@BurnA
I have never come across any suggestion that high levels of exercise might play a role in triggering ME/CFS. OK,
after ME/CFS manifests, exercise may worsen the condition; but that is different to exercise being a trigger factor.
Are you not a bit sceptical of such a study given what we know about PACE. I am not saying it's not true but without reading the paper in detail I'd be a little wary.
It is always good to be skeptical, but it seems like a very objective and clear-cut study, since it used MRI scans of MS brain lesions, not the very vaguely defined notions of recovery used in the PACE trial.
That concept likely applies to many illnesses. I was actually thinking in terms of such de-stressing techniques being curative of the disease.
It does seem unlikely. But in terms of possible mechanisms, if stress were a factor that was holding back viral clearance (by say cortisol release), then reducing stress may allow the body to start clearing viral infection, which would then slowly result in ME/CFS improvements. That is the sort of mechanism I think might explain it, if such recoveries do indeed occur.
A clinical trial of the Lightning Process is ongoing, but we do not have the results as yet. The ME Association's
survey (see page 9) found that around 26% of patients reported they greatly improved after the Lightning Process, compared to only around 3% reporting great improvements from CBT.
Interestingly, around 13% reported they became much worse after the Lightning Process, compared to around 8% reporting becoming much worse after CBT.
However, I would like to see some objective measures of this improvement (or worsening), such as reduced viral loads, or better performance on the 2-day CPET test.