Hi if you're too fatigued to care for yourself and your doctor has suggested that you exercise, reduce your stress, or improve your sleep hygiene instead of suggesting that you get formally evaluated for a chronic illness, please know that your doctor is bad at their job.

The point of this tweet is not that exercise is never helpful. Of course it is helpful for some people.

The point is that doctors routinely neglect to interpret fatigue as a disabling symptom that merits further investigation, and this causes harm.

Alright well I think new folks are seeing this, so I want to make sure i'm explicit about this:

Patients with ME and some other conditions that cause fatigue can do irreparable harm to their bodies by trying to exercise despite fatigue.

Exercise is not universally safe.

And also, if this tweet has you rethinking your last medical encounter, feel free to join us over in #NEISVoid. https://twitter.com/bennessb/status/1261309613435162624?s=19