One of the huge benefits of the internet and social network platforms is their ability to connect people with other people who may share similar interests and needs. This can be especially important for those who suffer from various debilitating symptoms for which there seems to be no clearly identifiable cause and for which their doctors have resorted to just trying to alleviate the symptoms, usually with just partial success. Finding others with similar conditions can be a relief, since sometimes those around them may speak and act like they harbor suspicions that the sufferer does not have any real problems but may be a hypochondriac or merely trying to get attention and sympathy

Siddhant Ritwick and Tomi Koljonen describe some of them.

While diseases such as cancer, AIDS, ALS, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and diabetes often evoke deep fear, sympathy and collective urgency – reflected in dedicated charities, advocacy groups and public awareness campaigns – there exists an under-recognised class of bodily conditions that also wreaks havoc on human lives. These illnesses often receive little social legitimacy and may even be dismissed by medical professionals, family members and society at large as mere tiredness, laziness or psychological fragility. Conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Long COVID and Lyme disease are often dismissed as trivial, yet they can be profoundly disabling. Though not usually life-threatening, these overlooked illnesses can dismantle a person’s social, professional and emotional world, leaving sufferers severely disadvantaged – often without the sympathy or structural support afforded to more widely recognised diseases.

Reflux diseases are among the many conditions that can trap sufferers in a spiral of chronic suffering.
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These brutal conditions are neither mysterious like Long COVID, whose causes and progression remain uncertain, nor urgent like cancer. Instead, they occupy an uncomfortable middle ground: familiar, longstanding and supposedly manageable.

The problem is that many of us may suffer from mild and transient versions of these ailments that either go away by themselves or can be treated with various home remedies that we have learned work for us. That may delude us into thinking that everyone who suffers from them should be able to do so as well.

In order to both find relief as well as connect with others who understand their condition, people go on the internet and this can be a mixed blessing.

This is the paradox of chronic illness today. Never before have humans possessed such convenient access to abundant medical knowledge, expert guidance, health influencers, and communities of fellow sufferers. Expertise flows across digital networks, promising hope for every ailment. Yet, paradoxically, this abundance can become a source of suffering. Instead of finding relief, many individuals suffering from chronic illness find themselves descending into a spiral of suffering – a cruel journey where each piece of information, whether from expert opinion or laypersons, may offer hope momentarily, but over time deepens their distress.

The researchers studied chronic reflux disease sufferers in particular to see how the online experience was for them. Many of them complain bitterly about how their physicians belittled them.


When professional medicine fails them, sufferers routinely seek refuge and support from the fellow-sufferer. In a digital society, anyone with internet access can become a sufferer, a teacher and a healer, all at once. For those tired of rejections from medical professionals, online communities dedicated to their specific suffering become oases in an otherwise forbidding desert.

At the outset, many new members find a community full of empathy, understanding and shared experience. This initial relief is a revelation for many users. After months of being told their symptoms exist ‘in their head’ or spring from ‘stress’, sufferers finally encounter souls who believe them.

However that initial feeling of relief at finding a community that legitimizes their experience can quickly turn sour, as they start receiving advice on what to do, and “prescriptions can range from merely futile to genuinely dangerous” and wildly contradictory, all based on personal knowledge or anecdotal evidence. This can lead to a downward spiral and on occasion to a feeling of resignation.

The authors give the case of Luigi Mangione as an example.

The highly publicised case of Luigi Mangione brings potential consequences of resignation to light. His story reveals something we would rather not acknowledge: that when human beings are pushed beyond their capacity to suffer, the spiral can end in violence. Before his arrest for the assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024, Mangione had spent years descending through the rabbit hole of online forums for chronic back pain, documenting his transformation from hopeful patient to aggrieved exile. His digital footprints reveal the familiar story: chronic pain after a pivotal moment, initial faith in medical professionals, mounting frustration with failed interventions, desperate experimentation, many years of invisible suffering and, finally, the bitter recognition that the system designed to heal him had instead abandoned him. While his alleged actions remain inexcusable, they illuminate something we cannot ignore: the violent terminus of an untreated spiral of suffering.

The authors describe other pathways that sufferers follow and offer some recommendarions, such as this one.

[S]ince digital spaces can feel like sanctuaries and yet just as easily become sites of harm and false certainty, it’s crucial that online health communities and influencers act with greater responsibility. Their value lies less in offering solutions than in offering witness. A simple ‘I understand your suffering’ is often safer and more meaningful than an unsolicited regimen or risky treatment suggestion.
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The spiral of suffering thrives in isolation, in the gap between what we expect and what we receive, but it softens in the presence of genuine witnesses. Many around us inhabit oceans of suffering and sometimes the best available medicine is not a cure but companionship – a willingness to sit with others in the mystery and intractability of their pain.

People with chronic pain seek out others whom they think are fellow sufferers in order to commiserate, and give or receive suggestions. Just two days ago I was shopping in the supermarket and a woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me how bad my pain was. I was surprised and she explained that she had noticed that I had severe scoliosis (a curvature of the spine that in my case was caused by my childhood polio) and that she had scoliosis too, but of the congenital kind. She said that she had to wear a very restraining and uncomfortable brace that reduced but did not eliminate the pain. I felt really sorry for her and also a little guilty because I do not suffer from pain although her scoliosis, unlike mine, is not at all noticeable. We talked for a while and then parted after exchanging a hug. I am not a hugger in general, especially not with strange women, but in that moment, it seemed to be all that I could do to express my acknowledgement of her condition and my sympathy.