Jennifer Brea: What happens when you have a disease doctors can't diagnose
Jen Brea: 如果你患咗一種醫生診斷唔到嘅病,咁會點?
Jennifer Brea was a PhD student at Harvard when, one night, she found she couldn't write her own name. Full bio
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to applaud ASL-style, in silence.]
to marry the love of my life.
when we are in good health,
a fever of 104.7 degrees.
if you have a virus,
some chicken soup,
everything will be fine.
I couldn't leave my house.
just to make it to the bathroom.
after infection,
nothing wrong.
to explain things like this to yourself,
to be on the other side of 25.
draw the right side of a circle.
to speak or move at all.
dermatologists, endocrinologists,
"It's clear you're really sick,
what's wrong with you."
diagnosed me with conversion disorder.
我患咗轉化症
the sinus infection,
neurological and cardiac symptoms --
by some distant emotional trauma
probability theory,
experimental design.
my neurologist's diagnosis.
that the truth is often counterintuitive,
by what we want to believe.
that he was right.
from my neurologist's office to my house,
almost electric kind of pain.
could have possibly generated all this.
I couldn't touch my chin to my chest,
in the next room --
of the next two years in bed.
我都喺床上度過
have gotten it so wrong?
all over the world
and weekends in bed,
the next Monday.
the sound of a human voice
with myalgic encephalomyelitis.
"chronic fatigue syndrome."
一種可以嚴重成咁嘅疾病
as serious as this.
physically, mentally --
he might be sore for a couple of days.
I might be bedridden for a week.
由診所行返屋企前咁健康
from my neurologist's office.
people around the world
1,500 到 3,000 萬人患咗呢種病
it's about one million people.
就有一百萬人患咗呢種病
as multiple sclerosis.
with the physical function
are homebound or bedridden,
can't even work part-time.
and this devastating
會被醫學界遺忘?
with conversion disorder,
of ideas about women's bodies
有關女性身體嘅諗法
by sexual deprivation
尤其係熱情嘅女性
would literally dry up
in search of moisture,
for several millennia until the 1880s,
the theory of hysteria.
嘗試更新歇斯底里症嘅理論
could produce physical symptoms
一啲太痛苦嘅記憶或者情緒
mind to handle.
into physical symptoms.
could now get hysteria,
the most susceptible.
the history of my own disease,
these ideas still run.
at the Los Angeles County General Hospital
病得好嚴重
in the neck and back, fevers --
I had when I first got diagnosed.
it was a new form of polio.
than 70 outbreaks documented
好相似嘅後感染性疾病個案
post-infectious disease.
to disproportionately affect women,
the one cause of the disease,
were mass hysteria.
doctors want to help.
what would otherwise be untreatable,
that have no explanation.
can cause real harm.
named Eliot Slater
一個叫 Eliot Slater 嘅精神科醫生
who had been diagnosed with hysteria.
被診斷出患上歇斯底里症嘅病人
and 30 had become disabled.
like multiple sclerosis,
renamed "conversion disorder."
that diagnosis in 2012,
to receive that diagnosis.
比男性多 2-10 倍
or psychogenic illness
係永遠無辦法證實
the absence of evidence,
have held back biological research.
of the least funded diseases.
係其中一個研究資助最少嘅病
roughly 2,500 dollars per AIDS patient,
per ME patient.
has been a choice,
that were supposed to protect us.
做嘅一個決定
sometimes runs in families,
喺家族入面發生
after almost any infection,
to Epstein-Barr virus to Q fever,
以至到 Q 型流感嘅時候
at two to three times the rate of men.
比男性多兩至三倍
than just my disease.
of a cohort of women in their late 20s
同一班就嚟 30 歲嘅女士一樣
much trouble we were having
患咗一種自身免疫結締組織病
that it was all in her head.
that it was just early menopause.
for years as anxiety.
autoimmune diseases
who are eventually diagnosed
一種已知嘅自身免疫病嘅人
this has everything to do with gender
of autoimmune disease patients are women,
it's as high as 90 percent.
disproportionately affect women,
and ME affects millions of men.
you're exaggerating your symptoms,
to be strong, to buck up.
人哋就叫你堅強、振作
a more difficult time getting diagnosed.
thought of as psychological
their biological mechanisms.
could be forcibly institutionalized
abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
as hysterical paralysis
discovered brain lesions.
歇斯底里性麻痺
只係因為壓力而形成
were just caused by stress,
that H. pylori was the culprit.
幽門螺旋菌先係罪魁禍首
from the kind of science
得到科學嘅幫助
to find evidence of autoimmunity,
搵自身免疫病嘅證據
are finding abnormalities
away from normal.
are running a phase-3 clinical trial
可以完全緩解癌症嘅藥
causes complete remission.
and our own doctors
five percent there,
or will I wash my hair today?
that I could be treated.
maybe one day I could get better.
around the world,
with something wonderful,
be able to run again,
that I now only get to do in my dreams.
for how far I have come.
when I was stuck in that bedroom,
不見天日嘅感覺
since I had seen the sun.
had I not been one of the lucky ones,
taken my own life,
we have saved, decades ago,
of my disease is discovered,
our institutions and our culture,
科學同醫學都深受人類追求嘅
are profoundly human endeavors.
都同普通人一樣受偏見影響
about women's health.
a battleground for equality
需要顧及
to say, "I don't know."
of all that we do not know,
with a sense of wonder.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jennifer Brea - FilmmakerJennifer Brea was a PhD student at Harvard when, one night, she found she couldn't write her own name.
Why you should listen
Over the following months, while doctors insisted her condition was psychosomatic, Brea became bedridden. She started filming herself and the community that she discovered online, collecting the first footage of what would become a feature documentary about myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), often referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome. The film, Unrest, which will premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, tells Jen's story as well as the stories of four other patients living with ME.
Brea is also the founder of #MEAction, an online organizing platform for ME patients around the world, many of whom cannot leave their homes.
Jennifer Brea | Speaker | TED.com