Dr David Tuller: An Australian Radio Interview with Melbourne’s Dr Mark Guthridge

[Countrygirl]

http://www.virology.ws/2020/02/19/t...xpcCqvbLUVrYdPbvFKAsLM9fy5i82ZPUpEP927lkdUmss

Trial By Error: An Australian Radio Interview with Melbourne’s Dr Mark Guthridge

19 FEBRUARY 2020

By David Tuller, DrPH

When I was in Australia two years ago–wow, can’t believe it’s been that long!–I spent some time with Dr Mark Guthridge, an associate professor of biomedical science at Deakin University in Melbourne. Several years ago, after a bout of mononucleosis/glandular fever, he developed myalgic encephalomyelitis, which in Australia even patients and specialist doctors generally call chronic fatigue syndrome. (Actually, many or most actually say “chronic fatigue”–I kept trying to nudge people to at least use the word “syndrome,” but it was a pretty hopeless endeavor.)

Last month, Dr Guthridge talked with Tim Wong-See, a journalist from ABC Radio, about the illness, his own experience, and his plans for research. The audio can be heard here. Below is a slightly edited transcript of the interview. (It seems wrong to write anything about Australia without mentioning the terrible fire season the country has been through.)
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Wong-See: Now how do you go about diagnosing an invisible condition, one that you know exists because you’re living it. You know what it feels like, and what it’s doing to your body, but no one around you either believes you or knows what exact condition you have. Well, that’s what it can be like if you have chronic fatigue syndrome..........

 

[Gemini]

http://www.virology.ws/2020/02/19/t...xpcCqvbLUVrYdPbvFKAsLM9fy5i82ZPUpEP927lkdUmss

Thanks @Countrygirl for posting this excellent interview.

Appreciate David Tuller's highlighting Dr. Guthridge's personal experience as a patient with ME/CFS.

It's encouraging to hear he's using his scientific expertise now to identify an ME/CFS diagnostic biomarker/test.

 

[lenora]

Thanks, Country girl. I listened with great interest as I just had my 5th hosptalization for something now know to accompany CFS or ME on any one of the other names given to it over the years. I'm now suffering from Autoimmune Encephalitis brought on, I'm told, by my prior diagnoses (not just ME, that was the 3rd to join the line-up & truly happens when the spinal cord/and or brain are infected or something attacks them like a foreign invader). For years I volunteered with a group who simply tried to get the word out about cord damage/and/or brain damage with an accompanying illness of CFS.

Hearing the interview took me back so many, many years & I realized, once again, that we still don't have a biomarker for this illness. It's not through lack of trying, nor even money spent, it's the public's suspended belief that such a thing could occur. I guess the worst thing that happened to us was that we came along in the U.S. (anyway) at the exact same time as the AIDS explosion. Until then our health system worked just fine, that's what really sunk it and I'm not blaming the victims, heavens no, it was the only thing that made any sense as to why this occurred to me. I'd had a blood transfusion and finally, the pieces all came together. I expect &( & wanted) to die from it....how could one go on living in such circumstances?

 

[knackers323]

Does anyone know if dr Guthridge still has cfs symptoms?
If not, what treatment put him in remission?

also, an update from his Twitter account

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1278308004845109249

 

[Art Vandelay]

Does anyone know if dr Guthridge still has cfs symptoms?
If not, what treatment put him in remission?

Last I heard he has had mild ME/CFS so he is able to work.