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RECURRENT MUSCULOSKELETAL INJURIES

lauluce

as long as you manage to stay alive, there's hope
Messages
591
Location
argentina
Hi!. Despite my ME started when I was 13, beginning at 20 years old I started suffering a series of injuries over my musculoeskeletal system, many of which I find excessively serious considering the severity of the accident that triggered them. I might be forgetting some, but they're as follow, in this order:
  • unspecified injury on psoas muscle, took 2 years to heal on its own, physical therapy was useless, extremely painful while walking
  • broken ribs from falling and hitting the ground with my left arm, the ribs did not receive a direct hit
  • permanent "frozen elbow" from falling and hitting the ground with my elbow
  • severe contractures in upper back muscles caused just by sitting while working, which caused pain and weakness in my right arm, apparently due to the tight muscles interfering to the nerves innervating the arm.
  • two lumbar disk herniations apparently caused by lifting a 2k kilograms mirror, they're still there to this day
  • and the jewel of the crown: symptomatic thoracic disk herniation triggered by just voluntarily stretching my back, this specific kind of injury affects one person in a million, according to statistics
The question I always make myself is, am I a person who just had extremely bad luck or is my musculoskeletal system particularly fragile and with a poor ability to heal? Does anybody has a story similar to mine? Does anybody knows about any research on ME/CFS that points to an abnormal predisposition to injury?
Thanks for your kind attention! Who knows, maybe many of us have this problem and we can help each other with it!

Note: ME/CFS diagnosis based on CCC criteria, backed up by positive 2-day Cardiopulmonary Exercise Test (CPET) and positive tilt table test for POTS
 

pattismith

Senior Member
Messages
3,930
@lauluce

are you hypermobile?

Here a quote from an article by Dr Henderson, neurosurgeon for the spine and EDS specialist:

"The Ehlers–Danlos syndromes (EDS) are a heterogeneous group of heritable connective tissue disorders characterized by joint hypermobility, skin extensibility, and tissue fragility.
This communication briefly reports upon the neurological manifestations that arise including the weakness of the ligaments of the craniocervical junction and spine, early disc degeneration, and the weakness of the epineurium and perineurium surrounding peripheral nerves. "

Early disc degeneration is usually the cause behind disc herniation, and EDS people seem predisposed.
 

ljimbo423

Senior Member
Messages
4,705
Location
United States, New Hampshire
am I a person who just had extremely bad luck or is my musculoskeletal system particularly fragile and with a poor ability to heal? Does anybody has a story similar to mine?

My story is similar, although a milder form. I often get pulled muscles for very little reason, that take days or longer to heal, from doing very minor things.

For example, there is a stretch I do for my torso. It's very gentle, yet I often get pulled muscles in my back from doing it. These kind of things are common. I don't have EDS or anything like that.

I think what causes my issues is primarily an up-regulated immune system causing inflammation , which makes my muscles more vulnerable to strains and causes them to take longer to heal.

Does anybody knows about any research on ME/CFS that points to an abnormal predisposition to injury?

I don't know of any research that talks about this. Although I also would be interested in reading some.
 

lauluce

as long as you manage to stay alive, there's hope
Messages
591
Location
argentina
That's really good info! I should get checked for that... Is that even possible?
@lauluce

are you hypermobile?

Here a quote from an article by Dr Henderson, neurosurgeon for the spine and EDS specialist:

"The Ehlers–Danlos syndromes (EDS) are a heterogeneous group of heritable connective tissue disorders characterized by joint hypermobility, skin extensibility, and tissue fragility.
This communication briefly reports upon the neurological manifestations that arise including the weakness of the ligaments of the craniocervical junction and spine, early disc degeneration, and the weakness of the epineurium and perineurium surrounding peripheral nerves. "

Early disc degeneration is usually the cause behind disc herniation, and EDS people seem predisposed.
 

pattismith

Senior Member
Messages
3,930
To know if you have hypermobility, you can start with the Beighton score:

1570643111293.png


1570643152058.png
 

Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,181
Location
New Mexico
Oh my goodness,.........yes. My muscles/ligaments would strain/tear so easily. I had to be so careful. Just as an example, I was throwing a bag of trash away and I was swinging it back and forth to get some momentum to throw it in the the big trash bin. The final swing up into the bin........it felt like all my muscles on my right side just tore away from my ribs. It took weeks to heal. It actually felt like I broke some ribs.

Another time I felt like I needed to stretch my back and I simply laid over the top of the couch and when I did that I could hear and felt a crunching sound. My ribs again felt like they had been broken, or the muscles/ligaments had been severely torn?

Seems like I was always recovering from muscles strains.
 

lauluce

as long as you manage to stay alive, there's hope
Messages
591
Location
argentina
There's something I must add, I took a serum vitamin c test on 2010 that showed a value below the normal range, yet the doctor thought it was meaningless. Last year I asked for the test again, tbis te it came even lower, 1mg/l serum vitamin C, this is a value that is found in people with scurvy, acording to some bibliography I read. It took me one year to bring that value to the normal range, taking 4 grams of vitamin C everyday, 4 grams is supossed to be the maximum vitamin c dose one can take without experiencing side effects. Well, I overextended the post, the thing is ghat I believe that since vitamin c is issential for colagen synthesis, I mught well have "low quality" tissues, explaining the recurrent injuries. My toraxic disk herniation is already 8 months old, I has recovered at least a little. Maybe this info can be useful for somebody, have you ever been tested for vitamin C deficiency? I had a test for Giardia Lamblia in stool from when I was a child 20 years ago, said parasite, besides being implied in a 2004 ME outbreak in Norway, I think, I read that it is capable of causing malabsorbption of nutrients in the gut. Have you been tested for that? I'll take the test again soon
 

lauluce

as long as you manage to stay alive, there's hope
Messages
591
Location
argentina
Oh my goodness,.........yes. My muscles/ligaments would strain/tear so easily. I had to be so careful. Just as an example, I was throwing a bag of trash away and I was swinging it back and forth to get some momentum to throw it in the the big trash bin. The final swing up into the bin........it felt like all my muscles on my right side just tore away from my ribs. It took weeks to heal. It actually felt like I broke some ribs.

Another time I felt like I needed to stretch my back and I simply laid over the top of the couch and when I did that I could hear and felt a crunching sound. My ribs again felt like they had been broken, or the muscles/ligaments had been severely torn?

Seems like I was always recovering from muscles strains.
I understand you perfectly, this is exactly how it is for me. I live in fear of injuring a muscle, joint, etc. My family knows that I'm fragile, so they help me lift things including the trash, tje grocery bags, etc, it's just bot worth the risk for me to do it myself. Check what I wrote, have you been tested for vitamin C defiency?
 

Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,181
Location
New Mexico
Check what I wrote, have you been tested for vitamin C defiency?
I might have had that checked years ago...........don't remember. I've been taking alot of Vit. C over the past several years. This is just my personal opinion....................many of my symptoms improved once I got my viral load down (EBV)..........so I think the symptoms I was experiencing were viral related.
 

lauluce

as long as you manage to stay alive, there's hope
Messages
591
Location
argentina
I might have had that checked years ago...........don't remember. I've been taking alot of Vit. C over the past several years. This is just my personal opinion....................many of my symptoms improved once I got my viral load down (EBV)..........so I think the symptoms I was experiencing were viral related.
I might well try that too eventually... the thing is, that regarding EBV I just have a value of 320/1 for igg antibodies, and 0 for igm, I don't think any doctor will prescribe me antivirals with that. What I do have are high antibody titers for HSV-1 and HSV-2, I'll soon check that out
 

Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,181
Location
New Mexico
I might well try that too eventually... the thing is, that regarding EBV I just have a value of 320/1 for igg antibodies, and 0 for igm, I don't think any doctor will prescribe me antivirals with that. What I do have are high antibody titers for HSV-1 and HSV-2, I'll soon check that out
EBV can burrow down into organs, glands, tissue, etc and not show up in the bloodstream. The virus can still cause problems even if your tests show you just had a "past" infection. I am on natural anti-virals.
 

lauluce

as long as you manage to stay alive, there's hope
Messages
591
Location
argentina
EBV can burrow down into organs, glands, tissue, etc and not show up in the bloodstream. The virus can still cause problems even if your tests show you just had a "past" infection. I am on natural anti-virals.
what kind of natural anti-virals do you use? Regarding this "burrowing" behaviour, I believe it's possible that my dorsal root ganglia are infected by HSV-2, once I posted here that despite I have paresthesia in mostly my whole body, my "private parts" are the worse, being actually mostly numb... some people got somewhat offended by te mention of a penis, I guess, but that's another story. I recently read that the place where HSV-2 remains latent are precisely the dorsal root ganglia at the sacrum level, the specific level that is in charge of sensation on the parts that are numbed in my case. I even believe that many other ganglia all over my spine might be in a state of chronic inflammation due to the same virus, wich would explain why I have a symptomatic thoracic disk herniation, whihc as I said before, only affects 1 person in a million, as most herniations are asymptomatic and only hurt when the ganglia get inflammed due to the mechanical and chemical action of the ruptured disc. My idea is that those ganglia where already inflammed before the herniation appeared, an so my current pain is due to the combination of both inflammatory processes. What do you think of this idea? makes any sense to you?
 

Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,181
Location
New Mexico
what kind of natural anti-virals do you use?
I've used a number of them at different times. The ones I've used the most are Cats Claw, L-lysine and Licorice root. Others I've used include Lemon Balm, Monolaurin, Olive leaf ( I think I forgot some). I don't use all of these at one time. I usually take 2-3 at one time. I do take other supplements as well. I have improved following the recommendations made by Anthony William.
Very interesting about your paresthesia. I experienced the same thing and an immunologist I went to discovered myelin sheath antibodies..................so the virus was attacking the myelin sheath that surround the nerves.

Yes I'm sure you have plenty of chronic inflammation. Inflammation is usually caused by 2 things. Either a pathogen or a physical injury.