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Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of, and finding treatments for, complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.
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But isn't socializing a brain activity?socializing.
That's interesting, do you get the headache, too? I don't have CFS, but I get the migraine aura without headache.I get PEM after migraine aura.
That's interesting, do you get the headache, too? I don't have CFS, but I get the migraine aura without headache.
How many people here experience the aura, with or without other symptoms. I ask because both my affected sons get the aura. If you don't get the headache part then you might call the aura - eye spots or eye episodes. I had them for many years before I found out they were auras.
I get essentially exactly the same pattern of PEM, i.e., severe fatigue, the onset usually delayed by 1 or 2 days (for many years it was 2-3 days, now sometimes only hours), from eating certain foods (especially any milk products) or taking certain supplements (e.g., vitamin D, EPA or DHA), as I do from physically overexerting myself.
The single difference is that the foods that trigger "PEM" also tend to trigger migraines.
That's why I put "PEM" in quotes, in order to indicate that the food fatigue wasn't from exertion.Post exertional malaise (PEM) is caused by exertion.
This is exactly why I asked the question. I am trying to understand what causes the PEM by looking at other things that give the exact same symptoms.That's why I put "PEM" in quotes, in order to indicate that the food fatigue wasn't from exertion.
Nevertheless, the fatigue that I experience from eating certain foods (and certain supplements) feels exactly the same to me as the fatigue I experience from over-exerting myself with too much physical activity, and it occurs with the same sort of delay. (And that's been true since the start of my ME/CFS some 17 years ago.)
It's important to be aware that the physical/mental state that we perceive as "PEM" following exertion could also, in theory, follow from other things that don't actually involve physical or mental exertion.
Just as a simple hypothetical to understand the concept, say that some substance like a cytokine (or whatever) becomes elevated during exercise and this, through some mechanism like activated microglia and/or oxidative stress (or whatever), is what triggers a person's PEM.
Now what if certain foods, for whatever reason, trigger that same cytokine/substance that exercising does and that it has the same biochemical effect? A person could end up feeling the same - with no distinction between PEM from actual exertion and "PEM" from food.
I guess so.But isn't socializing a brain activity?
Does anyone here not get aura's or other symptoms that could be called migraine symptoms? Did everyone who does have them have some of those symptoms before they became ill, or did some people not have any of these symptoms until they started their ME/CFS symptoms?There was a recent thread about auras. I get migraines with aura first, but I have experienced aura without headaches. My auras without headaches would include feeling very off balance, nausea and sleepiness. I think for me it was hormonal changes because now that I'm in menopause I get intense aura's (they last for a few minutes before a hot flash hits) with no headache.
I wonder if PEM isn't actually something that happens in the brain, and so even thinking or listening can cause it.I guess so.