Chemobrain (& CFS): critical review & causal hypothesis [=somatoform via biomed]

[Snow Leopard]

So for example, if you feel pain in your stomach, but there is no detectable abnormalities in the stomach, that can be classed as a somatoform symptom.

Inflammation itself doesn't inherently cause pain.

Example: Last year I busted a blood vessel in my hand, (hand slipped trying to undo a bolt) and it was very swollen and bruised for days. Only it didn't hurt at all!

Pain requires stimulation or dysfunction of the nerves somewhere along the line, whether it be peripheral or in the brain. Some of these post-injury pain syndromes may well be due to mis-formed connective tissue around the nerves (rather than some sort of central sensitisation or somatoform illness) - proper biopsies are almost never done and our imaging technology is not sufficient to reveal such changes in other ways.

 

[Hip]

Inflammation itself doesn't inherently cause pain.

Agreed, but if you look at coxsackievirus B infection and its associated inflammation, some of these infections can cause severe or excruciating pain.

In particular, some very painful CVB infections include infection of the pleura (= the lining of the lungs and chest), which is known as pleurisy; and CVB infection of the intercostal muscles, which is known as pleurodynia (Bornholm disease).

And acute enterovirus infections of the stomach can cause abdominal pain. This is all well known.


So given that studies have found significant CVB infections in the stomach and muscles of ME/CFS patients, it seems quite plausible that these infections may be the direct cause of the pain in ME/CFS.

If so, it throws the somatoform theory right out the window, as you then have a physical cause in the tissues for the bodily pain in ME/CFS.

 

[lansbergen]

Some of these post-injury pain syndromes may well be due to mis-formed connective tissue around the nerves (rather than some sort of central sensitisation or somatoform illness) -

Yep