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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

#321
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By juice do you mean do you mean you just blend those vegetables more or less whole or actual (pressed/etc.) juice? Because if second that sounds like a terrible idea. If first you might have a good point as long you make sure to get the necessary nutrients etc.

No, not blending. Even blended I don't think you could consume 10 lbs of vegetables a day.

Have you assessed the nutritional content in the final juice? Carrots and celery are known to be harmful in excess (as most things are).

90 days is a very long time, please talk to a doctor or nutritionist before attempting anything like this.

You may also look into the fact you’re eating a zero-fiber diet. I’ve read something about that actually helping with IBS symptoms, it could explain any improvement you see vs the content of the diet which honestly doesn’t sound great.

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

#322
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I didn't say it will treat it though? I said if you're sick, you need time to rest.

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

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not blending. Even blended I don't think you could consume 10 lbs of vegetables a day.

Have you assessed the nutritional content in the final juice? Carrots and celery are known to be harmful in excess (as most things are). 90 days is a very long time, please talk to a doctor or nutritionist before attempting anything like this. You may also look into the fact you’re eating a zero-fiber diet. I’ve read something about that actually helping with IBS symptoms, it could explain any improvement you see vs…

I've spent countless hours reading and experimenting with this. I cant regurgitate all of it here.

What do you even need all this fiber for, especially for 90 days? You're not eating heavy grains or meat that you need help pushing through.

Lol to the idea of eating tons of vegetables not sounding great.

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

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you assessed the nutritional content in the final juice? Carrots and celery are known to be harmful in excess (as most things are). 90 days is a very long time, please talk to a doctor or nutritionist before attempting anything like this. You may also look into the fact you’re eating a zero-fiber diet. I’ve read something about that actually helping with IBS symptoms, it could explain any improvement you see vs…

I've spent countless hours reading and experimenting with this. I cant regurgitate all of it here. What do you even need all this fiber for, especially for 90 days? You're not eating heavy grains or meat that you need help pushing through. Lol to the idea of eating tons of vegetables not sounding great.

No worries. “Eating” is not even the right word since you’re removing all solids. Without seeing any evidence or scientific argument, yes, drinking juice of the same four vegetables for a full three months sounds very problematic on multiple fronts… this is very different from “eating a lot of vegetables”.

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

#325
post #53
post #5

I was always under the impression that CFS was a non-specfic set of symptoms; a kind of catch-all categorical bucket for an unknown condition. If that's true, then that post-viral infection origin seems misleading.

Why would that be misleading? This seems to be just an attempt to better understand (some of the / potential) causes that unknown condition. Perhaps it doesn't help to diagnose it, as there might not be any direct evidence left in the body to point at the original cause, but in the longer term it certainly helps if you know where to look.

Maybe.

It's just that if CFS doesn't point to something real, then that non-real, non-specific thing, having an origin doesn't really make sense.

But if it is actually real (and specific), as indicated by another commenter, the origin seems fine. Still seems like there's mixed views in medical community though.

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

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to clarify that I absolutely agree that there are a multitude of pathophysiologoc changes in cfsers, including mitochondrial dysfunction, hrv changes, ongoing viral reactivations, deranged cytokines etc. I think the difference in our opinions is just that I my opinion, these physiological changes are downstream of cns dynamics in the lateral frontal pole, pituitary gland, amygdala, and cerebral cortex. At…

I'm not convinced. The human brain is an organ like any other- evolution had vested interest in keeping its function adaptive, and to this extent even social stress induced depression and vulnerability are adaptive responses. Most severe chronic illness - mental or otherwise - isn't.

Thanks for your response - I see cfs as the result of almost “wear and tear” on the system. I think the “push-through” approach to life that many cfsers had prior to developing the disorder is very adaptive. I often meet v cfsers who had been v high functioning in their careers. It’s just that the adaptive response is not sustainable long term for some people…thanks for listening and cheers!

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

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you assessed the nutritional content in the final juice? Carrots and celery are known to be harmful in excess (as most things are). 90 days is a very long time, please talk to a doctor or nutritionist before attempting anything like this. You may also look into the fact you’re eating a zero-fiber diet. I’ve read something about that actually helping with IBS symptoms, it could explain any improvement you see vs…

I've spent countless hours reading and experimenting with this. I cant regurgitate all of it here. What do you even need all this fiber for, especially for 90 days? You're not eating heavy grains or meat that you need help pushing through. Lol to the idea of eating tons of vegetables not sounding great.

> Lol to the idea of eating tons of vegetables

It's not just "tons", it's exclusively vegetables which is probably fine as long as you make sure your diet is balanced.

However only drinking "juices" certainly for 3 months seems a bit wacky (of course it still depends on the specific fruits/vegetables). Chances are you'll consume significantly more sugar and significantly less protein and fat (of course fiber deosen't seem to matter..) compared to actually eating those vegetables/fruits directly. Which seems like a horrible idea..

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

#328

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…

> Everytime I bring up the reality of what most doctors are like

Is your insight that doctors are regular educated humans suffering from the same flaws and vices as other regular educated humans?

> She loved cocaine and moly. Currently cycles Adderall and Ritalin (or something very similar) so she doesn’t get too used to one or the other.

Not sure what this is supposed to imply. I expect the same can also be said for at least 20% of doctors, dentists, SV, Big Law, Wall Street and Main Street in the 20-29 age range.

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

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case, the CFS like syndrome was all in my head in the worst fashion possible. After COVID, I developed a cross reactive species of antibody targeting my hippocampus and the opioid receptors in my brain. I have been bedridden since I was 17. I also manifested severe orthostatic intolerance and peripheral neuropathy that put me in the lowest 1 percent of neurite density. I was diagnosed at Mass General Hospital a…

Auto Immune Disorder (IBD in my case) sufferer here. I sometimes wonder why we're all not more annoyed that we get sent to specialists for the parts of our body (GI in my case) where the immune system is causing most damage at a given moment who will ask questions about other symptoms that we now have a good idea are likely the result of the same inflammation (depression, joint pain, peripheral neuropathy, CFS, etc.…

> immune system to have it's own specialists in research and treatment

Huh, immunology is a 2-3 year accredited fellowship and board certified medical subspecialty. Pretty much every academic center has basic and clinical research programs in immunology.

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

#330
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you're awayre that lots of evidence now that MS and many other AI diseases are caused / induced by acute or chronic viral infections: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/01/epstein-barr-... It really feels at this point that not by connecting these diseases together and treating them as a class, we're missing the woods for the trees. Sadly, all of the economic incentives are to keep treating them sep…

There is very convincing research that Epstein Barr Virus causes Multiple Sclerosis, and the current treatment I am on for MS destroys the B-Cells the latent virus lives in. I think you're spot on, infections are probably the cause of most of these auto-immune diseases. In MS we're getting closer to finding the cause and ultimately the cure. It does take a while for research to get funneled to the right person with t…

> There is very convincing research that Epstein Barr Virus causes Multiple Sclerosis

Eh, the strongest evidence is one large study from last year of 10 million military personal followed for 20 years that identified ~800 total cases with a hazard ratio of 32 for EBV seropositivity.

There’s strong evidence of an association but I don’t think the causation question is answered. The challenging thing to reconcile is how low the incidence of MS is despite 90% EBV seropositivity in healthy controls (99-100% in MS).

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