Viral Reinfection: Can You Catch The Same Persistent Virus Twice — Apparently Yes

[alex3619]

A most intriguing thing about the effect of my suspected coxsackievirus B infection on the 30+ people who caught it is that it seemed to induce some characteristic ME/CFS symptoms in many people, such as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon where you temporarily forget common words or names.

I suspect there might be late stage symptoms too, as in decades after infection. I have seen a few long term patients get worsening dry mouth, sinusitis, and increased difficulty swallowing, though there are other non-GI symptoms as well. These issues seem to be common. So far as I know nobody is investigating this to see if there is a common cause such as prior coxsackie infection with a specific strain, or whatever. Its not just names we might forget though. I once forgot where I lived, just for a day. Both word finding and memory seem to have issues. Just in case anyone was unaware, I was diagnosed with coxsackie 3B/B3 in 1989.

 

[Hip]

So far as I know nobody is investigating this to see if there is a common cause such as prior coxsackie infection with a specific strain, or whatever.

I'd love to see a coxsackievirus B and echovirus study on those without ME/CFS, to check for correlations between enterovirus and various cognitive parameters, such as tip-of-the-tongue phenomena, short term memory issues, long term memory consolation, working memory and task switching abilities, etc.

I wonder if those in the general population without ME/CFS, but with slightly elevated titers to the enteroviruses most commonly found in ME/CFS (which according to Dr Chia, are primarily CVB3, CVB4, CVB2, EV6, EV7 and EV9) might also suffer from milder versions of these classic ME/CFS cognitive difficulties.

In addition, I wonder whether some of the neuropsychological symptoms often found in ME/CFS (anxiety, sensitivity to social discord, emotional lability, depression) might also be found in milder form in healthy people with elevated titers to these enteroviruses.


From the observations I made on the 30+ people that caught my suspected coxsackievirus B4, I saw many of these cognitive and neuropsychological symptoms and conditions suddenly appearing.

Thus it would be interesting to investigate the cognitive and neuropsychological effects of enteroviruses in the general population. My feeling is that we may find milder versions of these symptoms in people who have mildly elevated enterovirus titers, but do not have ME/CFS.

This would be an unusual way of approaching ME/CFS research, but it might end up demonstrating that enteroviruses do cause mild cognitive and neuropsychological problems in everybody.