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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
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Foggie
Veteran Member
Joined : Apr 2003
Posts : 924
Posted 4/21/2006 10:06 AM (GMT -8)
Thought maybe someone would be interested in an article on medpage today (CNN) regarding some recent but preliminary studies. It begins with CFS being linked to five mutations in three genes that are related to the body's ability to handle stress. "This will help begin to clarify the biological basis of chronic fatigue syndrome."

Again, these studies are only preliminary. I hope these efforts continue for both CFS and FMS--understanding is the first steps towards a cure for both these debilitating conditions. Go to CNN and read the whole article if you get a chance.

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johnnyboy
Regular Member
Joined : Mar 2006
Posts : 51
Posted 4/21/2006 11:38 PM (GMT -8)

Yeah, I saw a little bit on that on my local news.  It was so stereo typical, they showed a middle aged sad and frale looking women being tested.lol  And the news spent like 15 seconds on it.  But it's good to see that there is being research done.  HOpefully this can help us all out in some way.

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hippimom2
Veteran Member
Joined : Jul 2005
Posts : 5403
Posted 4/21/2006 11:46 PM (GMT -8)
I read the article and found it interesting and I'm glad there is research being done. I don't know if I fully understand the whole thing. I just don't want people to think that we get CFS because we don't know how to handle stress - it goes much deeper than that.
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Foggie
Veteran Member
Joined : Apr 2003
Posts : 924
Posted 4/22/2006 11:00 AM (GMT -8)

When I first heard of this, actually a couple weeks prior to this report, I was thinking exactly the same way. Several years ago, and I am going to refer to FMS because I am more familiar, my doctor told me I had pain amplification and I thought rather she meant "exageration". Actually this is something we can not control--we are very sensitive to pain.

They are referring to genes related to parts of the brain that handle stress. They refer to something else-differences in genetic activity affecting the way they handle accumualted stress over a lifetime. The way I am understanding this now that if it is genetic, we are predisposed and may not be able to avoid this even if we live as stress-free as we know how. Even little children experience stress, probably even from birth. I don't believe we have total control over our ability to process stress. We can avoid some things to reduce stress but even things like physical stress is still stress.

Again, this is just a preliminary study. As time evolves, perhaps other things will be seen as triggers. I would like to express my opinion, here again, about something I believe. Here is one example. My husbands' family has a history of Type I diabetes. Over a lifetime, he was exposed to stresses like serving in the war and coming in contact with toxins. However, the final "trigger" may have been something as simple as the flu virus. (according to his doc)

I did not mean to insult anyone here or insinuate we are just unable to "handle" stress. I defintely include myself here because the same thing is being said about FMS. It is obviously a lot more complex than that, but the possiblity of discovering a "biological basis" may at least be a step in the right direction.

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hippimom2
Veteran Member
Joined : Jul 2005
Posts : 5403
Posted 4/22/2006 11:50 AM (GMT -8)
Foggie, you didn't insult me at all - I think this research is really interesting. I probably didn't explain myself very well. What I meant to say is that I hope if the general population hears this that they won't jump to the conclusion that people have CFS or FMS because we can't handle stress. There is already enough people out there who don't believe that CFS and FMS are "real" diseases.

I hope that as people hear about the research, they will understand that it is based on something physiological and has a genetic component to it. Of course, all of us who have these illnesses know that added stress can make things much worse and I think that is probably true for almost any disease - I know it's true for lupus.

I hope you read this, Foggie because I'm glad you shared it and I'm glad the medical community is taking an interest in these illnesses.
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Foggie
Veteran Member
Joined : Apr 2003
Posts : 924
Posted 4/22/2006 5:36 PM (GMT -8)

Dear hippimom,

I agree wholeheartedly. Daily stress is only a small part of it, I believe. I hope too that people will not think we are just unable to deal with life and that everything "upsets" us. That is simplistic and truly not the case. They still have to replicate this study and I have a feeling more information will come from it.

We are all subjected to many physical and mental stressors. I thought the idea of accumulated stress was quite interesting. You have to wonder what set of circumstances have to be present before CFS or FMS sets in? What causes these mutations in these particular genes?

I know an awful lot of people do not believe in these conditions but until the time they can really figure out what causes them, I guess we just have to accept that. One thing I find interesting is that there seems to be a lot of health care workers (mainly I refer to overworked nurses) having FMS. I think too, if they stumble across something for fibro pain, we may get some respect there.

Let's hope continued research will bring about more understanding and possibly a cure for these two life-altering illnesses!

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