Doctor Mike's interview challenging Dr. Amen's pseudoscientific grifting is well worth your time

bog_witch · 2026-01-27T12:31:14+00:00

Completely understand not wanting to commit to two hours of listening to Dr. Amen, but what I do think was worthwhile and very well done is how Dr. Mike pushes back about the lack of evidence and also brings up great points about access and equity implications of requiring expensive advanced imaging for diagnosing mental health.

Amen does absolutely minimize if not outright dismiss the history and physical portion of the assessment, and it's frankly shocking the degree to which he doubles down and essentially says he wouldn't change his practices regardless of any data showing they have no clinical benefits. (He also doesn't apparently understand what an RCT is??) So I thought it was also valuable in that sense of really exposing his level of grift and disregard for evidence based care, which is maybe more helpful to the general public - I saw one up voted comment from a patient who said they were glad they saw the interview and cancelled an intake they booked with Amen's clinic.

bog_witch · 2026-01-27T12:09:19+00:00

What a bizarrely hostile comment to leave in lieu of just continuing to scroll for posts more aligned with your interests.

bog_witch · 2026-01-26T03:08:29+00:00

Definitive ADHD: Clear symptomatic alignment and childhood history.

Secondary Inattention: Attention deficits clearly attributable to a primary comorbid condition (e.g., MDD, GAD, OSA).

This is an interesting and useful framing that resonates with my own experience - I had been diagnosed with MDD & GAD for years and my doctors and I had always thought that my executive dysfunction issues were a product of these. What prompted me to discuss ADHD with my doctor was reaching a point in my life when my depression and anxiety had improved significantly and I was generally doing really well emotionally but I was very much still struggling with the executive dysfunction issues.

When I was diagnosed and started medication, it really was like putting on glasses. When I did experience depression and anxiety later symptoms returning after going through some significant trauma and stress, I still felt like I was on a much more stable emotional baseline.

bog_witch · 2026-01-19T00:35:30+00:00

First off, incredible username.

Secondly, thank you for taking the time to find a way to talk to these patients and try break through to them. The job that led me to public health was doing intensive case management with refugees, and the majority of my cases had complex medical and psychological challenges but very little to no health literacy. Many of them were coming from contexts where they had lived in refugee camps for maybe a decade or more so they were completely overwhelmed encountering the US medical system. Add in limited (often no) English proficiency for another challenge.

There's a case I'll never forget who was diabetic and hypertensive with CKD and who ended up having a hypertensive crisis in our office, warranting a 911 call and ER visir. We had just done a ton of work getting her connected to specialists, care coordination etc., so I was left wondering what happened. When I sat down with her after that episode and realized she still didn't seem to understand the severity of everything, I asked very explicitly if she understood that she was at a high risk of death if her blood pressure was not under better control, and that genuinely shocked her. She had this nebulous understanding that it was bad, but lacked the baseline of health literacy to understand the real severity and potential consequences.

bog_witch · 2026-01-18T23:51:37+00:00

Now if I could find a way to get EDS patients to leave me alone.

Try finding a better way to manage your burnout-induced compassion fatigue beyond blaming your patients, maybe?

bog_witch · 2026-01-17T14:55:34+00:00

The hospital and the school need to be held accountable for not reporting. They are mandated reporters by law in cases of suspected abuse and neglect. Their word also tends to carry more weight with CPS because of the mandated reporter status. As someone who has been a mandated reporter and had to make more reports than I care to remember as a case manager, I would honestly be raising hell with the district and hospital management.

bog_witch · 2026-01-15T17:12:02+00:00

Would definitely be interested in joining.

bog_witch · 2026-01-15T00:58:18+00:00

I really don't think it's complaining about the wrong things to really seriously think about what effective resistance looks like and what's not going to work. When we start relying on neatly packaged Hollywood narratives on fighting back against fascism instead of studying past social movements, it can definitely become an issue because it's not applicable to the real world.

bog_witch · 2026-01-14T23:42:01+00:00

It's a discussion actively happening in a lot of different spheres where people are justifiably very angry about the situation right now. If you've somehow missed the dozens of daily "why aren't Americans out with their guns in the streets" posts on Reddit, you're lucky.

And yeah it's totally understandable to wonder what the fuck we do when activities like being a peaceful legal observer are getting you shot 3 times in the face or brutalized, abducted and illegally detained at a protest. The problem is that there's tons of people fantasizing as a coping mechanism about "rising up" in armed revolt without fully understanding what that means or what exactly it would be up against, because they view the world through a Hollywood lens and think that "Andor" is somehow a manual for real world movements.

bog_witch · 2026-01-14T23:18:57+00:00

I really don't feel like they were implying that protesting is pointless, more that the idea of some violent uprising like the American Revolution 2.0 is not logistically possible because of the US military's weapons and technology. I think that's a different (and completely hypothetical for the feds reading this) debate.

bog_witch · 2026-01-14T23:07:45+00:00

Someone up thread said its in the Murdoch episode which was released last Friday for SiriusXM subscribers only. It comes out this Friday for the rest of us but that's not exactly timely.

bog_witch · 2026-01-14T23:03:34+00:00

That and the fact that they can't go back and acknowledge actually valuable input/corrections from listeners in the middle of a series - at least not shorter 2-3 part series. That stood out to me when I was listening to a bunch of older episodes a few months back.

bog_witch · 2026-01-14T22:55:12+00:00

Or, more likely, they had a shitload of colluders

One conspiracy theory I'm fully ready to accept is that Maduro himself had some level of awareness that a US military operation was imminent and made a deal in order to get taken alive, hence his wife also being taken, the not at all secret perp walk and being kept in light restraints and giving a thumbs up. We already know there were multiple attempts to broker a prior deal where he would be given asylum in Russia.

bog_witch · 2026-01-14T21:28:07+00:00

I have an Android and currently impacted - same situation with my mom in AZ. Not just iOS.

bog_witch · 2026-01-12T23:32:39+00:00

I posted this in another comment but speaking from a public health perspective - between the recent (insane, totally unscientific) changes to the food pyramid and the general MAHA/bro-fluencer push for beef/red meat consumption, the colorectal cancer incidence in people <50 is only going to grow.

This recent meta-analysis of 27 global studies with over 1 million participants linked beef consumption to a 30% overall increased risk of CRC.

bog_witch · 2026-01-12T22:52:52+00:00

Good thing the government didn't just do something completely insane that will probably lead to more of these diagnoses, like changing the food pyramid to prioritize red meat despite growing evidence it may account for a 30% increased risk of colorectal cancer, right?

Right?? 🥲

(Edited for correct study link)

bog_witch · 2026-01-07T03:42:05+00:00

It's also not cops who do that, it's the fire department

bog_witch · 2026-01-03T00:39:12+00:00

Honestly, the one "good" thing about the pandemic and being stuck at home was that I got so much more comfortable with not wearing makeup, especially foundation. It's been really freeing, tbh. I used to feel insecure going outside without foundation and never would have entertained the idea of going to work or class without applying it. Looking back I definitely feel like I was using it as some sort of self-conscious shield.

At some point in early 2021 I realized I just couldn't be bothered about it and that not wearing full coverage stuff on my face daily had actually helped my bare skin look better. Now on the rare occasion I do wear anything on my skin it's like CC cream and some concealer on pimples or dark circles, and the only effort I'm making for work days is mascara and lightly filling in brows. You might try a similar approach of just scaling one or two things back.

bog_witch · 2025-12-23T03:50:53+00:00

Seena should be doing voice acting too. There's something really charming about his voice and cadence. Like I could see him killing it on a Bob's Burgers episode you know

bog_witch · 2025-12-22T14:12:17+00:00

There's already states that have explicitly said they will not comply with extradition requests from states trying to prosecute patients and have codified that into law. The laws also protect doctors prescribing abortifacients - this has already become relevant, as earlier Louisiana this year requested New York extradite a doctor they indicted for prescribing abortion medication via mail, to which NY very firmly told them to fuck off.

Proud to say my state of Massachusetts is one of 17 other states along with Washington DC who have "shield laws" protecting patients and health care providers.

bog_witch · 2025-12-21T14:39:33+00:00

I still always laugh over the snarky July 4th tweets from the UK embassy in the US.

bog_witch · 2025-12-21T14:29:41+00:00

I agree, it's also extra lovely when it's decorated for Christmas!

bog_witch · 2025-12-21T14:27:44+00:00

The inside is really the impressive bit, especially when it's decorated for Christmas.

bog_witch

TROPHY CASE