I appreciate your reply, and I understand your point. A misdiagnosis in either direction along the organic/psychogenic axis will have unfortunate consequences for the patient. Fair enough.
I don't know if I agree with this, though:
> [T]hese people are suffering terribly, in dire need of help, and when we expend our resources chasing new diagnoses (in the absence of good reason to believe there's a new illness), we're "validating" them at the expense of actually helping them.
Was trying out nasal implants on ENS patients "validating them at the expense of actually helping them"? Because the implants apparently turned out to help in many cases.
And: what constitutes good reason to believe there's a new illness? That's a hard question, which I'm sure can and will be debated forever. But I think that the condition turning out to respond to a novel treatment -- like nasal implants, in this case -- has to be considered some degree of evidence that there's a novel illness.
I don't know if I agree with this, though:
> [T]hese people are suffering terribly, in dire need of help, and when we expend our resources chasing new diagnoses (in the absence of good reason to believe there's a new illness), we're "validating" them at the expense of actually helping them.
Was trying out nasal implants on ENS patients "validating them at the expense of actually helping them"? Because the implants apparently turned out to help in many cases.
And: what constitutes good reason to believe there's a new illness? That's a hard question, which I'm sure can and will be debated forever. But I think that the condition turning out to respond to a novel treatment -- like nasal implants, in this case -- has to be considered some degree of evidence that there's a novel illness.