Improve when I get a virus? Ideas anyone?

[alex3619]

Here is one way to think about it. Depending on personal status and the nature of the infection, a cold or flu will trigger a new focus for the immune system. It will cease doing much of what it was doing, and start going after the new infection for which it is receiving new signals.

Part of this involves migration of gamma delta T cells. They suppress excess inflammation and drive healing. I am planning a blog on this. Once the infection is dealt with, those migrant gamma delta T cells will go back to where they were. In healthy people this is primarily the gut. I strongly suspect that in us they are going places they should not be, driven by biochemical attractants including LPS. LPS should be primarily in the gut wall. In us its everywhere.

This is a pied piper effect. The immune system goes after something new. I am not sure it can be sustained. However if the secondary biochemistry could be identified it might lead to a treatment, who knows?

Sudden and prolonged shifts in sleep may well be due to alterations in arachidonic acid chemistry. Arachidonic acid is the precursor for many inflammatory hormones. Its also the precursor for prostaglandin D2, which is probably the actual biochemical trigger that shuts the brain down during sleep.

Bye, Alex

 

[taniaaust1]

On 3 separate occcasions in the past, severe insomnia came on suddenly (was sleeping like a baby and then my sleep switched off like a light switch completely overnight for weeks and months) it came on without notice and was quite scary because I had no sleep meds.and felt like I was going off the edge. During that time I had neurological/viral symptoms, very different from flu like symptoms or other things I've experienced.

Mij.. my ME shifts like that too.. I can go from having no sleep issues at all, to having extreme sleep issues.. it can swing into insomina or into a hyperinsomina phase. So something must be very dramatically changing with the body. My other symptoms too have been known to suddenly switch into a different symptom complex while others can just go. In the past week.. it looking like Ive suddenly switched back into absent seizures again with two incidences which i think were those.

 

[Seadragon]

Very interesting - yes my temperature goes up to normal ranges like others have said when I have a virus but I don't usually get a fever.

alex3619 - where do you find all this stuff? It took me a while to understand your explanation but it really makes sense. Does making the gut healthier go any way to correcting the problem or is it more complex than that?

Are there any immune tests that can prove that one has this going on or that can prove a Th1/Th2 shift?

Is it worth trying drugs like Immonovir or LDN for this? Any others drugs or supplements worth a try?

I'm not giving up!

Love Bunchy x

 

[snowathlete]

Maybe if you have an overactive immune system, you feel a little better if it's busy fighting other invaders rather than your own tissues?

I wonder if something like this is going on to. Since getting ME i dont get colds really, but i did have one small one in my first year and i felt 80% better while it lasted.
It wasnt that strong a cold, if i had the choice of having that cold permanently, and not having ME, i know what i would choose.
I did get a stomach virus a few months back and had a high fever, i felt very very ill, alot worse than my wife and daughter, so although a different type of virus, im not so sure (in my case) that the fever was the factor that improved the ME while i had the cold.

These sorts of immune symptoms seem to be plenty common with ME, although not the same for everyone, I would also like to see more research into this area because people who respond in these ways are probably a safer bet when it comes to looking at people who all have the same thing, even if that turns out to be only one subset of those with ME.

 

[alex3619]

alex3619 - where do you find all this stuff? It took me a while to understand your explanation but it really makes sense. Does making the gut healthier go any way to correcting the problem or is it more complex than that?

Are there any immune tests that can prove that one has this going on or that can prove a Th1/Th2 shift?

Hi bunchy, I am a biochemist and have been interested in the research on CFS and ME since 1993, though I dabbled in it a bit for four years prior to that. My explanation is one possible reason. The problem is nobody knows for sure .... everything needs to be tested and proved.

There are tests for Th1/2 status, cytokine tests. Your doctor might know what tests are available in your area.

As for immune modulators there is no definitive answer. Maybe you will respond well, maybe you wont.

I suspect gut health is critical and many patient have improved after working at improving the gut, though not all. One of the cheapest ways to do that, I suspect, is just to eat more fruit (especially washed apple skins) and vegetables, while cutting back on other carbohydrates. I hope to discuss this in my blog. Another thing that might help, under my hypothesis about immune/gut interactions, is low dose selenium, possibly best as selenomethionine as many cannot handle high selenium yeast. A more natural alternative is to eat one brazil nut per day. Do avoid foods that you are sensitive to though.

I have an upcoming blog on gamma delta T cells and another on lipopolysaccharide. I have been working on them on and off for months, but they will not be finished till early next year. My next two blogs are on ME politics.

Bye, Alex

 

[Seadragon]

snowathlete - yes I would choose a permanent cold over ME any day

alex3619 - thanks, I will ask my immunologist about cytokine testing. Where do I find your blog on this (when you publish it)?

Thanks so much to everyone for all your help and advice.

Love Bunchy x

 

[alex3619]

Where do I find your blog on this (when you publish it)?
Love Bunchy x

Hi Bunchy, I post my blogs in the PR blogs section. However these blogs will be early next year. Bye, Alex