To think we are becoming a country of hypochondriacs?

Next up.
OP will tell depression sufferers to just cheer up a bit and carry on..

One dc has had covid four times and the other probably more than that.

I did agree with you on the vote BUT I have two young adult dc and they have definitely both suffered with the long term effects of covid. They are always coughing, have fatigue, chest infections and always seem to be ill and under the weather when they were perfectly fine before with just the odd normal childhood illness. One has been diagnosed with long covid and the GP said she herself has it.

My one dc panics when she gets a sore throat as she knows she will get a chest infection then antibiotics then ill for two weeks and then absent from their course. She admits she has health anxiety but she does seem to be ill a lot.

Have you ever tried going to the gym with a migraine, or even gone for a walk with one?

Oh look "migraine is just a headache".

I also have chronic migraine and have recently had the RTO conversation with my manager. I absolutely refuse to do it.

WFH gives me complete control over my exposure to lighting, scents and temperature. I can also take my abortive medication for an attack without being unable to then drive home (due to side effects). I also have access to my ice packs, sickness medication and a clean and private toilet to vomit in repeatedly should that medication fail.

Migraine is totally disabling for many of us. Before covid, I was working through 25-27 days of migraine per month and barely surviving. I was suicidal and pale as a sheet. My preventative medication wasn't working.

Since covid and WFH, those days went down to 15 and a new medication took it down to 12.

I'm now on yet another medication and guess how many days of migraines I have per month? 1-4.

Guess WHEN I get those attacks? Every time I have to into the badly lit, flickering lights, broken desk and chair, overheated office in the basement of my employer (as they closed the only other location I could go).

I work alone in that basement 95% of the time and still can't do most of my usual work there as it's a co-working space and I'm not permitted to do it there as my work is heavily compartmentalised.

WFH for those of us with chronic conditions, disabilities and medical needs has been life changing.

I've taken two days off sick in 4 years. Before that it was every month and I was on warnings and more.

But it's migraines vs chronic migraines. There is a difference. I get migraines from time to time, they suck, sometimes I can work through (at least the start of one) and sometimes I can't. My family member gets CHRONIC migraines. She cannot work. It's not just the migraine, but the fatigue of constantly dealing with it. She's absolutely wiped.

I get pains from time to time, I actually have a chronic condition that will cause pain, but thankfully the pain itself isn't chronic (everything else bloody is though lol) . I am part of a support group where many of the members DO have actual chronic pain. It's not just the pain itself, again it's the fatigue and weight of dealing with it constantly. They cannot work.

Ditto depression. I feel depressed and down sometimes, it's really intense as I have mental health conditions anyway... But I don't have chronic depression. I used to work with people who had chronic depression, as a support worker... And jesus, it's a different beast. These people are really struggling.

And there are plenty of people with the exact same symptoms I do get, who actually do not work because of them. I often think they have it right, because whilst I can work... literally all of me goes into working. I have nothing left in the tank for joy or pleasure in life. I work, struggle to eat, struggle to sleep, work, repeat . I don't see family or friends. I don't go out anywhere. Because I can't. Because work has used up every bit of my energy. This is not a life anyone should have. It's not a life.

So you think chronic migraines don’t exist? You think migraines are just a “bad headache” but you don’t want to downplay genuine illness?

You’re really showing your ignorance.

OP, are you a headline writer for the daily mail? 🤣

Chronic pain and migraines are really serious, and yes WFH would make them easier to manage. Daily motion sickness for a couple of hours would be absolute hell, if you really try and empathise. What a mean, mean thread. Lots and lots of people have hidden disabilities which are made easier to manage by WFH. Are you jealous or do you write for the Daily Fail?

I don't think people are hypochondriacs, but I do think we've lost the ability to perform basic home medicine and first aid. How many times at A&E do we see people who could have managed their injuries at home. Or on here, people are told to take their kids in "for a precaution" because we don't have the skills and confidence anymore to observe and act if the situation deteriorates.

I think we are generally an unwell population, we live sedentary lives and our diets are very poor. It's no wonder we feel shit and indeed have all manner of health issues.

Living with chronic pain is hell, imagine thinking its the same as having aches and owing. This is ranked up there with telling ME patients that " we all get tired"
I'm glad that don't suffer with migraines, do you think someone can just suck it up and carry on working through it?

Completely agree OP, and unfortunately the knock on effect is it makes it harder for people with genuine disabilities to get help or be taken seriously. Same for mental health as well when people say they are depressed or anxious but are actually just feeling a normal range of emotions and don’t have actual mental health problems.

As a society, I think we’ve come to medicalise ordinary feelings and responses to events far too much, to some extent. I don’t think that’s necessarily the general public’s fault entirely. There’s a lot of money to be made from the medicalisation of ordinary ailments and emotions. Supplements, vitamin drinks, so-called natural pain remedies, private prescriptions; self help books, life coaches, counselling, meditation, wellbeing therapies.

It’s to the benefit of the people who trade in all of this to encourage more people to believe that not feeling great physically, or poor behaviours, or the way they’re feeling must be because of a hidden disability, or neurodiversity, or abnormal discomfort that absolutely needs medicating, or childhood attachment problems, or hidden trauma, or emotional damage or mental illness that they need to spend years in expensive therapy or coaching for; rather than just the ordinary everyday viruses and ailments, anxiety or sadness (or laziness) that we all experience from time to time. Thus I don’t totally blame the people who’ve been taken in by it. It’s easier to convince yourself that you’re unwell or damaged than to take responsibility for yourself and your health sometimes, especially when there are so many people motivated to help you believe it.

When something becomes chronic you learn to work and live around it, if you don't your life is over.

Society's not broken round these parts

Migraine for me has effects more akin to a stroke than a headache. It would be rash in the extreme to try to get to work during one, and pointless.

Fortunately, mine are only every few months.

I'm not sure that woman is a prime example of hypochondria, really.

I'd agree with you in some respects OP, I know several that would fall to the floor with mildest hint of a cold.

However, chronic migraines are not just a headache. They are horrendous.

Not true, I’ve just said I can work with chronic migraines that have some horrendous symptoms, because I’m self employed. I’d she’s able to work flexibly, she may be able to too.

Oh come on, people are dramatic. They say they "have a migraine" when they have a headache, it "they've got the flu" when they just have a cold.

I'd she had chronic migraines, she wouldn't be able to work whether at home or not.

As for travel sickness... Don't apply for jobs where you are having to travel. Or take medicine.

If she's able to work by WFH in spite of poor health (migraines affect the whole body, not just the head and can leave a sufferer exhausted) all credit to her. WFH has kept many many more people in work than would otherwise have been conceivable in the pre-WFH days.

Yes there is an element of society who do need to build up more resilience who probably have the exact same diagnoses as this lady and DONT work but let's not insult those with debilitating conditions who do all the can and still manage to remain employed.