XMRV: could it go into remission on its own?

[Sasha]

After acute viral onset ME in the eighties, including being bedbound for many years, I had a period of what I thought was 90% recovery but turned out to be remission that lasted about seven years or so. Now I am housebound again after a series of mini-relapses that turned into a big relapse. :worried:

I don't think this is uncommon. If XMRV = ME, how can people get very substantial remissions after years of severe illness? Is it plausible that the body could drive a retrovirus into even partial submission on its own? I received no treatment, just rested a lot.

Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere! The XMRV topic has got very big!

 

[Esther12]

This is somthing I wonder about.

In so many ways, a retrovirus seems odd for CFS.

But some early XMRV work mentions it lacking many of the defenses to the human immune system which HIV has. So who knows how XMRV is likely to behave in humans?

 

[Sunshine]

In so many ways, a retrovirus seems odd for CFS

Hi Esther, please can you explain why a retrovirus seems odd to you regarding CFS and XMRV?

I'm interested to hear, as medically speaking a retrovirus fits the symptom expression of CFS perfectly.

It would be interesting to learn an alternative view to that of medicine and science.

Thanks

 

[Sam Carter]

Hi Esther, please can you explain why a retrovirus seems odd to you regarding CFS and XMRV?

I'm interested to hear, as medically speaking a retrovirus fits the symptom expression of CFS perfectly.

It would be interesting to learn an alternative view to that of medicine and science.

Thanks

The epidemiology of ME doesn't match that of known retroviral diseases.

 

[urbantravels]

The list of "known retroviral diseases" in humans is an exceedingly short list though. Hard to generalize. If you look also at animal retroviruses, I think you see more possibilities for how retroviral diseases other than those currently known might be transmitted in humans.

 

[Sam Carter]

The list of "known retroviral diseases" in humans is an exceedingly short list though. Hard to generalize. If you look also at animal retroviruses, I think you see more possibilities for how retroviral diseases other than those currently known might be transmitted in humans.

Agreed, but I'm still unsure how a retrovirus could explain something like the North Carolina orchestra cluster.

 

[V99]

Agreed, but I'm still unsure how a retrovirus could explain something like the North Carolina orchestra cluster.

In what way would it not?

 

[Sam Carter]

In what way would it not?

Transmission, transmission, transmission.

 

[Esther12]

please can you explain why a retrovirus seems odd to you regarding CFS and XMRV?

Epidemiology's been mentioned, as Sasha mentioned, the fact that people seem able to significantly recover without treatment... but as urbantravels mentioned, we can't really generalise too much about how retroviruses behave (in another thread I'd just said 'CFS doesn't seem like a normal infectious disorder... but viruses are funky little things that can do all sorts of surprising things.')

As I said above, it also seems we're getting some early clues that XMRV is unusual compared to other known human retroviruses and that could explain it all, but prior to the Science paper I certainly wasn't expecting anyone to find a retrovirus that could explaion 97% of CFS cases (especially considering the haphazard nature of CFS diagnosis, even by Canadian Criteria).

 

[V99]

But what about transmission?

 

[urbantravels]

Hmm, let's see - the orchestra members were traveling together in close quarters, sharing drinks and food, many animal retroviruses are transmitted via contact/saliva, they've already found XMRV in respiratory secretions...what am I missing here that makes this "unlike" retroviral transmission?

The orchestra members are probably one of the more explicable outbreaks, once you realize that sexual or blood transmission isn't the only avenue for a retrovirus. (Some of the orchestra members may have been fooling around with one another, per Hillary Johnson, but certainly not all of them and not all the members that got sick.)

 

[Sam Carter]

Hmm, let's see - the orchestra members were traveling together in close quarters, sharing drinks and food, many animal retroviruses are transmitted via contact/saliva, they've already found XMRV in respiratory secretions...what am I missing here that makes this "unlike" retroviral transmission?

The orchestra members are probably one of the more explicable outbreaks, once you realize that sexual or blood transmission isn't the only avenue for a retrovirus. (Some of the orchestra members may have been fooling around with one another, per Hillary Johnson, but certainly not all of them and not all the members that got sick.)

If XMRV was transmitted via contact / saliva why did the cluster stop with them and not continue to spread?

ETA: I changed my post prior to lansbergen et al's answer.

 

[lansbergen]

I'm genuinely interested - what animal retroviruses are transmitted by casual contact?

FeLV in cats

 

[urbantravels]

ALV, REV, FeLV to my knowledge.

 

[V99]

FeLV in cats

 

[Sam Carter]

I feel a circular argument developing, but here goes...

The epidemiology of ME does not match that of a saliva borne infection.

 

[V99]

Could you expand on that statement. In what way?

 

[SOC]

Here's a theory for outbreaks (Those with more medical/biology knowledge than I have are welcome to tell me I'm full of it. )

Suppose XMRV is transmissable via respiratory secretions, but not strongly so. Other than direct blood-to-blood contact, the infection rate is 1 infection to 10 exposures at most with HIV. Suppose again, that XMRV infection rate is 1 infection to 100 or 1000 exposures and that respiratory secretions are only infectious during some stages of the infection. Then most people's chance of getting infected is relatively small, even when they've been exposed.

We know that a number of factors can affect the immune system in such a way that it doesn't perform optimally -- stress, infection, etc.

Now imagine a small close community where people are together for large periods of time -- schools, hospitals, orchestras (wind instrument players get extra credit for sharing their respiratory secretions with everybody around ). It takes 1 person with XMRV in a highly infectious stage and a group-wide immune function reducing condition (a bad flu, HHV-6A) to spread the infection much more than might normally be seen. This would be especially true if the more infectious stage of XMRV was early in the infection. Then you might have several infectious people in close quarters at the same time.

In summary, I'm speculating that it may take XMRV in a more infectious stage plus an overlapping virus plus close quarters to make an outbreak.

I know, by that logic we should see more significant other cases...... *sigh*

But are there any huge flaws in my outbreak theory?

 

[Sam Carter]

Could you expand on that statement. In what way?

Well, since I like to be sure (or fairly sure) of what I write, I'll qualify the statement by saying that the epidemiology of ME doesn't appear to match that of a saliva borne infection. I would expect to see more couples infected.

But I'm really guessing. We all are for now.

 

[V99]

It all sounds plausible.

Mikovits has mentioned similar theories.

XMRV may be infectious at different stages of it's life cycle, it may need another virus/infection/event to activate it. It may be infectious at different times in different ways.