks frustration, right?
Does this mean this behavior should be considered acceptable, or that criticizing such behavior should be considered above criticism?
> is a lot of weight to expect a random techy internet forum thread to bear,
It is also weight to engage in it by providing unsolicited advice. By choosing to engage with the heavy subject, people can choose to engage with their engagement. This is normal human interaction regardless of its weight.
> it clearly risks frustration, right?
Is that for you to decide? I like to believe Shakna is intelligent enough to choose to engage in what they please, even if they are frustrated by it. It isn't my place to judge or advise them, and I'm frankly entirely uninterested in engaging with them about how frustrated they're allowed to get. I'm more interested in engaging with you about how much you should get to tell Shakna how they should react while reacting yourself.
Certainly not! It's critical that criticism not be criticized, however I assure you that your overly critical appraisal of my criticism will not be left uncritiqued. By me, right now.
> It is also weight to engage in it by providing unsolicited advice.
No it's not. That's the whole point. There's nothing weighty about Internet User Steve's unsolicited two cents. Shakna can take it or leave it. Or, he can complain about it, tell Steve he was wrong to open his mouth, and then meet the inevitable pushback with disgusted indignance while two other frisky threadmates get all meta in the corner. Personally, I'm left none the wiser for having witnessed Shakna's precipitated grievances, whereas I feel it would be a bit of a shame if Steve was made to curtail his freewheeling expression, which in this case included a link to a horrifying story about the NEJM (thanks for that BTW Steve).
> I'm frankly entirely uninterested in engaging with them about how frustrated they're allowed to get.
You're right, that would be bad! So don't do that. Instead, gently encourage Shakna to cut poor Steve a bit of slack. You can, without judgment, point out that Shakna's reflexes, gained through years of pain and frustration, are maybe not a productive criteria by which to interact with well-meaning random internet folk, and that some extra persistence in grace, instead of descending into remonstrance after a just one exchange, is far likelier to win converts to Shakna's way of thinking.
Go ahead, try it. Let me know how it works out.
I seriously doubt that. Everyone who has a chronic illness is bombarded constantly by friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers with unsolicited "advice" as to how to cure their disease with diets, exercise, oils, herbs, craniosacral therapy, prayer, meditation, homeopathy, enemas, chiropractic adjustments, talk therapy, vitamins, supplements, and every other crazy thing you can think of.
That makes it your responsibility to change your behaviour.
If you ask someone to stop hitting you over the back of the head every time they walk passed you, it is reasonable to experience irritation if they don't change that behaviour, regardless of intent.