Is CFS the same as GWI(Gulf War Illness) or is GWI a new & different disease?

[USAFANG67]

Hi,
I was wondering if CFS is the same as GWI(Gulf War Illness) or is it a new & different disease? Or is the jury still out on this one?

Thank you,
Matt - Fla.

 

[Marg]

There are a lot of similarities. Dr. Nancy Klimas works with both and I believe is doing a study at the VA. I see you are in Florida, she is in Miami and would be the doctor to go to for either.

 

[USAFANG67]

Hi Marg,
I went to the briefing this Saturday(3/26/11)at the Miami VA Medical Center Auditorium and found it to be very information.
Given the pace of the research that is taking place I'd love to see something like this take place on a 6month bases. It's a rather exciting time to be in this field of research as Dr Klimas so noted.

 

[SaveMe]

the same

Gulf War Illness=CFS/ME

 

[Navid]

hi:

did dr. k mention any treatments coming down the line?

 

[Hope123]

It's hard to tell right now how similar or different the two are.

On the one hand, they "look" similar in terms of common symptoms but many conditions look similar yet are treated differently. For example, someone presenting in an ER with chest pain needs to be checked for things like a heart attack, inflammation of the membrane covering the heart, blood clot in the lung, etc. as these are all treated differently yet may look very similar initially.

There are also some genetic and immune studies which show that there are differences between GWI and CFS. Whether these differences will impact treatment no one knows but my gut says "yes."

 

[Mark]

One of the SoK workshop's most promising presentations looked at the networks of relationships between various markers (inflammatory cytokines etc). The network graphs they showed indicated a very different pattern. CFS patients' networks were much less well structured, whereas with GWI they formed a different structure to controls, but still with good structure.

Its exciting that just in the last few months we now look like we have clear differences between GWI, CFS, and chronic lyme - that could end up being crucial to our understanding of the 3 illnesses. But as with XMRV, I do suspect we are going to end up finding that these labels actually define subgroups rather better than we assumed. We all thought it was a complex and diverse wastebasket.diagnosis but even though there will be subgroups, I think the surprising thing is going to be what they have in common, and how the same.cause.can have many effects.

And that's the first and probably last time I compose a post on this desire Z keyboard I'm afraid - tortuous process :-(

 

[USAFANG67]

There are a lot of similarities. Dr. Nancy Klimas works with both and I believe is doing a study at the VA. I see you are in Florida, she is in Miami and would be the doctor to go to for either.

Hi Marg,
I'm rather new to this group and not very familiar as to how to get an email alert when people reply to a question I post. So I apologize for not getting back to your sooner.
Yes I'm very familiar with Dr Klimas and her treating GWI and CFS patients. I participated in a GWI research project she headed up a few years back.
Since I get my health care through the VA in Ft. Myers I've been trying to get them to work in conjunction with Dr Klimas but with no success. For me to drive to Miami from Ft Myers is out of the question because of my condition. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Thank you for your reply.
Matt

 

[SilverbladeTE]

personally I'd suspect that Gulf War Syndrome spreads over several illnesses, because of the different things the service folk suffered:

• vastly too many vaccinations too fast, and some were NOT safety tested and are still kept secret (the UK ones were kept secret for "protecting patents etc", gah, sons of bitches!)
• Exposure to depleted uranium (but not everyone was so exposed. And current US tanks are cladded in Depleted Uranium which is so stupid as to beggar belief, dunno about those from Gulf War 1 though)
• Exposure to nerve gas from blown up Iraqi arms dumps and factories (again not all were exposed and some were much worse than others)
• Exposure to local exotic diseases (hey, it's a sure fire bet these regions have their own "Lyme" equivalent, by that I mean, either as yet unidentified pathogens, or poorly understood ones)
• Exposure to pesticides (to keep biting insects down, problem is, the pesticides used are of the same class of chemicals as nerve gas...pre-expsoure may cause sensitivity to other?)
• Anti-Nerve gas tablets taken when not needed
• Plus, "X"... as in "Unknown", as said perhaps local stealthy diseases, or secret military technology like radar jammers (which can be hellishly powerful), or just plain over exposure to known but high powered elecromagnetic fields like the abundant military radars and transmitters, etc. Even if these things by themselves are normally harmless, to a person with over sensitized nervous/immune systems due to low grade nerve gas expsoure...who knows what the heck it may do, and governments sure as hell would not want ot KNOW if that's the case, due to risk of massive liability. Could also include fumes from propellants used in rockets (which are often toxic by the way), and artillery rounds

if the vast majority of GWS patients do have the very same markers, then that indicates ONE common cause. Which should be "relatively" easy to identify (and yeah "relative" is a biiiiiig word in this case).

Alas, the very high level, deliberate cover up makes finding the truth there, very hard :/

 

[USAFANG67]

personally I'd suspect that Gulf War Syndrome spreads over several illnesses, because of the different things the service folk suffered:

• vastly too many vaccinations too fast, and some were NOT safety tested and are still kept secret (the UK ones were kept secret for "protecting patents etc", gah, sons of bitches!)
• Exposure to depleted uranium (but not everyone was so exposed. And current US tanks are cladded in Depleted Uranium which is so stupid as to beggar belief, dunno about those from Gulf War 1 though)
• Exposure to nerve gas from blown up Iraqi arms dumps and factories (again not all were exposed and some were much worse than others)
• Exposure to local exotic diseases (hey, it's a sure fire bet these regions have their own "Lyme" equivalent, by that I mean, either as yet unidentified pathogens, or poorly understood ones)
• Exposure to pesticides (to keep biting insects down, problem is, the pesticides used are of the same class of chemicals as nerve gas...pre-expsoure may cause sensitivity to other?)
• Anti-Nerve gas tablets taken when not needed
• Plus, "X"... as in "Unknown", as said perhaps local stealthy diseases, or secret military technology like radar jammers (which can be hellishly powerful), or just plain over exposure to known but high powered elecromagnetic fields like the abundant military radars and transmitters, etc. Even if these things by themselves are normally harmless, to a person with over sensitized nervous/immune systems due to low grade nerve gas expsoure...who knows what the heck it may do, and governments sure as hell would not want ot KNOW if that's the case, due to risk of massive liability. Could also include fumes from propellants used in rockets (which are often toxic by the way), and artillery rounds

if the vast majority of GWS patients do have the very same markers, then that indicates ONE common cause. Which should be "relatively" easy to identify (and yeah "relative" is a biiiiiig word in this case).

Alas, the very high level, deliberate cover up makes finding the truth there, very hard :/

Hi Silverblade,
Your thoughts and response here are right in line with how I feel about GWI and the concerted efforts by many agencies both government, military and businesses that would profit from this to look the other way.
Money is a powerful tool and motivator to get people to do things they would not ordinarily do. We see it so deeply rooted in our system not only here in the USA but many other countries. It's quite the slippery slope the Global Economy has itself on right now because of how greed has blurred the difference between right from wrong.

 

[Ian]

Many different factors cause can similar symptoms, this doesn't mean the causes are the same. The gulf war vets got sick because they were exposed to chemical weapons, depleted uranium, and on top of that they were all given highly experimental vaccines. I don't think the average CFS person has been exposed to those things.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Hi Silverblade,
Your thoughts and response here are right in line with how I feel about GWI and the concerted efforts by many agencies both government, military and businesses that would profit from this to look the other way.
Money is a powerful tool and motivator to get people to do things they would not ordinarily do. We see it so deeply rooted in our system not only here in the USA but many other countries. It's quite the slippery slope the Global Economy has itself on right now because of how greed has blurred the difference between right from wrong.

Yeah Last 30 odd years we've seen our UK/USA become rabid corporate fascist states, and "the de'il take the hindmost!" Sigh
Short-term, blind, suicidal greed...corporations are psychologically, psychopaths. They spend billions buying public and governmental aquiesence, iirc during Reagan's Administration, total number of lobbyists in USA went from 600, to 3000+

Forgive me if this seems crass, but the military are just seen as "tools" and "bullet stoppers" by those in power, all the High & Mighty really want them for, is tools to steal resources off other nations/enable their lunatic schemes, and the "soldiers etc who get injured should just die off rather than leave us with a burden we have to pay a pittance of tax from our vast incomes on!"
Service personnel are just seen as "costs" by these assholes, not people who sign up to defend their country and carry out a noble service.
hence part of the drive to reduce personnel numbers in vehicles, not just the genuinely beneficial ones, is really about spending less on veterans.

Also serious damn moral threat with UAVs and such tech a US Air Force general once warned of: it's not the "Skynet/Terminator" problem so much as if we Humans stop putting ourselves on the line, personally and morally, while killing others....that moral cowardice eats away and leaves a vacuum. Killing is terrible, but long as a person will take that choice, take that cost, understand it, it's like a "safety catch" and warning to others. When it becomes like a video game...it gets too easy, and too divorced from having to man-up to a terrible choice which should only ever be taken in dire, genuine need.

there's a spiritual/philosophical system, that as I've said elsewhere kind of warns of "the Ahriman Principle", that is, the utter arrogance in forcing ahead technology without any care/thought to cosequences, so great in fact that any detractors/issues are silenced.
Spoken of this stuff in regard ot Science Media Centre and it's adherents in the UK

Making a living is not wrong, making a fortune at others' expense, is.

Was good article in New Scientist showing how basically the Stock market is driven by fear and testosterone, seriously, it was never about logic and normal commerce.
What most folk don't know about the banking/economic crash is, that we were seconds away from complete wipe out of the global economy, totla financial meltdown and thus end of our civilization, because what happens when the stock market's run at computer speeds across the world and it nose dives? It's like riding a ramjet earthwards...they literally had to pull the plug on it all.