Thank you to those that cleared my questions up. I feel silly now.....I knew the difference between exogenous and endogenous, but the distinction slipped my mind yesterday when I was reading all this. And I think that I also forgot that we knew which one XMRV was. (I actually do have serious memory lapses where I completely know something, then forget I ever knew it if I'm tired).
It remember the article saying that they used the idea of some HIV patients becoming psychotic when their illness is activated, as an idea to research this endogenous retrovirus more. So it's interesting that they seemed to see similarities between the exogenous and endogenous in that respect.
I read the article pretty quickly, because I was trying to skip over the personal stories so I would have the energy to get through it. But I'm guessing Bob's analysis is more on-point than mine. I posted it here because I figured others may be able to get more out of it than myself.
With all the buzz about XMRV, I was never really convinced. There just seems to be too little known about what symptoms it results in, and the obvious question of....why do WE have it, and so many others don't? For example, they really need to test prostitutes for XMRV, and see if it's more common there than in the general population.
I just think an endogenous retrovirus makes more sense. It has to be something we were born with, that was activated.
I'm not saying something acquired (exogenous) isn't a possibility either in my mind.....But knowing it has to be acquired, something about that scenario just doesn't feel right to me, in terms of being "the answer" or even "a significant piece of the answer." Then again, if the reason we were sick did make sense, someone would have already figured it out.
Oh, and back to the schizophrenia thing.....I remember seeing an article about 5-7 years ago, in Time I believe, that mentioned other researchers thinking schizophrenia was caused by an infection affecting the brain, possibly toxoplasmosis. But I'm sure back then too, it was considered too unproven.
Personally, I wouldn't doubt autism is connected to all of this too. When autism first started showing up in the 19...60's? 50's? in children, they were calling it, "a rare form of schizophrenia called autism" in articles. Because you can see the similarities to the catatonic issues with schizophrenia.
And then there's the obvious, that in many cases, autism is "triggered" by something.
I think that thinking of this in terms of other diseases will help us. At the end of the day, CFS is a syndrome, and even with the laboratory markers, I'm sure people with other diseases would meet the criteria. I don't think all mystery diseases have the same cause, but it does make sense that if you can find what's wrong with the CFS population (or at least, a good chunk of us), some people with other illnesses would probably overlap into it, like atypical MS, some depression (too tired to get out of bed), etc.
About the psoriasis....wow, that is interesting. I had a small but obvious patch of psoriasis show up with my "very sudden onset illness" and it hasn't gone away since. Hasn't gotten worse, but it's still there. I've always felt that when it disappears, I'll know for sure I'm cured.
It remember the article saying that they used the idea of some HIV patients becoming psychotic when their illness is activated, as an idea to research this endogenous retrovirus more. So it's interesting that they seemed to see similarities between the exogenous and endogenous in that respect.
I read the article pretty quickly, because I was trying to skip over the personal stories so I would have the energy to get through it. But I'm guessing Bob's analysis is more on-point than mine. I posted it here because I figured others may be able to get more out of it than myself.
With all the buzz about XMRV, I was never really convinced. There just seems to be too little known about what symptoms it results in, and the obvious question of....why do WE have it, and so many others don't? For example, they really need to test prostitutes for XMRV, and see if it's more common there than in the general population.
I just think an endogenous retrovirus makes more sense. It has to be something we were born with, that was activated.
I'm not saying something acquired (exogenous) isn't a possibility either in my mind.....But knowing it has to be acquired, something about that scenario just doesn't feel right to me, in terms of being "the answer" or even "a significant piece of the answer." Then again, if the reason we were sick did make sense, someone would have already figured it out.
Oh, and back to the schizophrenia thing.....I remember seeing an article about 5-7 years ago, in Time I believe, that mentioned other researchers thinking schizophrenia was caused by an infection affecting the brain, possibly toxoplasmosis. But I'm sure back then too, it was considered too unproven.
Personally, I wouldn't doubt autism is connected to all of this too. When autism first started showing up in the 19...60's? 50's? in children, they were calling it, "a rare form of schizophrenia called autism" in articles. Because you can see the similarities to the catatonic issues with schizophrenia.
And then there's the obvious, that in many cases, autism is "triggered" by something.
I think that thinking of this in terms of other diseases will help us. At the end of the day, CFS is a syndrome, and even with the laboratory markers, I'm sure people with other diseases would meet the criteria. I don't think all mystery diseases have the same cause, but it does make sense that if you can find what's wrong with the CFS population (or at least, a good chunk of us), some people with other illnesses would probably overlap into it, like atypical MS, some depression (too tired to get out of bed), etc.
About the psoriasis....wow, that is interesting. I had a small but obvious patch of psoriasis show up with my "very sudden onset illness" and it hasn't gone away since. Hasn't gotten worse, but it's still there. I've always felt that when it disappears, I'll know for sure I'm cured.