I didn't have scarlet fever or rheumatic fever either, but I was a sickly child right from being a baby; we think there are reasons which means this makes sense due to environmental exposure to serious chemicals both before and after i was born. But while I can see a definitive point where my health shifted to ME, I had a long list of childhood illness both before and after that point.
I had measles and chicken pox, very close together before I was one. I can't remember if I'm right, or if this is even possible, but my mum might have even said I had both together. But I was very ill, and again this was before I was one.
Recurrent ENT infections, some really bad and I came close to needing grommets. Asthma and chest infections frequently, if I got a cold or flu you could guarantee my chest would flair up. Regularly got colds, viruses, flu, bugs etc. I'm one of those for whole this has continued after my ME. I still get stuff very easily, just struggle to get rid of it and my ME gets worse when I get something like this. Like other people I had something aged seven which definitely kick started my ME from around this time. I was ill before but the way I was ill shifted to fitting ME definitely in a way I don't think I did before.
Periods started at nine, very ill from the off, diagnosed with endometriosis at 12 by a specialist who said this was why i had been so ill from the start, definite correlation between periods and my ME. Had a laparoscopy at 14 to treat this, said 13 on a thread ages ago, but realised my maths was slightly out with that not long ago! It was this that led to me crashing and finally getting diagnosed with ME following a bad reaction to the general anaesthetic. I had ME before that point in hindsight, but this is what led to diagnosis literally a month after this surgery as I just crashed so hard. GA always causes a crash for me. I was also put on hormone treatments for it some of which were really nasty with side effects, and I don't think this helped at all. But I credit the GA for the initial crash because in the two times since then I've had it it always causes a long term lasting crash and tbh I think has even lowered baseline perhaps permanently.
Migraines and abdominal migraines as a child, including light sensitivity, gastric issues, sleeping all day unable to wake up. Looking back I do wonder if this was an aspect of ME back then rather than something standalone in its own right if that makes sense.
And various skin issues. My skin kind of 'explodes' sometimes and struggles to get rid of infection. I had to have a toenail removed when I was first ill because it got infected and my body was just refusing to fight the infection at all, it just kept getting worse. Had to have a little sterile surgical field set up at home because I was too ill to go to a clinic or hospital. But since then acne, boils, cold sores Even sometimes on my hands, impetigo and infections etc.
Gosh, sorry that was long! But yeah, loooong history of illness even before I was 'ill', but some issues continuing after my ME as well, endo, skin problems, asthma etc. I also often get my sinuses flaring up, and earache along with the sore throats and swollen glands during PEM; I can feel like I have a head cold etc. even when I haven't.
It's interesting other people remember a point of illness around seven years of age. That's when I swear my ME started following an especially bad patch of illness, my dad had the same thing and struggled to shift it too, and while his ME is somewhat different to mine sometimes, he is the only one in our immediate family (touch wood) who has it too.