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Infection History: Did you have multiple viral infections a few months or less apart before developing ME?

Did you have multiple acuteviral infection symptoms a few months or less apart before developing ME?


  • Total voters
    14
  • Poll closed .

gbells

Improved ME from 2 to 6
Messages
1,491
Location
Alexandria, VA USA
One theory of ME is that co-infections trigger it. Did you have signs of two or more different acute viral infections within 90 days of developing ME? Please post your viral and bacterial infection history with PCR and antibody testing results if available.
 

gbells

Improved ME from 2 to 6
Messages
1,491
Location
Alexandria, VA USA
Mononucleosis with pos IgG in 2007 followed by HHV6 (+ IgG). Also enterovirus (+IgG). Nagalase 3x normal. Three nonspecific pos for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. EBV IgG presently neg but HHV6 and Enterovirus +. EBV PCR Neg in 2019. Perhaps HHV6 inhibits EBV replication.
 
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Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,679
Location
Alberta
No viral or bacterial infection that I was aware of. I had a tetanus booster sometime before my ME started, and all the symptoms started as a type IV food sensitivity. It's possible that something (maybe the vaccine) triggered the type IV sensitivity, and the multiple daily t-cell activation had a similar effect as a viral infection. When I managed to stop the t-cell activation, my symptoms didn't change or stop, they just didn't appear at a precise and consistent delay after eating food, so there was a strong connection between the t-cell activity and ME symptoms.
 
Messages
76
No viral or bacterial infection that I was aware of. I had a tetanus booster sometime before my ME started, and all the symptoms started as a type IV food sensitivity. It's possible that something (maybe the vaccine) triggered the type IV sensitivity, and the multiple daily t-cell activation had a similar effect as a viral infection. When I managed to stop the t-cell activation, my symptoms didn't change or stop, they just didn't appear at a precise and consistent delay after eating food, so there was a strong connection between the t-cell activity and ME symptoms.
What food are you sensitive to?
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,679
Location
Alberta
What food are you sensitive to?

When I had that type IV sensitivity, it started with orange juice, and then other juices, and within a few weeks, I reacted to pretty much everything except highly-refined sugars, starches, and oils. A rotation diet (5 days between food from a family) helped avoid triggering flare-ups of the symptoms, but I still didn't feel well. The type IV reaction went away 2.5 years after it started, after some spoiled coconut milk gave my digestive system a good flushing out. :redface:

I still have other reactions to some foods, but those aren't allergies or type IV sensitivities. I'm sensitive to goitrogens (such as brassicas), and the toxins in the nightshade family. I developed a sensitivity to onions a year or so ago, but that may have passed. I had a problem with fatty acids, so avoided meats for a few years, but solved that with supplemental carnitine. There are plenty of herbs and spices that make my ME worse.

Sensitivities to food families really makes one aware of how much of a grocery store's contents depend on just a few food families.
 

Rebeccare

Moose Enthusiast
Messages
9,064
Location
Massachusetts
I never had any specific infections identified, but in the 3-4 months before I noticed my ME/CFS symptoms (they developed gradually) I experienced two or three illnesses. I guess that what comes from living in a large college dorm! Aches, sore throat, fever, nothing spectacular, nothing that lasted more than a week and then I seemed to recover. All I know is that I tested negative for strep and mono.
 
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Mary

Moderator Resource
Messages
17,334
Location
Southern California
I never had any specific infections identified, but in the 3-4 months before I noticed my ME/CFS symptoms (they developed gradually) I experienced two or three illnesses. I guess that what comes from living in a large college dorm! Aches, sore throat, fever, nothing spectacular, nothing that lasted more than a week and then I seemed to recover. All I know is that I tested negative for strep and mono.
I had very similar symptoms, only mine went on for years before developing ME/CFS - I identify the onset of ME/CFS with the first time I crashed, in 1998, but had frequent sore throats, bouts of fatigue, etc. for years before then. I don't think I was ever tested for mono, though I did have frequent strep infections. I'm sure it was strep because ABX would clear it up. This was before EBV seemed to be on doctors' radar screens, or else I had crappy doctors! (or both)
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,679
Location
Alberta
If it makes a difference, I rarely had viral infections even before developing ME, though even fewer since. I always thought that my immune system was more active or efficient than standard, and when I developed the type IV sensitivity, I thought it was that abnormality responsible.
 

Wolfcub

Senior Member
Messages
7,089
Location
SW UK
I "caught" something which never went away completely -that is, it became ME/CFS.
It was never identified. I didn't go to the doctor until the 3rd-4th week of it. By that time it was too late for a nasal swab, so I was told.
A full blood analysis showed nothing except slight imbalance in electrolytes with a note attached that this was "not of clinical significance".

Basic health checks (lymph nodes, heart, blood pressure, breathing etc) showed no abnormalities either.

It felt like a very weird kind of flu. I had no fever, no sore throat and no respiratory symptoms. Not even a sneeze! No rashes. But I had the horrible malaise which always felt like flu coming on. (that particular "flu-ey" sensation it's hard to describe.) It felt like a virus. There was a package of symptoms which came with it, but all pretty non-specific.

Every time I crash I feel them to some extent -sometimes worse than other times. It feels l having had 2 hours of sleep, having walked 20 miles, plus starting with flu at the same time.

My own research on viral infections and their symptoms gave up no clues. I checked every virus known.
 

sometexan84

Senior Member
Messages
1,229
You should have an I don't know option. Guess that wouldn't be helpful?

I put yes. But I really don't know. It's all very difficult to pinpoint when CFS started for me exactly, and when I actually got each infection. My CFS was very gradual. And most of my infections have been asymptomatic.

If you increase that buffer a bit, to say +/-10 months during the time I think my CFS started, then yea. I had 2 or 3 of them suckers (if you're including bacteria infections as well).

Good Poll! :trophy:

2016 - 2017 - Somewhere in here I think I got Strep, and Streptococcus infection lingered cause I guess I never treated it?
May-June '17 - Fatigue started gradually. Had HSV-2
July-Sept '17 - This may have been when I got Enterovirus
Nov-Dec '18 - Periods of extreme fatigue started. I think I had EBV reactivation right here.

As for the rest of my stuff, I have no clue as to when I got it. My best guess at this point is that it started while I had (2) infections, and got into hardcore CFS later on, when (2) became (3)
 
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WantedAlive

Senior Member
Messages
158
@gbells Snap! I was about to start a similar thread...only it would be years ahead, and include unusual symptoms and conditions. So this'll be an excellent poll, but maybe one we can expand on?

I started with developing dyspepsia over 8 years graduating into gastritis, finally acute onset ME/CFS was triggered by a flu vaccine just 6 weeks after a bad bout of gastritis. So I don't qualify for your poll, but I do fit the "2nd hit hypothesis" or multiple-hit-hypothesis you're surveying here.

Watching this with interest!
 

sometexan84

Senior Member
Messages
1,229
@gbells I guarantee you though, many people will not know the answer to this. The answers will vary widely based on each person's own level of presumptuousness. Just like how I voted YES! :D

Most people on this forum, right now, at this moment, don't know all of their current infections and conditions. Even me. Like I said earlier today in a different thread.... I'd be crazy to think that I've found all the abnormal test results that there are for me to find. Just because I keep discovering new things.
 

sometexan84

Senior Member
Messages
1,229
Mononucleosis with pos IgG in 2007 followed by HHV6 (+ IgG). Also enterovirus (+IgG). Nagalase 3x normal. Three nonspecific pos for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. EBV IgG presently neg but HHV6 and Enterovirus +. EBV PCR Neg in 2019. Perhaps HHV6 inhibits EBV replication.
I just want to again mention, your tests did not indicate an active EBV infection. I understand you're adamant about it. You could ask others on here to verify or look up the EBV antibody lab result interpretations online. I just hate for you to start on the wrong path.

Similarly, the enterovirus. Like @Hip said, these tests really aren't valid. And plus the levels were incredibly low. I would focus more on your high HHV-6 titers. It would also suck to end up getting on drugs that you really don't need. Just trying to help.
 

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,461
Location
Great Lakes
I can't put a time line but I just remember getting sick over and over again. Sometimes I would have a bad infection for as long as 6 weeks and finally start getting over it when 2 weeks later it would be back.

I originally thought all this started with mono in the 6th grade but looking back I think it happened when I was about 10 and broke out with a sudden rash after we stayed one night in a motel.

Within the next year, I developed very large swollen glands, a huge scab that covered my chin that I didn't receive in an injury, and severe leg cramps that a doctor thought could have been juvenile arthritis.

I think I must have gotten bitten by something in that motel room. If I remember correctly my rash looked something like Spotted Rocky Mountain Fever. My lyme's test last year came back negative except for the p41 band which some say can indicate spirochetes. ???