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Viruses and the immune system balancing act

free at last

Senior Member
Messages
697
Its all so confusing sharing these symptoms, I read this section quite a bit, always looking for things that might coincide with what i experianced, mainly as a way of trying to understand it. Often i do see similarties with others, but often i do not ( sometimes with the same person reporting there symptoms ? go figure ) Fever always makes me feel worse even mild 99F fevers, but that doesnt happen very often.

Fevers were only part of my picture about the first year, which i know was part of the progression of the illnes, somehow turning it into a chronic illness without fevers.

Like the body was being attacked by a virus fully recovering, then being attacked again, fully recovering and so on. Untill a time came where my body somehow couldnt stop the ME attacks so seemed to make up for it by reacting less in a fever onslaught way, but then the symptoms came much much more frequently, almost as a consequence of the body not causing a cytokine storm.

Like the cytokine storm itself was knocking the virus way back to a place where it took much longer for it to mount anonther another attack, The body not reacting as violently seemed to pay a price, like it could only put the virus to bed partially, in which case after just a few days ( rather than weeks of the severe fever period ) i would be ill again.

Its as if my body was trying to strike a balance between controlling the virus ( putting it to bed ) but without a cytokine storm, when it did that as mentioned the virus was not really put to bed at all, it was only partially controlling it, half heartedly controlling it if you will.

The up shot of that seemed to be much more frequent attacks with little recovery period in between. sorry to repeat myself, but for me this observation seems important in understanding what happened, and others that may have experianced similair might also have noticed this pattern.

I often noticed ( after the fever period had stopped ) that the more sever attack of symptoms i would get, the longer i would seem to get before the next attack would develop. this strongly suggests the immune system is able to kill off the virus and hence slow it down. and the more it reacts the more it kills the virus off leading to longer periods of good health.

Im glad im talking on these forums because call me dim, but although ive always known this, i dont think ive really ever looked at this peice of information as much as i should have done.

Theres important clues here im sure of it. And anyone experiancing the same as me, must also see these clues. Wondering what other more knowledgable people that understand viruses and the immune system can make of my input here. am i on the right track do they think ? or is it more complicated than what it appears to be

What is this lifelong virus that has caused this is a key question XMRV or something else i have no idea, but im sure its still there, just my body has got better and better at striking some kind of compromise with it, a balancing act. Man i feel like emailing judy M with this, not sure if thats makes perfect sense to her or not. but havent emailed once, only for the Ashford 50 uk study to enroll did i. I dont want to bother her as i know shes so very busy. What to me see seems like a major important insight, will probably not mean a lot to her i guess ?