Hello. Could you please link me to the autopsy studies on negative ME CFS patients heart tissue? I can't find any myself when searching.
I didn't know there was no evidence for heart muscle infection in ME CFS, or do you mean 'no evidence' because the Science hasn't been done?
I am quite interested in ME/CFS comorbid diseases, ones that are present in ME/CFS patients at higher than normal rates (mainly because I think these comorbid diseases could throw light on the pathophysiology of ME/CFS).
Lots of physical diseases are known to be more prevalent in ME/CFS patients. For example, irritable bowel syndrome, interstitial cystitis and overactive bladder (irritable bladder), chronic pelvic pain syndrome, endometriosis, Raynaud’s disease, temporomandibular joint disorder, myofascial pain syndrome, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, prolapsed mitral valve, Sjögren's syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, neurally mediated hypotension are all more common in ME/CFS.
But I have never seen any published research, nor any observations by ME/CFS doctors, nor any reports on ME/CFS forums or ME/CFS literature regarding an increased prevalence of heart attacks or myocarditis among ME/CFS patients. Heart attacks and myocarditis have clearcut symptoms, so they would not generally be missed.
In the first analysis, you would think that coxsackievirus B or echovirus-induced myocarditis or heart attacks would be very common in ME/CFS, given that Dr Chia found 82% ME/CFS patients have a chronic enterovirus infection in their stomachs, and given that all the
British research in the 1980/90s showed ME/CFS patients had chronic enterovirus infections in their muscles, which in either case the immune system seems unable to eliminate.
You would have though that such pathophysiological circumstances would favor the spreading of the enterovirus infection to the heart muscle, leading to heart attacks and/or myocarditis.
But as far as we know, this does not seem to be the case. I just wonder why. The idea is that the ME/CFS metabolic state could be the body's way of protecting itself from the tissue damage that enterovirus might otherwise cause.