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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
DAMN, Sarah. This one snuck up on me. It was hard to get through, but I swooned hard once she started connecting these mysterious illnesses to the heroine's journey. Visceral, funny, and recommended by Ed Yong? Works for me!
tense
slow-paced
i was so excited for this, but was so quickly disappointed. this book is riddled with misinformation, unnecessary and gross gender commentary, and so much privilege. not a single citation is provided for all of the lies the author is telling. i would not recommend this to a single person, i don’t think this should be a book
This was an impactful book for me. Listening to Sarah Rameys navigate the medical system (and "alternative" resources) was devastating. A few times I had to actually pause the audiobook for a few minutes to prepare for what was coming next. The information shared within the last few chapters about things to consider if you or someone you love is coping with a chronic illnesse will have me picking this book up again.
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
The value of this book Is in the potential use of specific sections as a tool for people with chronic illnesses and invisible disabilities. The narrative segments communicate in excruciating and emotionally devastating detail all the pain, labor, and exhaustion the chronically ill face as they strive toward the endlessly-moving goal posts of managing their symptoms while still trying to have a life. It’s a valuable window into years of medical neglect, dismissal, misdiagnosis, injurious treatments, and physical and emotional trauma. These segments could be a low-effort way to explain fluctuating energy levels, unusual food restrictions, and desperation that can lead to give the most dubious woo-woo practitioners and their illegal “therapies” shot. Quite frankly, the only reason I gave this even a middling review is due to the dearth of memoirs and accessible popular science accounts of chronic illness.
Where this memoir falls apart, unfortunately, is everywhere else. Due to the way Ramey discusses food, nutritional science, and fatness, I cannot recommend even the more useful sections to anyone who struggles with disordered eating. To be as succinct as possible, other sections veer into alarming, binarized gender and sex essentialism; inaccurate representations of both scientific and pseudoscientific approaches to medicine; misunderstanding or dismissal of the history of medicine, notably with respect to the entirety of medical racism and any greater understanding of medical misogyny beyond vague notions of hysteria; an alienating preoccupation with a highly-syncretized Divine Feminine; unprompted comments on food, nutrition, and fatness with no critical reflection on the relationship between fatphobia and medical neglect of the chronically ill; glossing over well-documented methods by which other chronically ill people manage their illnesses; a total lack of sources for her claims; and an extended tangent on the heroic journey that applies modern western literary schema to pre-Christian mythology/theology. To be verbose, see below:
In the course of analyzing the Venn diagram of symptoms, labels, treatments, and dismissals she and other chronically ill people experience, Ramey describes various allopathic, naturopathic, and integrated medical treatments and alludes to her endless hours of extensive reviewing existing research. However, this book contains no footnotes, no source citations, and no bibliography that would allow the reader to assess the credibility of these sources or the accuracy of Ramey’s synthesis of existing scholarship.
All the time unnecessarily apologizing to the reader for its fairly tame and polite descriptions of scatological and gynecological symptoms and treatments could, perhaps, have been better spent in Ramey actually identifying herself as a disabled person or even simply struggling with her relationship to the concept of disability.
Glaringly, she spends little time considering chronic illnesses’ frequent comorbidities. While discussing the role of trauma in illness, she only briefly mentions PTSD and then veers back into the hypothesis that sugar causes inflammation, spending a sentence or two on the documented strong link between PTSD/C-PTSD and chronic illness and pain (particularly fibromyalgia and Ehlers-Danlos). Developmental and neurological disorders’ comorbidity with all manner of ailments from autoimmune diseases to gastrointestinal problems to anxiety disorders to POTS (to the point that many clinicians now assess the details of a patient’s medical and psych history alongside established diagnostic criteria) has no apparent role in Ramey’s theory of chronic illness cause and effect. At multiple points in her lists of the convoluted array of pathologies facing the chronically ill, she mentions PCOS, diabetes, infertility, cystic ovaries, eczema, dysmenorrhea, and hypothyroidism without ever acknowledging that peer-reviewed research consistently identifies PCOS’s primary symptoms (insulin resistance, elevated androgens, and chronic inflammation) as a likely root cause of this web of diseases and ailments. She does not, at any point, acknowledge that these diseases have strong genetic components, ongoing research into the potential role of epigenetics/multigenerational trauma, or the descriptions throughout virtually all of known history of maladies and malaises that seem to describe the exact diseases Ramey ascribes to uniquely modern conditions. Strangely limited scope of consideration aside, she seems to dismiss out of hand the wide variety of highly effective long-term management protocols and effective treatments available to people suffering from these illnesses.
Though she waxes on the foundational importance of hormonal imbalance within the framework of “functional medicine,” she seems to understand these imbalances as a result of environmental exposure to uniquely modern chemical toxins and too much sugar, precluding the possibility that the complex wetware of the human body simply does not always get made perfectly or function correctly. Her narrative morphs biological imperfection into personal failing and decries decades of safe and effective use of supplementary hormones as an ineffectual, even harmful band-aid that might as well not be used. Managing the symptoms of our damaged or incorrectly-built bodies won’t cure us and might have icky side effects, so fuck you for trying to mitigate your pain… despite detailing the great and dangerous lengths to which Ramey herself went for even an ounce of relief.
With respect to Ramey’s discussions of gender identity, sexual orientation, sex, the spectrum of human sexual dimorphism, gender roles, and concepts of femaleness, womanhood, and femininity across time… I genuinely don’t know where to start. Even as a femme-presenting, cisgender woman, I was highly alienated by the almost fetishistic presentation of the Divine Feminine and the usual array of traits touted as inherently feminine. That was even before Ramey presented a strange, syncretic mythology of women (and vague, overlapping categories of people she seems to consider symbolically or spiritually women) as totems of the Prophetic Chronically Ill Mother Goddess. Ramey’s spiritual philosophy is her business, but I doubt its scientific rigor as a paradigm through which to achieve a medical diagnosis.
Where this memoir falls apart, unfortunately, is everywhere else. Due to the way Ramey discusses food, nutritional science, and fatness, I cannot recommend even the more useful sections to anyone who struggles with disordered eating. To be as succinct as possible, other sections veer into alarming, binarized gender and sex essentialism; inaccurate representations of both scientific and pseudoscientific approaches to medicine; misunderstanding or dismissal of the history of medicine, notably with respect to the entirety of medical racism and any greater understanding of medical misogyny beyond vague notions of hysteria; an alienating preoccupation with a highly-syncretized Divine Feminine; unprompted comments on food, nutrition, and fatness with no critical reflection on the relationship between fatphobia and medical neglect of the chronically ill; glossing over well-documented methods by which other chronically ill people manage their illnesses; a total lack of sources for her claims; and an extended tangent on the heroic journey that applies modern western literary schema to pre-Christian mythology/theology. To be verbose, see below:
In the course of analyzing the Venn diagram of symptoms, labels, treatments, and dismissals she and other chronically ill people experience, Ramey describes various allopathic, naturopathic, and integrated medical treatments and alludes to her endless hours of extensive reviewing existing research. However, this book contains no footnotes, no source citations, and no bibliography that would allow the reader to assess the credibility of these sources or the accuracy of Ramey’s synthesis of existing scholarship.
All the time unnecessarily apologizing to the reader for its fairly tame and polite descriptions of scatological and gynecological symptoms and treatments could, perhaps, have been better spent in Ramey actually identifying herself as a disabled person or even simply struggling with her relationship to the concept of disability.
Glaringly, she spends little time considering chronic illnesses’ frequent comorbidities. While discussing the role of trauma in illness, she only briefly mentions PTSD and then veers back into the hypothesis that sugar causes inflammation, spending a sentence or two on the documented strong link between PTSD/C-PTSD and chronic illness and pain (particularly fibromyalgia and Ehlers-Danlos). Developmental and neurological disorders’ comorbidity with all manner of ailments from autoimmune diseases to gastrointestinal problems to anxiety disorders to POTS (to the point that many clinicians now assess the details of a patient’s medical and psych history alongside established diagnostic criteria) has no apparent role in Ramey’s theory of chronic illness cause and effect. At multiple points in her lists of the convoluted array of pathologies facing the chronically ill, she mentions PCOS, diabetes, infertility, cystic ovaries, eczema, dysmenorrhea, and hypothyroidism without ever acknowledging that peer-reviewed research consistently identifies PCOS’s primary symptoms (insulin resistance, elevated androgens, and chronic inflammation) as a likely root cause of this web of diseases and ailments. She does not, at any point, acknowledge that these diseases have strong genetic components, ongoing research into the potential role of epigenetics/multigenerational trauma, or the descriptions throughout virtually all of known history of maladies and malaises that seem to describe the exact diseases Ramey ascribes to uniquely modern conditions. Strangely limited scope of consideration aside, she seems to dismiss out of hand the wide variety of highly effective long-term management protocols and effective treatments available to people suffering from these illnesses.
Though she waxes on the foundational importance of hormonal imbalance within the framework of “functional medicine,” she seems to understand these imbalances as a result of environmental exposure to uniquely modern chemical toxins and too much sugar, precluding the possibility that the complex wetware of the human body simply does not always get made perfectly or function correctly. Her narrative morphs biological imperfection into personal failing and decries decades of safe and effective use of supplementary hormones as an ineffectual, even harmful band-aid that might as well not be used. Managing the symptoms of our damaged or incorrectly-built bodies won’t cure us and might have icky side effects, so fuck you for trying to mitigate your pain… despite detailing the great and dangerous lengths to which Ramey herself went for even an ounce of relief.
With respect to Ramey’s discussions of gender identity, sexual orientation, sex, the spectrum of human sexual dimorphism, gender roles, and concepts of femaleness, womanhood, and femininity across time… I genuinely don’t know where to start. Even as a femme-presenting, cisgender woman, I was highly alienated by the almost fetishistic presentation of the Divine Feminine and the usual array of traits touted as inherently feminine. That was even before Ramey presented a strange, syncretic mythology of women (and vague, overlapping categories of people she seems to consider symbolically or spiritually women) as totems of the Prophetic Chronically Ill Mother Goddess. Ramey’s spiritual philosophy is her business, but I doubt its scientific rigor as a paradigm through which to achieve a medical diagnosis.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Chronic illness, Sexism, Medical content, Medical trauma, Gaslighting
Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts
NEED TO READ
All I'm going to say! Well and pick it up now (please)
All I'm going to say! Well and pick it up now (please)
informative
medium-paced
4.5
I am so sorry to those I doubted; or judged. This was a well laid out, thougtul and medically focused look into diseases without belief. I don't know how to recommend this to except I hope everyone reads it, everyone understands what this big picture nightmare looks like; and how we can help those women.
I am so sorry to those I doubted; or judged. This was a well laid out, thougtul and medically focused look into diseases without belief. I don't know how to recommend this to except I hope everyone reads it, everyone understands what this big picture nightmare looks like; and how we can help those women.
Important story, not a fan of the way it’s written, but that’s on me. I’m glad this book exists.
This is a painstakingly detailed account of the author’s medical journey, with side trips into accounts of feminism and functional medicine. There are blind spots in this memoir, as she writes as a privileged white woman and does not account for transgendered people nor people who do not even have close to the means she has, to access the many many doctors and treatments she goes through.
I appreciated the willingness to share her horrifying medical account and to acknowledge that many many people are silently suffering from mystery or misunderstood illnesses.
I appreciated the willingness to share her horrifying medical account and to acknowledge that many many people are silently suffering from mystery or misunderstood illnesses.