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HPA Axis Dysfunction

Prefect

Senior Member
Messages
307
Location
Canada
Theodore Roosevelt suffered from this condition. 20 years ago I sat in library rooms reading Dr Goldsteins dogma around this condition. HPA axis dysfunction. I didn't know what it meant. But this disease goes back as far as Roosevelt times. And Goldsteins theories still make sense. I'm tired of naturopaths. Roosevelt cured himself by going out in the west and partaking in very physical outdoor activities. This re-sets the HPA axis. nutritional deficiencies?! Are you kidding me? Most of us are in common wealth countries using up an outrageous amount of resources, and are egregiously well nourished. Infectious agent?! Half of the world should have CFS if it was an infectious agent. Most of the world's intestines are dance clubs to damned parasites of all kinds.
 
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Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,461
Location
Great Lakes
I don't know if he had the same thing. He was permanently paralyzed from the waist down and I don't think I've heard of any of us having that.

From what I've read it was a form of polio and some doctors do believe we also have been affected by a virus in the polio family but I don't think they are exactly the same. Maybe one of the scientifically smart people on PR could give more info. ???
 

YippeeKi YOW !!

Senior Member
Messages
16,047
Location
Second star to the right ...
Maybe one of the scientifically smart people on PR could give more info. ???
I'm not particulraly smart scientifically, but history is my hobby.
@Judee I'm sorry to say but it was likely a form of polio.
More likely not.
Theodore Roosevelt suffered from this condition.
Teddy Roosevelt definitely DIDN'T suffer from ME. TR was vigorously, almost aggressively physical and athletic.


If we did in one full day, or even an entire week, what TR did in one hour, it would either kill us or land us in the hospital, assuming there'll ever be available hospital beds anyplace in this country after an extended COVID pandemic and absent any even minimal assistance from the gov't.
Roosevelt cured himself by going out in the west and partaking in very physical outdoor activities.
No. He went out west to recover from the double, devastating blows of losing his adored wife and his deeply beloved mother on the same day, ironically Valentine's Day 1884, just rooms apart from each other in the family estate, and within 2 hours of each other.


The loss was more than he could bear. He slipped into a black, suicidal depression and finally went out west to heal his heart, not his body, based on his belief, often stated that “Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough". It wasn't a vacation or a retreat. He worked like a stevedore, putting in 15 hour days and longer, and winning the respect of the rough cowboys, who'd initially viewed him as one of those Eastern sissies, cementing it firmly when he cold-cocked a belligerent @sshole twice his size in a rough local bar who'd called him a 4-eyed 'dude', which was an expression of contempt in the Wild West at the time.
I don't know if he had the same thing. He was permanently paralyzed from the waist down and I don't think I've heard of any of us having that.
You're thinking of his cousin, Franklin Roosevelt.


And you're absolutely right. Full paralysis is NOT a symptom of ME.
From what I've read it was a form of polio
That's what they thought at the time, and it's easy to see why. But medicine has progressed a bit since then, and the received wisdom now is that he had a form of Gullain-Barre, which is also almost always triggered by a previous viral infection, but that's where the similarity to ME ends.


Symptoms usually begin with weakness and tingling in the feet and legs which then spreads to the upper body, much of the time followed by paralysis.

Here's some of the symptoms and effects of Guillain-Barre:
  • Residual numbness or other sensations starting in the legs and hands and moving up your body
  • Heart and blood pressure problems
  • Pain
  • Loss of bowel and bladder control
  • Seriously elevated heart rate
  • Severe low back pain
  • Difficulty talking, chewing, and/or swallowing
  • Difficulty moving your eyes or your face
  • Difficulty breathing
  • Blood clots
  • Pressure sores
  • Tingling or prickling sensations in your fingers and toes
  • Muscle weakness in your legs that travels to your upper body and gets worse over time
  • Difficulty walking steadily
  • Loss of balance
  • Paralysis
 
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JES

Senior Member
Messages
1,320
Half of the world should have CFS if it was an infectious agent. Most of the world's intestines are dance clubs to damned parasites of all kinds. WE'VE BEEN PLAYED AND IT'S TIME TO STOP!!

Not necessarily. If we take this coronavirus epidemic for instance, it's worth to remember that even a large amount of people who get infected with the virus will never feel ill at all and only a fraction get sick up to the point they need hospitalization. That is obviously a huge problem as well, but this epidemic illustrates how differently people respond to pathogens. Same story as with Lyme disease, many people test positive for Lyme, but never experience any symptoms. I don't believe that ME/CFS is caused by one single pathogen, but it could definitely be a set of pathogens that combined with certain genetics puts you in the unlucky camp of getting ME/CFS, just like a fraction of people ending up severely ill from coronavirus, with the difference that dying patients is a bit harder to miss than the 0.5% of population with ME/CFS who you can always blame laziness or mental issues on.
 

Prefect

Senior Member
Messages
307
Location
Canada
I need an exorbitant amount of nicotine to address all the questions. We're on our own in this problem. We need to to solve it ourselves so we can get to the bottom of it.
 
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YippeeKi YOW !!

Senior Member
Messages
16,047
Location
Second star to the right ...
Roosevelt definitively suffer from neurasthenia which is the modern term for CFS.
Am dealing with the tail end of a mild COVID infection and a lot of ME right now, so will have to read the article later. I love The Atlantic tho, and look forward to spending some time with it. Thank you for posting it.


It's a HUGE leap to state that the catch-all term invented particularly for anything of an emotional, "electrical" nature, and for anything that Drs of that time couldn;t otherwise diagnose and so blithely assigned to 'neurasthenia', was any kind of term specifically addressing CFS. It is similar, tho, to the real, more modern day term that Drs often use on ME patients: "somatoform illness".

And it wasn't a 'modern term' .... it came into common usage in the mid 19th century, just in time to deal with the massive mental and physical destruction and damage of the Civil war: the PTSD, the battle fatigue, the guilt, the shame, the disillusionment with a life that, before that nation-rending conflagration, had seemed so comprehendible, unchanging, and predictable.

If you're talking about Theodore Roosevelt, as I assume you are, the closest TR came to neurasthenia was the near nervous breakdown he had upon the simultaneous deaths of his much loved wife and equally loved mother. He had another bout of the same thing many years later when he lost his beloved son. It’s very unlikely that it was ME. It was emotional anguish, bereavement, grief and loss, and he conquered it as he conquered everything that challenged him: by beating it back aggressively, presumably with his proverbial 'big stick', and 'taking the bull by the horns'.

Hemingway probably loved him.

Try doing that with your ME and lemme know how it works out for you, yes?

PS .... I'll be back later when I'm feeling better ....not ignoring you, just not up to the struggle right now :pem::pem: :xpem:
 
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Prefect

Senior Member
Messages
307
Location
Canada
@Pearshaped I was in a 20 year remission after being diagnosed by Canadian doctors for "Post Viral syndrome" (cognitive deficits, dysautonomia, morning brain fog, constant dizziness, you name it) by white knuckling through my symptoms and getting on with life, and also a low dose of Luvox. Got a college degree, got a very high paying career, got married, had a kid. Why I relapsed 4 yrs ago is the million dollar question. I suspect something re-set the homeostasis I had worked so hard to get. Up to then I was keeping up with people half my age in boxing classes. I don't know what to tell you...
 

Wayne

Senior Member
Messages
4,300
Location
Ashland, Oregon
If you're talking about Theodore Roosevelt, as I assume you are

I can't quite figure out which Roosevelt @Prefect is referring to. Sometimes it seems like Theodore, other times like Franklin.

It was emotional anguish, bereavement, grief and loss, and he conquered it as he conquered everything that challenged him: by beating it back aggressively, presumably with his proverbial 'big stick', and 'taking the bull by the horns'.

@YippeeKi YOW !! -- Your description of how TR addressed things seems quite accurate to me. What I've always questioned however, is why he had such a strong desire to continually put himself in extremely challenging situations, with the most extreme being his strange desire to continually go to war. It could be said that this is how he conquered everything, but I wonder if this was a coping mechanism for him to "bury everything".
 

YippeeKi YOW !!

Senior Member
Messages
16,047
Location
Second star to the right ...
What I've always questioned however, is why he had such a strong desire to continually put himself in extremely challenging situations,
I can't think of any life that doesn't have to deal with challenging situations, altho it's true that TR seemed to seek them out.


Part of that was because he came from a hugely privileged background in an age of 'noblesse oblige', and it had been drilled into him, as it was into his 5th cousin Franklin, that from those to whom much had been given, much was expected.
with the most extreme being his strange desire to continually go to war
The simple answer is that he just liked killing. This is an opinion put forward by several academics. I neither vouch for it nor endorse it, just include it as a possible answer to your statement re TR's need to continually go to war. And it was probably, certainly at that time, the most 'manly' challenge.


It was the custom of that age to dress little boys in long flowing Shirley Temple curls and frilly little dresses until about 4 or 5, which might have affected and shaped his future need to prove his masculinity, who knows.

He was also a sickly child, deprived as a result of much of the rough and tumble that accompanies the development of social skills and the general growth process for other boys.
It could be said that this is how he conquered everything, but I wonder if this was a coping mechanism for him to "bury everything".
We each have our own coping mechanisms, especially when it comes to primal pain, grief, and anguish like the loss of deeply loved family members and close friends.


He wasn't ' .... burying everything ...' as much as he was converting it into a tangible physical enemy that he could confront, engage, and defeat, thus saving his sanity.

Remember, this wasn;t the age of open sharing and wearing your heart on your sleeve, particularly for men. It was the age of the stiff upper lip and carry on and don't let the side down, something that seems as foreign to us now as the royal jousting tourneys of the 15th and 16th centuries.
 
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