Is that the pattern we are seeing though? (families being tested after 1 member positive with XMRV)
Given that there is a long wait for test kits (6 weeks) and then a long wait for results (4-6 weeks). I'm not seeing people here saying that they are testing their whole families (and have the test kits/results) and I'm not hearing it from other XMRV+ people.
Just a question mark on the idea - I don't know. Anyone else have any ideas as I may well be wrong?
If I could afford it, I'd get myself and both kids tested. I have CFS, son has autism, daughter has irregular fatigue (pre-CFS?).
I have several health problems, but the cluster of symptoms that don't fit any of my 'real' (you know what I mean!) diagnoses are Canadian Clinical Consensus -- I have almost every single one of them, from the orthostatic intolerance to the sore throats to the whacked out immune system to the post exertional fatigue to the headaches to the sleep problems to muscle aches and the one I hate most of all: brain fog.
My mother's side of the family is a cluster of CFS-related issues: autism, heart failure, CFS, fibromyalgia, non-seropositive rheumatoid arthritis, prostate cancer, mysterious hormone issues that aren't Addison's disease, reproductive health problems in the females--once we have firmer information about XMRV and there's a reliable test available, I'll urge all my blood relatives to get tested.
We also have Native American ancestry on my mother's side, and Native Americans and African Americans are more likely to have CFS and to have more severe symptoms than the general population.