Article: Light on ME/CFS III: A Different Herpes Virus for CFS? - Varicella-Zoster, Shingles and ME/

Article: Light on ME/CFS III: A Different Herpes Virus for CFS? - Varicella-Zoster, S

You can view the page at http://forums.phoenixrising.me/content.php?449-Light-on-ME-CFS-III-A-Different-Herpes-Virus-for-CFS-Varicella-Zoster-Shingles-and-ME-CFS

 

Looking collectively at all factors is a good point. There's an animal study indicating low blood volume upregulates the expression of neuronal NO synthase genes. I wonder if the Lights know the blood volume status of their patients and whether hypovolemia combined with the exercise challenge could be contributing to their gene expression results?

I know they are interesting in low blood volume since it could be manifestation of sympathetic nervous system activation. I don't know if they know the blood volume status of their patients...my guess is that they don't since they haven't reported it but they do seem to be doing more and more comprehensive studies - maybe they will in the future.

 

Ive NEVER in my life had chicken pox. What is strange about this is Ive been around LOTS of kids over time who had chicken pox.. I was at a friends house daily when it went throu her family of 5 kids. I even tried to get it at a time which would of been convienent for me when I thought I'd catch it anyway as so many I knew or their kids had it.

Many years later, I still didnt even get it when my own kids caught it. Ive never figured out why Im strangely immune to that virus.

 

Genetic changes over the years and look at what the industrial impact of industrial pollution adn I think more than anything is the environmental impacts we we have placed on this year and it's people.

This could change how viruses work and how they effect our bodies! I would think

 

No chickenpox, no shingles, failed vaccination twice...

anyone else have chickenpox or shingles that kick started their cfs off. I was 31 and got chickenpox for the second time in my life, they say you only get it once but??? and from there got ebv, cmv etc. This chickenpox episode was one of the worst episodes of illness in my life aaarrrggghhh, i feel like scratching now, i was just one big pox, and wonder also if this is possibly why my back aches alot as the virus sits in the nerves.

cheers!!!!!!!!!

Rather the reverse. I've never had chicken pox, nor shingles. I've been vaccinated against VZV twice (required for work in hospital), but did not seroconvert either time. The infection disease experts don't know what to do with people like me. Apparently, it is pretty common to not acquire immunity to VZV from the vaccine. They tell me to not consider myself immune, i.e. not to touch people with shingles or chicken pox.I have treated patients with shingles. One poor woman had chronically active shingles. Never had any evidence of contracting the virus myself, though.

So, while I can see why VZV is a great candidate for ME causality, I'm not sure how to make it fit me (I mean myself!).

BTW, re: your back aches. I can't see a way to blame that on dorsal root ganglion infection. The pain of shingles comes when the virus that's been dormant in the ganglion is activated and viral particles migrate down the nerve to the skin or mucous membranes, causing pain, burning, numbness and little blisters. The painful symptoms often precede the vesicles.

 

Just got the VZV results - nothing earth-shattering - antibodies from past infection (chickenpox as kid), but just slightly elevated. So, unless it really skillfully avoids serum and hides in the dorsal ganglia or spine, another one to check off.

 

Bump.

When my symptoms began, I noticed a simultaneous re-activation of a shingles rash from my childhood. Dorsal root ganglia infection could certainly explain most of my symptoms. It seems closely tied to POTS/OI.

The rash (now scar) occurred besides the navel. The most severe of my symptoms (weakness, pain, paresthesia) occur below this level. Interesting.

 

these herpes viruses have lived in harmony with humans since the beginning..why would they be causing this disease now?

something wrong with this theory.

Could the advent of Frankenfood have anything to do with your observation?

Frankenfood describes the things we ingest that have had all nutritional worth processed out of them and unnatural, undigestible things added. Trans fats, GMO's, PESTICIDES, chemical preservatives, etc... Things that have been proven harmful.

 

Thank you for posting this article! I especially like it because Dr. Shapiro's theory is very close to what I worked out for myself over the past 25 years. I took Valtrex for two years and now I'm in remission, I guess. There are times... but even normal people experience fatigue, etc... I really believe anti-virals could help a lot of CFS sufferers.

I've always envisioned the path of CFS to be something like a pachinko machine. I imagine these little steel balls that represent signals, or viral expressions, that leave from one location in the brain, the peripheral ganglia, and fall throughout the body on a search and destroy mission. It was the only thing I could come up with - everyone has a different symptom set. The pathway of each steel ball is guided by genetics and environment.

 

Just got the VZV results - nothing earth-shattering - antibodies from past infection (chickenpox as kid), but just slightly elevated. So, unless it really skillfully avoids serum and hides in the dorsal ganglia or spine, another one to check off.

It is my understanding that all herpes-family viruses hide out in the nervous system to evade detection by the immune system.

 

It is my understanding that all herpes-family viruses hide out in the nervous system to evade detection by the immune system.

Yeah, but going by Occam's razor chances are very slim (not impossible) that a herpes virus is causing problems then. Plus if it starts multiplying it will eventually be detected and one will likely have an acute episode. They are known to evade and lie dormant.

 

When my symptoms began, I noticed a simultaneous re-activation of a shingles rash from my childhood. Dorsal root ganglia infection could certainly explain most of my symptoms. It seems closely tied to POTS/OI.

Dr John Chia, in his presentation in the Invest in ME London 2010 ME/CFS Conference said that a shingles outbreak is not uncommon when you first catch an enterovirus, as enterovirus can cause immune suppression, particularly a reduction in CD8 cells, during the first few months of enterovirus infection, which can allow other viruses to reactivate.

Here is the transcript from the Dr Chia video regarding the enterovirus-induced shingles outbreak:

We have seen clusters of shingles occurring. ... Shingles is the reactivation of the chickenpox virus. The Epstein-Barr virus, or herpes six virus, once reactivated, are hard to see. You will have to think about it, you have to do tests to confirm it. But chicken pox, showing up as shingles, you know the virus is reactivated.

So I thought this may be a good area to look at it, because I knew a number of these patients who had a prior respiratory or gastrointestinal infection. So what we found, when we investigated five cases is that the T8, or the CD8 positive lymphocyte counts dropped dramatically. So did the CD4 count, but much less so. This the total reverse of HIV. And this is totally different to Epstein-Barr virus. You can actually tell by looking at this.

So it was very interesting that the T8 cells drop profoundly, but in two months or so, when we repeated it, it came back to normal. This is comparing with . . by the CD4, CD8 cells of my chronic fatigue patient. You can see there's a big difference. Recurrence shingles, in most of the patients are independent of subsequent CD8 count. But a couple a patients, they had very low CD count. CD8 . . . T-lymphocyte cells. They have recurrent shingles. We have to keep them on acyclovir. We couldn't even stop it. Whenever we stopped the shingles would come back.

Of course an enterovirus-induced varicella zoster virus reactivation and a shingles outbreak does not exclude the possibility of a varicella zoster virus infection of the dorsal root ganglia. Perhaps the enterovirus-induced immune suppression allows varicella to enter the dorsal root ganglia.

Although note that the enterovirus-induced CD8 immune suppression only lasts a few months before returning back to normal.

 

There is also a paper published by Dr Chia on enterovirus-induced varicella zoster virus reactivation:

Varicella-zoster virus reactivation during acute enterovirus infection is associated with CD8 lymphocytopenia

 

Interesting, @Hip

Do you know what treatment Dr. Chia suggests?

 

There is also a paper published by Dr Chia on enterovirus-induced varicella zoster virus reactivation:

Varicella-zoster virus reactivation during acute enterovirus infection is associated with CD8 lymphocytopenia

But it says:

The total CD8 cells of these patients were compared with those of 27 sex- and gender-matched patients with known diagnoses of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) associated with chronic enterovirus infections2 that were seen in the clinic during the same period. The means (standard error) of CD8 cells were 106 (15) vs 426 (25) for the two groups, respectively, which was statistically significance (p<0.01, unpaired t test). Enteroviruses were not detected in the peri-rectal swabs taken from 10 CFS patients.

 

@MeSci

The text you quoted says that the patients with acute enterovirus infection had an average of 106 CD8 cells, and the control group of 27 ME/CFS patients with chronic enterovirus infections had an average of 426 CD8 cells (I presume these are the numbers of CD8 cells per mm3 of blood). In the study it says that the normal range for CD8 cells is 152 to 838.

So the acute enterovirus infection patients had a CD8 count below normal, but the chronic enterovirus infection ME/CFS patients had normal CD8 counts. Dr Chia also stated in the study that the CD3, CD4 and CD8 abnormalities in these acute enterovirus infection patients returned to normal 6 to 8 weeks after resolution of the acute infections.

 

Do you know what treatment Dr. Chia suggests?

In the video text transcript he says he treats these acute shingles flare ups with acyclovir.

 

In the video text transcript he says he treats these acute shingles flare ups with acyclovir.

Thanks, I was thinking about treatment of enterovirusses, though. That flare up is long gone.

 

Thanks, I was thinking about treatment of enterovirusses, though. That flare up is long gone.

Chia's standard treatment for enteroviruses these days is oxymatrine, and there's lots of info about oxymatrine protocols on this forum. Though he says only 25% of his ME/CFS patients get a major improvement from oxymatrine. So you have a 1 in 4 chance of it being significantly effective, according to Chia's patient statistics. Chia developed his own oxymatrine formulation called Equilibrant. The White Tiger brand of oxymatrine is cheaper though.

I posted some info about oxymatrine here recently.

I understand Chia also uses the antiviral Epivir (lamivudine) to augment the effects of oxymatrine against enteroviruses. †