"Increased Risk of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Following Atopy: A Population-Based Study."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26200644

 

I guess this would fit in with various triggers that attack an already compromised immune system.

 

i think also fits with the Hornig/ Lipkin cytokines findings.
Didn't they propose an allergy connection?

 

It does appear that way:

"Several of the immune factors in the ME/CFS patients spinal fluid suggest an allergic type of reaction may be occurring in their CNS. That is also found in some central nervous system infections – so an infection could be driving this process."

http://simmaronresearch.com/2015/04...ramatic-differences-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/

 

This is interesting. In adolescence I developed a grass allergy while mowing lawns for money. In my 20's I also developed allergic asthma triggered by timothy, a tall grass that makes good hay. Thirty years later I am barely allergic to grass - this year I took 1/2 of one dose for itchy eyes at the peak of bloom.

I think it's fair to say that for me, the allergy symptoms have decreased while the ME symptoms have increased, but of course I have no idea if they are actually related.

It would be interesting to see the full text.

 

That is exactly my experience. After a lifetime of allergy injections to control a large number of airborn allergies, 10 years ago I stopped the injections entirely...as the ME continued to worsen. It has to mean something, but what?

Even more odd, I had zero food allergies (all airborn) as a kid, but as the ME has progressed I have become intolerant of more and more foods, although it doesn't present exactly like classical food allergy. I expect that this is the gut connection.

 

Same here.

 

I have multiple allergic symptoms as well. Started around 30 years of age. Health has been declining ever since.

 

I seem to be unable to absorb carbohydrates, based on the observation that when I eat carbs my gut swells, hurts, makes lots of gas, etc. I don't think of it as an immune response, because it doesn't seem to be specific food items, but overall quantity of carbs.

 

Same here!
During my early teen years I developed asthma, all sorts of airborne allergic reactions, recurrent allergy-driven bronchitis, and rhinitis too. I had all sorts of treatments and injections (allergy shots and "auto-vaccines", as they called them). By the time I was 17 most of these problems went away. I would have the occasional seasonal issues, but nothing to the degree I experienced in my early adolescence. My health was pretty much ok since then, nothing major to report.

Then about 10 years later I got the sudden ME/CFS (and Lyme) symptoms, and nothing has ever been the same.

I still get occasional allergic reactions to the environment, but very mild.

Now, since ME/CFS, I have become violently reactive to dairy (it literally gives me intestinal bleeding), too much gluten makes me nauseous, can't have lots of food items I enjoyed before, and also have become extremely reactive to certain medicines. Any tetracycline type of abx would make me extremely sick. I never had any food or medicine allergies before.

 

Count me in as far as allergies and intolerances. This problem seems to grow the longer I am sick.

 

I think this is a really interesting area and I'm pleased someone is looking at it.

It is interesting to hear people's experiences, mine are similar in some ways but the opposite in others.

I never had any allergies growing up and no skin issues. Then when I was 18 I got dyshidrotic eczema very badly - it was so bad when I went to the GP the first time that he put me straight onto the most potent topical steroid, which thankfully got it under control. But I have had it ever since. It was a long time ago now but I think it may have been at this time that I first started getting fatigue symptoms.

I am certain that it is related to overactivity of my immune system and is related to the ME/CFS in some way. I think I read about IVIG treatment sometimes causing it in those who recieve the treatment, suggesting that it may be linked to antibodies in some way.

As my ME/CFS has worsened I have developed food intollerances, which got a lot worse when I subsequently developed ulcerative colitis. So I agree with others that this is linked in some way too.

 

I find this difficult to interpret. I'd find it more helpful to know the rate of atopy in ME patients.

 

I've always been ultra-allergic: Servere nut allergy, Asthma since age two, Childhood eczema, Occasional hay fever, Gluten sensitivity. Asthma and hay fever run in the family and mum has psoriasis and arthritis.

 

I have a tendency towards hay fever, eczema. Just the usual.

Edit - sadly the article is inaccessible at this time, only the Pubmed abstract seems to work.

 

I suffer from hayfever which was worse when I was younger,just as I overreacted to pollen maybe I now have an overreaction to normal Ebv just sat around in my cells,I think it is a valid angle of research

 

I've always been extremely interested in the possible significance of an allergic history to CFS, and more particularly the use of steroids and immunotherapy in allergy treatment.

When I first got sick the only doctor I ever saw was an allergist, for routine allergy injections. When my daughter was very small I often ended up getting respiratory infections, which I was always susceptible to. I would always just go see my allergist, who would give me and antibiotic, a cortisone injection, and a 10 day course of prednisone, to break the cycle of inflammation that would otherwise end up in asthma. It always worked like magic, until it didn't. One day, inexplicably, after I had been sick with a flu-like illness, mostly unremarkably, I got the usual antibiotic/cortisone/prednisone treatment, and it did nothing. Repeated it...nothing. And so began years of searching, scores of doctors, 100s of drug experiments, two surgeries, etc, etc, etc....for 30+ years now. Classic sudden onset CFS, with a flu-like trigger. Still, I can never get out of my head that the origin of my CFS might have had something to do with the allergy injections, the steroids, or the combination.

As an interesting aside, after I was diagnosed as CFS, by another doctor years later, my allergist let it be known that he didn't "believe" in CFS. A few years later a close friend of his, a doctor, lost his practice to, you guessed it, CFS. My allergist changed his mind...able to believe his doctor friend, though he hadn't been able to believe me.

 

These guys have stumbled on a perpetual paper-writing machine! All more or less the same authors as the aforementioned article:

"Increased risk of organic erectile dysfunction in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome: a nationwide population-based cohort study."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26198797

"Increased risk of chronic fatigue syndrome following herpes zoster: a population-based study."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24715153

"Chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with the risk of fracture: a nationwide cohort study."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24619129

There are others on other illnesses too...

I do actually have a problem with this, it is clear they are fishing in the data for positive findings. It is clear that publication bias is a factor!

 

Interesting findings, but as ever the question is - how accurate is diagnosis? Note that this is a database study, so presumably CFS cases were identified by a database search [I've not seen the full text so don't know for sure], so it all depends on how accurate the database coding is.

Those incidence rates are equivalent to 137 per 100,000 for the atopy cohort and 87 per 100,000 for the non-atopy cohort. Given that prevalence rates (i.e. all cases) are probably around 200-300 per 100,000 (in UK & US at least), those incidence rates look awful high - unless mecfs is much more common in Taiwan?

A similar population database study in Norway found much lower incidence rates, around 25 per 100,000.

So these figures look suspect to me. If the CFS diagnosis is too broad, as appears possible, the findings don't mean much in terms of understanding mecfs.

The other thing worth noting is that atopy (which is hypersensitivity to allergens, and linked to higher rates of allergies eg asthma, hayfever and to eg peanuts) has increased dramatically in the West in the last few decades. So if Atopy is linked to CFS we should expect to see/to have seen a surge in mecfs cases. Though I'm not sure there is sufficiently robust epidemiological data to detect such a surge (as oppposed to better detection of cases).

added: this 2008 paper from King's found no link between childhood atopy and (self-reported) CFS in a large UK birth cohort study. Etiology of chronic fatigue syndrome: testing popular hypotheses using a national birth cohort study.

 

That study is also questionable for a whole host of reasons... Starting with the fact that CFS in that study was merely self reported...