This story won’t be particularly unique or shocking to anyone living with ME. Every single one of us has a plethora of stories like this, and far worse than this. It has happened so many times over the last 11 years. What shocks me is the degree to which it still occurs and manages to affect me, no matter how much time I spend trying to advocate for ME.
When a sudden and unexpected illness catapulted my life into a completely different path, life as I had come to know it, was irrevocably changed.
#BedFest was quite the occasion. People appeared in PJ’s, crumpled t-shirts, crochet vests, keen to address the wider world; people whose voices are seldom heard, called together by #MEAction and its volunteers to share music, art, photography and multifarious creativity and raise ME-Awareness. We didn’t have to leave the house…
Biomarkers are a holy grail for ME/CFS because they have the potential to help diagnose disease, track disease progression or progress and help inform which treatments might help. The need for biomarkers is immense and researchers will identify many possible ones. It is encouraging that there have been more possible biomarker reports recently. It can be so hard
Could ME/CFS be the post SIRS ‘immune paralysis’ state of CARS (Compensatory Anti-Inflammatory Response Syndrome)? Or MARS (mixed antagonists response syndrome)?
Government funding for research centers and a data management center for ME/CFS has been made public, and the amount of funding allocated is infuriatingly small. The National Institute of Health (NIH) plans to issue two Requests for Application (RFAs) in January to fund 2-3 collaborative research centers and a data management center for ME/CFS. The
Chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM) have a long, long way to go before they get the attention and resources they deserve. It would take a heroic leap to quickly achieve what people with these diseases deserve and what the diseases themselves – given their economic costs / burdens they impose – should receive. So much needs to be done (funding, doctor education, drugs, other treatments) – and we’re coming from such a low place – that it seems almost impossible that it can be done in a reasonable amount of time. In fact, people do the impossible – make what seems at first to be inconceivable differences in one area or another – all the time. This blog is about a man who did that, and did so in a way that may directly help those with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia.
Thank you for this opportunity to address the CFS Advisory Committee. I am writing to in response to the call for comments regarding how the US government might engage members of the ME/CFS community, especially patients and their lay supporters, in addressing and solving the clinical, research, educational, and public health challenges of this condition.
One of the frequent complaints of patients, researchers, and policymakers about ME research is that the findings are scattered, and the studies, small. One group will discover X is elevated in 20 ME patients, only to find that when the test is done on another 13 patients two years down the line, they don’t show
This is the “new” studie some doctors are trying to move around Spain with the recomendations of using CBT and GET in patients of CFS at the age range of 12-17.
