Having spoken last night with a few fellow bloggers we are starting to feel reluctant to blog about our lives and how our various illnesses effect our day to day living. This is mainly because of a new sub-culture which is evolving. Over the past few months several people have come to light as suffering from munchausens syndrome and also a variation on munchausens by proxy- munchausens by internet!!!
there are a few specific individuals I have noticed to have almost copied my blog style and the things is discuss- my family life, dyslexia, my career path and then the main one brittle asthma. The issue with the internet and exposing people with munchausens is that the interent gives so much detail about diseases so anyone can virtually make up a disease and learn the symptoms and know the medication without actually having the disease itself. But then there are also those who like to say they have symptoms and go to the Dr and get medication. A dr will always prescribe medication for a breathing issue because it is not worth their license to deny medication when someone comes in saying they cant breath!
I have had two people recently fabricate stories about illness to me and be later caught. Both of whom denied this and were adament they had certain disease. having lived with one of the disease- asthma I knwo what it is like and know how the diagnosis takes place and the step guide to treatment etc. I am an expert patient. You cant fool me. I do research into the disease and projects which i hope to be published one day. I know the weirdest symptoms to the most common and people telling me they are not sterotypical doesnt wash with me. I feel like people try to take me for a fool.
I am going to take this step by step. When an individual is trying to present worse at a Dr than they are to get attention or medication or whatever the steps a dr does is simple- get you to do a pf- a primary care dr has limited knowledge in correct technique for pfs and therefore if you give little effort then you have a low pf simple as but the dr is not going to know what technique is correct and what it bad. (I have coughed downa pf machine before to amke my pf higher and my dr didnt say anything!!!)
Allergies- if you are allergic to something it will always come up in a blood test even if it doesnt come up in a skin test. If you are allergic to something your blood will show it. even auto immune diseases show up in the blood. So if you have screeds and screeds of tests and they all come back negative then you dont have allergies or an auti immune disorder. You may be sensitive to stuff but this is not an allergy per say. Although some allergies can suddenly develop it is uselaly because something has happened. or if you are very young it may be on your second exposure to something such as nuts. But suddenly over ngiht becoming allergic to a fruit or something is not going to happen.
Asthma or other breathing disorders are really difficult to live with as are allergies why does anyone want to fabricate they have them. it only makes those with the problems angry and also makes us look bad. There is enough psychological stigma attached to having a severe illness without people making up that they ahve it. Often you go throught years of tests and medication before the right combination is found and those years are hell. karma will come to those who want to have an illness when they are actually healthy. it will come back and bite you on the arse with more serious consquences than you could ever imagine.
Rant over. but to the peopel i am talkig about. Grow a pair and be lucky you have lungs that work and are not dependant on pills and inhalers. I am dam lucky I am as healthy as I am as I know people facing transplant etc. Think about it!
I will continue to blog as I have been. But if I come across someone bloggin who is copying stuff from my blog about illness etc I will publically say you blog and you name on my blog and say why I think you are a fraud. I know a blog is in public and people can take what they want from it but I will out you and shame you.
ANONYMOUS-ASTHMA 
*hugs* glad to see you’re using the blog as it should be used, to get feelings across and you will hopefully help educate people about the reality of living with severe asthma, multiple allergies etc. I really admire you for blogging as you do, I can’t imagine how hard it must be sometimes to maintain this blog. Hope the lungs behaved over Christmas and that it was a good one too. Simi x
hey simi,
it was a good christmas but home now…no doubt catch up soon!!!
It is hard work to keep up with the blog but then also it is a real outlet to jsut vent and get stuff out my head!!!!
Hope xmas was good for!!! xx
I don’t comment often, although I read your blog regularly, but I want to thank you for blogging as you do. Blogs like this make it easy for those of us who don’t have serious disease – like me – to gain some valuable perspective. I sit there and complain that my lung function is down to 100% predicted instead of 150% like I’m used to… when there’s people who live every day at 33% or lower! It helps me to know that some people out there can live happy lives with disease that’s so much worse than mine, and you and Steve and folks like you help me kick myself out of the funks I can get into sometimes when I’m flaring a bit stubbornly. My worst flare I’ve had since my asthma got worse again is not as bad as your everyday breathing, but you manage to take on a workload that would overwhelm me. Thank you very much for proving that what you do can be done – and for showing me that I really have no reason to whine as much as I do.
Hope you have happy, healthy holidays!
Sarah, thanks for your comment. I agree with some of what you say but also want to say that for you a drop in lung function from 150% down to 100% will be a big thing. You will notice alot of the changes. It may even be worse as you know what it is like to have “normal” breathing without being tight chested but jsut because your figures are higher does not mean that when you flare or feel down about it you should kick yourself for it because it is all very real feelings to you.
We all get down days with chests..in fact we all get down days full stop. its normal and we would not be human if we didnt!!!
Yes it is difficult living with serious illness but then it is all about doing things in moderation and adapting life to it. I am very fortunate that I am very well jsut now and pretty on top of my asthma (“touch wood”!!).
I think I have rambled enough but never feel bad for feeling down in the dumps with your asthma jsut because you know there are others who have it worse you are still allowed to be pissed off with it!!!
Ol x
I agree that it’s okay to get down about stuff and pissed off with bad breathing, but I think it’s also important not to let yourself obsess over it and wallow in the negativity (which I was doing a bit too much the past year). And maybe I’m a little gun-shy because I had a major depressive episode as a teenager, and the very last thing I want to happen is to let myself fall back into old thinking patterns and end up in that dark mental place again.
Furthermore I do get a bit excessive with the self-pity routine sometimes… I’ve made a resolution to not be so down about it next year. I think that the self-pity thing is something that anyone adapting to a chronic illness kinda has to go through at some point… but I’m ready to leave it behind now and start just living life – even if it is a life with a bit worse health than the great breathing my teenage years were blessed with.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve come to accept that my health isn’t what it once was, and though I’ll never stop stiving to improve on what I have, I’m kinda ready to move on from “living with a chronic illness” to “living”, if that makes sense. 🙂
Thanks very much for your consideration, though! 🙂
Amen to that, Ol. So many of us discuss our asthma openly and honestly on our blogs–good and bad–and stuff like this, stuff like fake asthma bloggers, well, it makes me not want to blog as honestly as I have been because it worries me that someone will use it to their advantage in all the wrong ways. I want to be able to help people, encourage people to live healthier and coexist more peacefully with their asthma through what I write–NOT contribute to them wrecking their lives with factitious disease that they fabricate from all of what WE write about.
Not having objective tests is not an option with so many tests available, you know. I kind of figure if it doesn’t show up in skin or blood allergy tests or with a meth/histamine challenge or reversibility . . . its NOT allergies or NOT asthma! Plain and simple!
Well written, Olive, and I hope you’re having a great Christmas! ❤ REJOICE in the love of OUR God! 🙂
Hey kerri….well put!!! I was tempted to make up some random illness and see if it was copied but I really couldnt be bothered…maybe the next thing will be a knee complaint!!!!
Hope you are having an awesome xmas and new year time.
Ol x
As always loving your honesty 🙂 We can’t sit back and watch the fakers make fools of people! You know how honest I like to be as you have seen with the people who have been named and shamed cause I just can not stand their lies!
Rarrrrr!!!
Clare