Research on CFS/ME brings forth new hope
One of the apps I get on my new android phone is a listing of medical news. I try to keep up with the research on CFS/ME - and there's a surprising amount of it out there.Funding is becoming more readily available as this condition is recognised as physical and not just someone's imagination. I found this article exciting: www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-spinal-fluid-proteins-distinguish-lyme.html
This is the first time as far as I know that physical evidence has been found which may be used to diagnose CFS/ME. Blood tests are commonly used for many things, and most medical conditions have some kind of test or another that proves or disproves a diagnoses. Not so CFS/ME. We have always had to have everything else narrowed down and eliminated beforehand, then go through the symptoms and see if they match the clinical description of the condition. It's hard to get a diagnoses. Hopefully, this will help. If it does, it will also help dispel the notion that the condition is all in the head - that we're not "really sick at all." It might even lead to a medicinal treatment or cure.
I'm reminded of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and anti-depressant medication. Everyone (in the medical field) recognises that depression is real. It's a shortage of one of the hormones in the body - as far as I know anyway. Anti-depressants help by balancing everything out chemically. I like to think of myself as a scientist, despite not getting a degree as one, in that I think scientifically. I believe in chemistry. If your body's chemistry is messed up, your body isn't going to work right. However, there seems to be a marked link between the body and the mind. This is why CBT is so effective. If we tell ourselves enough times that we are great and wonderful, we really are. It helps with depression; I've been through it myself and remember how much better I was for it. But I don't think I would have been as good if I had not been on meds at the same time. Even now, two years later, I'm still on the meds because CBT doesn't see me through enough to fully stop me from being depressed.
Transfer this to CFS/ME and you're looking at it from the other way around. There are no medications, so we're stuck with things like CBT and lifestyle changes, like pacing. One study done recently said CBT and graded exercise was the best thing for people with CFS/ME, but those with the condition and the charity in the UK which supports us debate the authenticity of that study. However, these two methods are prescribed as treatment for CFS/ME. The other, the one that I've learned, is to pace yourself, learn your baseline, and not push yourself beyond that baseline, even if you feel you can on any given day. On bad days, you may have to push yourself to get to the baseline. Given time, you can increase the baseline (in a manner similar to but not the graded exercise used in the study) until you're pretty much back to normal again. However, this does not work for all people, and relapse is not only common but could occur more than once. It's essentially a disease for life, with no treatment but that of the mind. In my hypothesis that mind treatment works best with physical treatment (at least on myself), based on my observations of my battle with depression, anything which gives us hope for a treatment or cure is a good thing.
This is the first time as far as I know that physical evidence has been found which may be used to diagnose CFS/ME. Blood tests are commonly used for many things, and most medical conditions have some kind of test or another that proves or disproves a diagnoses. Not so CFS/ME. We have always had to have everything else narrowed down and eliminated beforehand, then go through the symptoms and see if they match the clinical description of the condition. It's hard to get a diagnoses. Hopefully, this will help. If it does, it will also help dispel the notion that the condition is all in the head - that we're not "really sick at all." It might even lead to a medicinal treatment or cure.
I'm reminded of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and anti-depressant medication. Everyone (in the medical field) recognises that depression is real. It's a shortage of one of the hormones in the body - as far as I know anyway. Anti-depressants help by balancing everything out chemically. I like to think of myself as a scientist, despite not getting a degree as one, in that I think scientifically. I believe in chemistry. If your body's chemistry is messed up, your body isn't going to work right. However, there seems to be a marked link between the body and the mind. This is why CBT is so effective. If we tell ourselves enough times that we are great and wonderful, we really are. It helps with depression; I've been through it myself and remember how much better I was for it. But I don't think I would have been as good if I had not been on meds at the same time. Even now, two years later, I'm still on the meds because CBT doesn't see me through enough to fully stop me from being depressed.
Transfer this to CFS/ME and you're looking at it from the other way around. There are no medications, so we're stuck with things like CBT and lifestyle changes, like pacing. One study done recently said CBT and graded exercise was the best thing for people with CFS/ME, but those with the condition and the charity in the UK which supports us debate the authenticity of that study. However, these two methods are prescribed as treatment for CFS/ME. The other, the one that I've learned, is to pace yourself, learn your baseline, and not push yourself beyond that baseline, even if you feel you can on any given day. On bad days, you may have to push yourself to get to the baseline. Given time, you can increase the baseline (in a manner similar to but not the graded exercise used in the study) until you're pretty much back to normal again. However, this does not work for all people, and relapse is not only common but could occur more than once. It's essentially a disease for life, with no treatment but that of the mind. In my hypothesis that mind treatment works best with physical treatment (at least on myself), based on my observations of my battle with depression, anything which gives us hope for a treatment or cure is a good thing.