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Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

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Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#301

Post by martindbp »

_yb2s wrote: post #161
lindsaywaterman wrote: post #21

Physician here. Imo CFS is best understood as the endpoint of an evolution within the nervous system that is increasingly called "central sensitization syndrome." (CSS) This syndrome is caused by a chronic dissociative or avoidant stress response, usually having it's origin in early childhood adversity. Prior to developing CFS, most individuals have other manifestations of CSS, such as IBS, chronic pain, TMD, etc. Ev…

How does this theory line up with the my experience, which seems to be similar to a lot of people with CFS: I had high energy levels until I suddenly got sick, and had a mild fever for about a day. After that I had the sort of fatigue one feels when having the flu, except it lasted for about 8 months, and then gradually lifted. After that my energy levels totally recovered and stayed normal for over a decade. All tes…

I've had constant brain fog / fatigue for the last 6 months after a brief stomach flu. Got a tip to try the sauna for 3 days a week, which apparently doubles human growth hormone production. After two weeks of this I've finally had 5 days in a row where I don't feel tired. I still need to sleep more than usual, but before I could sleep 10 hours and still feel very tired, now I feel great after 9 hours.

The person who told me this had a patient who lost her sense of smell after Covid, and it wouldn't come back. It came back after a single session in the sauna.

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#302

Post by thenerdhead »

Fluorescence wrote: post #300
thenerdhead wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is briefly mentioned when he is talking about his “workaholism” when he was young and also part of many articles on this phenomena. See the wiki page for sources. > So what about Fox and the suspected Leo and Me cluster? Did they all breathe in some environmental toxin in the studio? Or did they perhaps pass the disease to each other? One theory, that has been around for years, is that Parkinson's could be caused…

> It is briefly mentioned when he is talking about his “workaholism” You'll have to timestamp or quote it because I don't see it. I have searched the subtitles. No relevant mention of sick, ill, flu, work etc.

Sorry I don’t have time right now. Perhaps I misremembered, but thought he said he would often sleep off illness in the car when the driver would take him to and from gigs when he was a teen. I trust you looked.

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#303

Post by symlinkk »

talldatethrow wrote: post #201
irrational wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but trying to get his colleagues to believe it would be an uphill battle You have to go through a lot of education to become a doctor, so people naturally expect doctor's to be wise, but the truth is they are just good a memorizing things. They aren't necessarily smarter than any other person and have just as many blindspots. * Source: My dad and uncle are doctors. My brother in law is a doctor. I have a friend who…

I dated a med school student for all of medschool and some rotations. Thus I have countless doctor friends now from those years. Everytime I bring up the reality of what most doctors are like, I get downvoted on HN for some reason. The doctor I dated for years never drank water. She loved diet coke. She ate mcdonalds constantly but avoided the bun. She was skinny though. I had to teach her how to pump gas because her…

She must not have been that bad if you dated her for years.

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#304

Post by brianmcc »

ChatGTP wrote: post #281
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is beyond me how people can deny post viral syndromes. I feel part of the problem is we don't really have any good treatments for it. I know my doctor put it down as post viral tiredness but when I asked how long it might last or what I could do about it he just shrugged his shoulders.

I think it’s because we live in a world where you can’t recover. It’s all about being productive. Your doctor is saying , just get back to it. If you got a virus and could take some time to rest then it probably wouldn’t be an issue. But I think we’re worried about viral recovery times because it affects GDP figures. After I have a virus I like to go slow, but I’m not allowed because I have to keep up with my job.

That's far from universal though. Plenty countries and employers do offer recovery time and space, but it's not sufficient.

I've had friends who suffered CFS (known as ME here in the UK for a time) while students or shortly after finishing high school, and they did literally nothing for years with thankfully parental safety nets without recovering. I don't even recall what eventually happened unfortunately - we're talking early 1990s.

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#305

Post by moonlitzxspec »

Itaconate Shunt Hypothesis is currently being focused on by Robert Phair and Christopher Armstrong in collaboration with Professor Ron Davis's team at Stanford.

We have all experienced our Itaconate Shunt pathway being switched on at some point because it is the tiredness feeling of coming down with a flu or bug.

The body switches over to amino acids for fuel instead of fat and sugars. You run out of amino acids to burn, quickly, and feel the need to lay down and rest.

You cancel that marathon you were about to run, and you even have to give up on walking to the shop for groceries.

Itaconate Shunt Hypothesis (PART 1) https://youtu.be/RiVDNhg4l48?t=1816

A metabolic trap could mean people with Chronic Fatigue Syndromes never switch the Itaconate Shunt mechanism off. Or enough cells in their body stay shunted for many years, reducing their daily physical activity and mental concentration levels well below normal functional expectations.

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#306

Post by DrThunder »

growingkittens wrote: post #120
DrThunder wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a offensive to portray objective reality. People can and often do overreact and fake symptoms. This is just how it is. Why would that offend anyone? The alternative to this is burying your head in the sand and saying we should take everyone at their word. This would result in a WORSE outcome for people that actually have the issues you're so worried about because the data would be skewed. Maybe you ought to…

Let's do some thinking: collectively, we don't know enough about CFS or the human brain to make definitive statements like 'a large number are faking it.' You've confused your emotions for logic.

Yes please do some thinking. There's a condition called Factitious disorder and then there's also anxiety based hypochondria bud.

You're making an objectively FALSE statement. There is ZERO possibility that there's no person in the world faking CFS.

Thanks for the laugh. It's hilarious that you tried to accuse me of an emotional argument.

You can drop the strawman bullshit as well. I never gave a number on how many people are faking it or just being hypochondriacs.

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#307

Post by DrThunder »

hinkley wrote: post #284
growingkittens wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do some thinking: collectively, we don't know enough about CFS or the human brain to make definitive statements like 'a large number are faking it.' You've confused your emotions for logic.

... while accusing others of confusing their emotions for logic.

Explain. Are you trying to make an objectively false statement that there's not one person on Earth faking a disease like CFS?

You do realize there's an actual mental disorder where people fake being sick right?

The only person confused here seems to be you.

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#308

Post by agos »

thereare5lights wrote: post #289
ChatGTP wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s because we live in a world where you can’t recover. It’s all about being productive. Your doctor is saying , just get back to it. If you got a virus and could take some time to rest then it probably wouldn’t be an issue. But I think we’re worried about viral recovery times because it affects GDP figures. After I have a virus I like to go slow, but I’m not allowed because I have to keep up with my job.

It's bizarre how your comment is being downvoted when it's a very accurate description of many modern capitalistic societies. Especially if we're talking about America, where companies literally try to fire you if you're sick or using up too much health care because of their bottom line. It doesn't even matter if it's illegal because unless they get caught there are no consequences and even if they do get caught, the…

it's being downvoted because it somehow implies that by taking a few days of rest one might treat CE/MFS, which is a very misguided and misinformed take

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#309

Post by bugglebeetle »

pixl97 wrote: post #221
whimsicalism wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still no identified viral mechanism for CFS. So yes, you will continue to find many doctors that deny that there is convincing evidence for viral causes of CFS because that is the reality of the current situation.

If I had to make guesses, my take is a viral+immune system interaction. You get the virus which causes your own immune system to respond. In that response we get a 'partial match' to something inside of our own system. This leads to a low level inflammatory attack against your own system. In type 1 diabetics there is some evidence of a post viral auto-immune cause in some cases. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic…

And COVID infections increase you risk of developing type 2 diabetes:

https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/verified-covid-19-infe...

Re: Chronic fatigue syndrome may have a post-viral infection origin

#310

Post by Fluorescence »

thenerdhead wrote: post #302
Fluorescence wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is briefly mentioned when he is talking about his “workaholism” You'll have to timestamp or quote it because I don't see it. I have searched the subtitles. No relevant mention of sick, ill, flu, work etc.

Sorry I don’t have time right now. Perhaps I misremembered, but thought he said he would often sleep off illness in the car when the driver would take him to and from gigs when he was a teen. I trust you looked.

He talks about working two jobs but this was during Family Ties & Back to the Future, 6 years before his symptoms. He describes sleeping in the car but no mention of illness. At best it's "can't be good can it?" and "confused about which set I was on" but no mention of sickness. Were this to be a cause, and I don't there is any evidence to suggest it is but I feel the doc wishes to insinuate so, it would be a stress/sleep/overwork type risk factor.

I would note the irony that you bemoan people for not believing something when the evidence you cite isn't there - it suggests more caution is required! From my own reading, that sums up the topic: people are open to viral theories but the proof just isn't there yet so believing it is premature. Parkinson's remains poorly understood in both mechanism and cause. It is said to be "a combination of genetic and environmental factors which might include pesticides and head injury". I imagine post-viral consequences could fit within head-injury type risk factors but we are not at a position to make statements of fact about such things.

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