: please read

[Guest guest]

,

I know you have meant well by doing what you been doing. I'm going to try to

explain to you in detail what I think may be the cause of all this disharmony.

When you join a group, it is wise and also good manners to stay quiet at the

beginning and observe what is going on. Conversely, it is perceived as rude to

jump in and try to evangelize before you know what is being discussed and what

has been discussed in the past. This is by far the most intelligent and well

informed group of people discussing chronic fatigue syndrome that you will find

anywhere. Many, possibly most, people here are familiar with the thyroid issue

in CFS and have delved into it quite a bit. It's good that you have a lot of

information about one of many aspects of CFS, but I've noticed you just keep

hammering at people about this one thing, without any awareness that many here

have a lot more knowledge than you do. You need to take the time to get to know

and respect the people here and not just jump in and start telling them what to

do. And if you do that you may find that you may have a lot to learn from them.

If you ask repeatedly provoking questions, as you have in some of your posts,

then people will get annoyed at you. Be aware also that some things that you

have written have the effect of being inflammatory. " It appears that there are

women on this board with diagnosed thyroid disease that feel that they have CFS

and that thyroid is not their issue. That scares me. That means their doctor

sucks! " gives the impression that you think that these women are not smart

enough to find competent doctors without your help. And a generalization like "

.. . . people over 50 today tend to carry the mentality that their docs know all "

is just plain insulting, and really demonstrates that you haven't done your

homework on this group at all. Also, using lots of capital letters is thought by

many to be the equivalent of shouting, and lots of people are offended by it. It

seems to me from your responses to other people's posts that sometimes you

haven't taken enough time to read them thoroughly before firing off another

message, which can also bother people.

Although you may not believe me, the people here are very tolerant and I've

rarely seen an uncivil word in this group. If you want to contribute and learn,

I urge you to read quite a bit in the archives. And read

slowly and carefully, please. Get a feel for the group. Refrain from sending any

messages giving overly strongly worded unsolicited advice (nobody likes this

sort of thing in any area of life, not just here). Then, if you want to say

something, please do your darndest to keep your posts shorter, because it's

considerate to keep your messages no longer than necessary.

Sorry you got off on the wrong footing. We welcome your input, when given

thoughtfully and sensitively.

Ellen