pollycbr125
Senior Member
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Apologies if this has already been posted .
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1284795/You-CAN-beat-misery-piles.html
scroll to lower down page and there is this article .
By the way... at last I've been convinced that ME is real
ME can be difficult to diagnose
I admit it, I was wrong. For many years, I - like many of my medical colleagues - have blamed ME on psychological or behavioural causes.
Then, last month, I attended the 5th World Conference on ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome).
There I spoke to a number of experts who were emphatic that the evidence shows the condition really does have a viral origin.
This has never previously been clear - before, there had been only hazy circumstantial evidence. There have been two problems really; first, identifying the cases - who does and who does not have ME/CFS?
The second, how to tell if any identified bacteria or virus is actually the cause of a disease, or merely there by chance (and not actually involved in the disease process).
When it comes to diagnosing ME, it's always been difficult distinguishing it from another common but hard-to-prove condition, depressive illness. Both involve the major symptom of fatigue - a gross tiredness unlike any other, such is its overwhelming severity.
Both are associated with sleep disturbance, impairment of memory and concentration, emotional symptoms - indeed, there are many in the medical profession who have long considered that those who believe they have ME/CFS have a form of depression and are in denial.
But there is one challenging difference: those with ME/CFS have a flare of their malaise lasting at least 24 hours after physical exertion, whereas people with depression - if they can manage exercise - tend to be briefly a bit better.
At the conference, a number of plausible ideas were advanced for the condition, including one from Professor Brigitte Huber, an immunologist from Boston. She explained that 8 per cent of all the DNANA in our bodies is basically a form of infection - it's become incorporated into the genetic code of our cells.
This infection 'gene' gets switched on whenever you catch a common viral illness - such as glandular fever or herpes simplex (the type that gives you cold sores). T his triggers the immune system to pour out vast quantities of chemicals which cause widespread effects such as muscle pain and exhaustion.
In most patients, this reaction stops after a week or two as they recover - the immune system puts the infection gene back to bed.
But in a small number of people this doesn't happen, so the immune cells continue to be activated, causing grief, and the illness becomes ME/CFS.
Knowing why this happens still needs to be explored. But it is an exciting time and some solace to those who have this awful illness and have never been believed. :Sign Good Job:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1284795/You-CAN-beat-misery-piles.html#ixzz0qFsz0NLm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1284795/You-CAN-beat-misery-piles.html
scroll to lower down page and there is this article .
By the way... at last I've been convinced that ME is real
ME can be difficult to diagnose
I admit it, I was wrong. For many years, I - like many of my medical colleagues - have blamed ME on psychological or behavioural causes.
Then, last month, I attended the 5th World Conference on ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome).
There I spoke to a number of experts who were emphatic that the evidence shows the condition really does have a viral origin.
This has never previously been clear - before, there had been only hazy circumstantial evidence. There have been two problems really; first, identifying the cases - who does and who does not have ME/CFS?
The second, how to tell if any identified bacteria or virus is actually the cause of a disease, or merely there by chance (and not actually involved in the disease process).
When it comes to diagnosing ME, it's always been difficult distinguishing it from another common but hard-to-prove condition, depressive illness. Both involve the major symptom of fatigue - a gross tiredness unlike any other, such is its overwhelming severity.
Both are associated with sleep disturbance, impairment of memory and concentration, emotional symptoms - indeed, there are many in the medical profession who have long considered that those who believe they have ME/CFS have a form of depression and are in denial.
But there is one challenging difference: those with ME/CFS have a flare of their malaise lasting at least 24 hours after physical exertion, whereas people with depression - if they can manage exercise - tend to be briefly a bit better.
At the conference, a number of plausible ideas were advanced for the condition, including one from Professor Brigitte Huber, an immunologist from Boston. She explained that 8 per cent of all the DNANA in our bodies is basically a form of infection - it's become incorporated into the genetic code of our cells.
This infection 'gene' gets switched on whenever you catch a common viral illness - such as glandular fever or herpes simplex (the type that gives you cold sores). T his triggers the immune system to pour out vast quantities of chemicals which cause widespread effects such as muscle pain and exhaustion.
In most patients, this reaction stops after a week or two as they recover - the immune system puts the infection gene back to bed.
But in a small number of people this doesn't happen, so the immune cells continue to be activated, causing grief, and the illness becomes ME/CFS.
Knowing why this happens still needs to be explored. But it is an exciting time and some solace to those who have this awful illness and have never been believed. :Sign Good Job:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1284795/You-CAN-beat-misery-piles.html#ixzz0qFsz0NLm
