a truth of the world upsetting to many: a lot of medications exist in the realm of "well, we know this works in a percentage of people for this situation, so it's worth a go." "oh nice, how does it work?"
"we have absolutely no idea HOW it works still, just that it works"
so if you ever hear that like, the evil drug companies know an exact cure for something but won't let the public have it... .......................consider: we don't know a fucking thing my guy
@wigglytuffitout oh MAN yes.
Migraines.
Depression, Anxiety.
Dude, even MS we're still guessing.
"We might have to try a few things."
"Story of my life."
The first thing that worked for my migraines was an anti-seizure medication that made the migraines vanish completely but gave me insanely bad mood swings.
@aldersprig SO MUCH OF MEDICINE IS JUST THROWING SHIT ON THE WALL TO SEE WHAT STICKS.
i mean i understand why most people don't wanna know that because it's definitely more comforting to say "oh yes, my doctor will know absolutely what to do, they understand this thoroughly now", but it's bonkers. it's guesses. the medicines we know exactly why and how they work are far outnumbered by the ones that work but we're not quite sure why.
@InspectorCaracal @aldersprig and we're definitely getting to the point where it's becoming obvious that the statistics that have become standard have some major fuckin downsides that have gone unaddressed for *decades* because everyone's chasing the one true standard of crunching your numbers just-so
and this is where i with my english/bio degree and no stats class yell SMELL YA LATER NERDS, hop on my bike, rev it up, and then when the clouds dissipate am found laying dead on the ground,
@wigglytuffitout @InspectorCaracal I have now proofread enough stats papers to realize I know nothing about stats.
@wigglytuffitout And don't get me started on differential diagnosis! "We still don't know what you have but we're pretty sure it's not any of these eighteen things so it's PROBABLY this."
"...but you should give more blood just in case."
@wigglytuffitout @aldersprig yeah like the field of modern medicine is almost entirely statistical data