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Are vaccines the cause of ME/CFS?

Tristen

Senior Member
Messages
638
Location
Northern Ca. USA
This is an interesting thread. Vaccines really are where money meets politics meets large patient populations. All I can say from my own experience is that in the process of becoming ill, both Hep B and flu vaccines seemed to significantly deepen and hasten my own decline, and I am not having anymore.

Having the same experience with the HBV vaccine, I got into researching vaccine onset me/cfs. This was years ago and I don't care to look for those links now....but from what I came across, the HBV vaccine is by far the most reported of vaccines as trigger for me/cfs.
 

sianrecovery

Senior Member
Messages
828
Location
Manchester UK
I personallu think Hep B and Hep A vacc represents more of a risk to those who have, or have had HCV, like me. I remember the reports of people who developed fulminating hepatitis that proved to be fatal when they contracted Hep A on top of HCV. I guess that implies the vacination should be a good thing, but I guess it could also quite plausibly set up immune dysregulation.
 

Tristen

Senior Member
Messages
638
Location
Northern Ca. USA
I personallu think Hep B and Hep A vacc represents more of a risk to those who have, or have had HCV, like me. I remember the reports of people who developed fulminating hepatitis that proved to be fatal when they contracted Hep A on top of HCV. I guess that implies the vacination should be a good thing, but I guess it could also quite plausibly set up immune dysregulation.

Exactly what my me/cfs doc said
 

Ecoclimber

Senior Member
Messages
1,011
This is no way that I endorse the anti-vaxers or the anti-vaccine movement. However, I am cognizant of the dangers that "certain" vaccines impose on immune deficient or compromised individuals or those that exhibit certain mutated genes in the HLA as this 'link back' provides.
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...e-cause-of-m-e-c-f-s.21737/page-4#post-341425

Before research discovered that certain vaccines, advujant within those vaccines, bacteria and/or viruses can cause the immune system to attack all or some of the hypcretin or orexin receptors governing sleep/wake and circadian rhythms within the HLA and is associated with a mutated gene expression located in the region as another mutated gene expression for MS. With that being said, Hepatitis B is a serious illness. There has been no research that directly links HBV to ME/CFS other than growing anecdotal evidence.

Previous to this research it has been reported that there could be a casual link between Hep B vaccine and ME/CFS and MS in certain individuals as reported here:

http://abreathofhope.blogspot.co.uk/2005/01/hepatitis-b-vaccinations-dr-shepherd.html

http://www.investinme.org/InfoCentre-vaccines-popup-1.htm

http://www.cfids.org/archives/2001rr/2001-rr1-article03.asp


Eco
 

Thomas

Senior Member
Messages
325
Location
Canada
It is only hepatitis B vaccination that very rarely is reported to cause ME/CFS as far as I am aware, and in this case, I believe that the symptoms of ME/CFS appear almost immediately after the vaccination. Interestingly, hepatitis B infection itself can produce symptoms that are ME/CFS-like. Though I understand there are now cases of ME/CFS arising after the new papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine.


But the question we should really be asking is: "does a lack of vaccination cause ME/CFS?"

Why? Well, ME/CFS is strongly linked to enterovirus infection, particularly the enteroviruses coxsackievirus B and echovirus (and Dr Chia is performing sterling work to try to prove that enteroviruses cause ME/CFS).

So this begs the question, why don't we have a vaccine for coxsackievirus B and echovirus?

It certainly is technically feasible to create such a vaccine (as this thread discusses). If we had all had coxsackievirus B and echovirus vaccinations in our youth, perhaps none of us here would be suffering from ME/CFS.

As everyone knows, the vaccine for poliovirus was a huge success, and entirely eliminated the dreadful paralyzing, crippling childhood disease of poliomyelitis in the developed world. Up to 20,000 people were paralyzed and permanently crippled by polio each year, and about 1,000 people died from it each year in the US before the vaccine. Ref: 1

In some extremely rare cases (one in 2.4 million) polio vaccine itself unfortunately causes poliomyelitis, but the numbers here are very tiny, certainly much, much smaller that the 20,000 people that used to get poliomyelitis before the vaccine was introduced. So there is a clear overwhelming benefit from polio vaccine.


Now poliovirus is actually an enterovirus, and so is closely related to the enteroviruses coxsackievirus B and echovirus that some researchers think cause ME/CFS.

It is therefore a great shame that all the research conducted in the 1930s, 40s and 50s into identifying the specific enteroviruses that caused polio, and into developing a vaccine for these polioviruses, did not go a little further, and also at the same time develop a vaccine for these nasty coxsackievirus B and echoviruses that are linked to ME/CFS.

Introducing a new coxsackievirus B and echoviruses vaccine now may be too late to help any of us ME/CFS patients here, but such a vaccine might very well prevent a whole new generation of people from contracting ME/CFS, and having so much of their lives wasted by this disease.

Hip I got my ME from a flu shot, so it is not only the HepB shot that does it. However the HepB shot does cause the most severe form of ME with the least chance of improvement. Dr. Hyde here in Canada, one of my doctors, said that after the HepB vaccine he sees flu shot as being the next most common ME vaccine triggered disease. Good news is that thise who got the flu shot and got ME tend to have a good overall prognosis. I hope he is right!
 

Thomas

Senior Member
Messages
325
Location
Canada
Sparrowhawk Dr. Hyde isn't a treating physician he basically just does a bunch of tests to look for what may be wrong. He's also good for spect scans. He just told that his hepb patients are always significantly sicker than the flu shot patients. He said the hepb folks have a classic ME encephalitis and vasculitis that's visible on their brain spects in greater severity than most others.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Hip I got my ME from a flu shot, so it is not only the HepB shot that does it. However the HepB shot does cause the most severe form of ME with the least chance of improvement. Dr. Hyde here in Canada, one of my doctors, said that after the HepB vaccine he sees flu shot as being the next most common ME vaccine triggered disease. Good news is that thise who got the flu shot and got ME tend to have a good overall prognosis. I hope he is right!

Hi Thomas

I have not heard of ME/CFS arising from influenza vaccination before. This is news to me. But you say that Dr Hyde sees many patients with flu vaccine onset of ME/CFS? Do you have any links or references for this please?

If you look online, you see reports linking ME/CFS to hepatitis B vaccine, and some reports of a link to the new HPV vaccine, but I see nothing at all about a flu vaccination connection.

Were there any other factors involved in your ME/CFS onset, by the way, apart from this vaccine?
 

xks201

Senior Member
Messages
740
They can destroy endocrine glands like the pituitary and cause an overactive immune system. So yes they could cause it. In my case I think the Hep B one did me in. I was never the same after that burning shot.
 

Thomas

Senior Member
Messages
325
Location
Canada
Hi Thomas

I have not heard of ME/CFS arising from influenza vaccination before. This is news to me. But you say that Dr Hyde sees many patients with flu vaccine onset of ME/CFS? Do you have any links or references for this please?

If you look online, you see reports linking ME/CFS to hepatitis B vaccine, and some reports of a link to the new HPV vaccine, but I see nothing at all about a flu vaccination connection.

Were there any other factors involved in your ME/CFS onset, by the way, apart from this vaccine?

Hi Hip I dont have any saved references unfortunately that I can simply cut and paste. Dr. Hyde, Myhill, and Levigne have said that the flu shot is great at triggering ME and also causing relapses for those already sick - I would avoid them like the plague if I were you. Also, I had a facebook conversation with Dr. Shepherd in the UK as he has been vocal with respect to the severity that the HepB vaccine causes a horrible type of ME and he also told me that the flu shot can trigger ME but luckily, again, has a better prognosis overall. I probably should have bookmarked all those webpages but I didnt. In fact, on the requisite for my SPECT scan Dr. Hyde's write up to the radiologist mentioned the flu vaccine as potentially triggering my ME.

There's a good chance I still may have gotten ME even if I didnt receive the flu vaccine, but of course i will never know for sure. Perhaps the next flu i caufht would have been the trigger or something else. I struggled with IBS my whole life and have always been less than the average person in terms of energy and constitution so i believe i am genetically predisposed to this illness. Plus i am thin and hypermobile as well. I could always exercise and live a normal life but i had to be careful. The flu shot just tipped me over the edge to proper ME and i have been struggling for improvement ever since. I am only 22 months in so i am still optimistic there is a way out of this thing. Even if not full recovery, substantial improvement would be fine with me. Haha some days just not getting worse overall would be fine!

I hope that helps answer your questions. I would be happy to answer any more that you may have.

T
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Thanks Thomas
I am collecting a list of factors and comorbid conditions that may play a causal role in ME/CFS. I already have hepatitis B vaccine on my list, so that is why I was intrigued about what you said regarding the flu vaccine.

By looking at the various comorbid conditions linked to ME/CFS — conditions which may well play a causal role in this disease — I think it might be possible to get an understanding of the underlying mechanisms of ME/CFS.

IBS, incidentally, is a known comorbid condition of ME/CFS, I suspect IBS may be playing a causal role in triggering ME/CFS. That is to say, it might take a combination of a condition like IBS, plus say a viral infection, to trigger ME/CFS.
 

Sparrowhawk

Senior Member
Messages
514
Location
West Coast USA
And Hip the IBS thing has several factors involved as far as I can tell (nonspecialist opinion):

1) IBS as a cause or result of decrease in the gut-related immune response (some say 60%+ of the body's immune system is in the gut) -- which either way may allow greater access by pathogens to the rest of the body. "Second string" immune system in the blood may not be able to handle the load.
2) "Leaky gut" may affect how the rest of the immune system works, if it is reacting to food-related proteins in the blood and/or food histamine content.
3) IBS-related Nutrient mal-absorption may contribute to the disease state
4) Along the same lines, food sensititivities may decrease the total universe of nutrients available to the IBS sufferer

I'm sure there are other issues, those are what occurred to me last night after reading your post.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
As far as vaccines are concerned, I suspect that it is the adjuvants in the vaccines that may tipping the balance to trigger ME/CFS. Adjuvants are added to vaccines in order to stimulate a robust immune response, so that the immune system strongly reacts against the microbe in the vaccine, which ensures that the immune system commits that microbe to memory. If you did not have adjuvants, the immune system may not actually remember the microbe, which would make the vaccination effectively useless. Aluminum salts are an example of a commonly used adjuvant.

However, most adjuvants tend to stimulate the Th2 immune response, and not the Th1 response (Th1 is the antiviral response). Since ME/CFS is a disease characterized by an overactive Th2 and thus a weak Th1 response, it makes me wonder whether these vaccine adjuvants are somehow setting the scene for or triggering a chronically overactive Th2 and a chronically weak Th1 response, thereby, in certain circumstances, leading to ME/CFS.

Using Th2 stimulating adjuvants may be a bad idea in the case of viral vaccines (like hepatitis B virus vaccines, or HPV vaccines, or the flu vaccines). Viruses require a Th1 immune response, but the adjuvant used in these vaccines is stimulating the opposite: a Th2 response. Perhaps something in this scenario is setting the scene for ME/CFS to be precipitated.


It is interesting that silicone used for breast implants and other implants can in very rare cases cause an ME/CFS-like illness, as well as autoimmune conditions. Silicone also has adjuvant properties, and is used in some vaccines for this purpose. So the fact that silicone, a Th2 stimulator, can precipitate a ME/CFS-like illness suggests that other Th2 stimulating adjuvants may also play a role in ME/CFS.

Of course, there are many factors that also affect the Th1 / Th2 immune responses.
 

Wayne

Senior Member
Messages
4,300
Location
Ashland, Oregon
I am not an "anti-vaxxer". But I am against the current vaccination culture that has evolved around for-profit entities. It's clear vaccinations can be effective, but I'm aghast as to why has so little has been done to improve vaccination safety. I'm not some kind of wild-eyed socialist, but if ever there was something that should be under the control of government, and taken out of the hands of private industry, vaccinations is it.

These private vaccination companies all like to trumpet how safe vaccines are, but when adverse reactions are reported, they are almost always summarily dismissed as "no scientific proof this was caused by vaccines". This is even more so the case when adverse reactions show up years later. And then they do everything in their power to prevent ongoing research to identify reasons some people have reactions that they won't admit to in the first place.

Some of my feelings are from a bad reaction to a childhood vaccine, and how I believe it likely weakened my immune system at a very young age, possibly setting the stage for my developing ME/CFS. And then there's the heartbreaking stories of the many young women who have died and developed devastating neurological damage from the Gardasil vaccinations for HPV. Sadly, the purported benefits from Gardasil never added up to begin with, without even factoring in the enormous suffering that has resulted from their use.

Hmmm, I think I just want on a rant. -- Funny how those rants just kind of sneak up on me sometimes. :angel:

Just ran across an article from CBS News published in 2009 on Gardasil. Here's a paragraph from that article:
Dr. Scott Ratner and his wife, who's also a physician, expressed similar concerns as Dr. Harper in an interview with CBS News last year. One of their teenage daughters became severely ill after her first dose of Gardasil. Dr. Ratner says she'd have been better off getting cervical cancer than the vaccination. "My daughter went from a varsity lacrosse player at Choate to a chronically ill, steroid-dependent patient with autoimmune myofasciitis. I've had to ask myself why I let my eldest of three daughters get an unproven vaccine against a few strains of a nonlethal virus that can be dealt with in more effective ways."
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
As far as vaccines are concerned, I suspect that it is the adjuvants in the vaccines that may tipping the balance to trigger ME/CFS. Adjuvants are added to vaccines in order to stimulate a robust immune response, so that the immune system strongly reacts against the microbe in the vaccine, which ensures that the immune system commits that microbe to memory. If you did not have adjuvants, the immune system may not actually remember the microbe, which would make the vaccination effectively useless. Aluminum salts are an example of a commonly used adjuvant.

However, most adjuvants tend to stimulate the Th2 immune response, and not the Th1 response (Th1 is the antiviral response). Since ME/CFS is a disease characterized by an overactive Th2 and thus a weak Th1 response, it makes me wonder whether these vaccine adjuvants are somehow setting the scene for or triggering a chronically overactive Th2 and a chronically weak Th1 response, thereby, in certain circumstances, leading to ME/CFS.

I've always wondered how adjuvants manage to stimulate the immune system to react against the microbe in the vaccine, and not everything else in it, or around the injection site.

I'm guessing the answer is that they cannot do this, and cause a general increase in immune system reactivity.

Also curiously, I started to get severe morning fatigue around the time I had a Hep B shot. A year or two later (I don't remember exactly, I've been ill for so long now), I had sudden onset of chronic fatigue, concentration problems, depression, etc. Is it possible to have a delayed reaction to a shot?
 

rosie26

Senior Member
Messages
2,446
Location
NZ
I'm concerned about my mother at the moment. She had the flu vaccine 3 weeks ago and had vertigo the next day and has being having really bad bouts of it. She is reminding me of myself at the moment. In bed resting feeling awful.
I've explained to her that she just has to rest and not overexert, so hopefully her immune system can clear it with time. Her GP has been informed and is keeping an eye on her.

She has not had a problem with the flu vaccine the last 5 years. So, things can change.