Marco
Grrrrrrr!
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- 2,386
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- Near Cognac, France
Re Dubbo
I agree that is a strong reason to say the Dubbo conclusion is not enough. We keep looking for evidence for immune changes in ME and it is still unclear that we have anything reliably reproducible, so I feel one cannot discount a sensitisation 'loop' within the brain as being all there is remaining long term in some people. And people with bipolar disorder presumably have brain loops and they have relapses and remissions. But ME does seem to need other factors in explanation - as you say for the pattern of crashes and some of the specific symptomatology. An ongoing fluctuating immunological drive of the sort we see in autoimmunity would fit very nicely. I guess I am just an ultra-sceptic even about the ideas I am keen on.
Interesting that you mention bipolar as an analogy. I actually don't recognise a relapsing/remitting nature. Yes I have crashes in response to overexertion but every day is pretty much the same but with a number of step changes in additional symptoms/loss of function over the decades. Relapsing/remitting to me suggests something along the lines of MS where phases span weeks or months which easily fits an autoimmune model.
I'm a bit rusty on the details but I seem to recall that bipolar disorder can vary temporally. Some have alternating manic/depressed phases over weeks while some 'fast cyclers' can flip from one phase to another in a matter of minutes.
Until recent years, two or three times a year I would have strange periods lasting from a few hours to half a day where I would suddenly feel pretty much 100% well which of course was recipe for doing normal things and crashing again back to the usual steady state.
A brain loop could easily accommodate that sort of rapid cycling but could a direct autoimmune process?