Suppose that the state of medicine in this country was less advanced than it is. Much, much less advanced. We didn't have the germ theory of disease, we didn't have chemotherapy or radiology or X-rays or even the theory about the heart pumping the blood around body. All we had was a black box - our bodies - and the ability to classify illnesses according to what we could see from observation, from the outside.
That would be pretty hard.
We would probably classify diseases a little like the ancient Hebrews classified animals - where bats were considered a kind of bird, because the 'bird' classification was really 'things that fly'. Or whales were classified with the fish - 'things that swim'. We might end up with 'coughing disease' or 'high fever disease' or 'spotty rash disease'
If you were diagnosed with Spotty Rash Disease - well, this might mean almost anything. In actual reality you might have chickenpox, rubella, measles, a viral rash, excema, a food allergy or the bubonic plague. And maybe you might go searching for other people who had previously had Spotty Rash Disease, to see if their experiences would give you any insight into how to manage your sickness. Ultimately, you'd probably find a number of people who did have (in reality) the same sickness as you, and they'd be able to give you some useful tips. But you'd have to sift through a whole bunch of other 'Spotty Rash Disease' sufferers who actually had a totally different illness, and whose advice would do you no good at all and would likely be entirely contradictory to each other. Put a lotion on it. Don't put anything on it and let it breathe. Rug up warm. Wear light clothes and let the air circulate. Keep of nuts, keep off eggs, keep off dairy, keep off wheat. Just wait it out and it will get better. Take a year's worth of penecillin. Go straight to hospital, do not pass GO.
That's what it's like when you're only looking at the outside.
A person in a support group I belong to has a very wise thing to say - "Labels aren't important. Issues are important." Never mind labels. What issues are you dealing with? Who else is the same? What did [i]they[/i] do about it? Who else is dealing with your specific version of 'Spotty Rash Disease'?
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