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Finding a correlation between PTSD and chronic illness is not surprising. The ACEs study found that childhood trauma raises your risk of many illnesses, including those nobody believes are psuchosomatic, and can take decades off your life. A likely mechanism is that trauma makes it difficult to...

*Record scratching sound* That's a dramatic change in tone. Also, it would be hard to prove pacing actually works, due to the same issues that plagued PACE. A slight difference is that we market pacing as a symptom management strategy, not a treatment.

A smart and balanced article. The title was ambiguous, but fear not. They're not comparing patient advocates to non-doctors pushing hydroxychloroquine--they're comparing people pushing GET to it, because it's unproven in long Covid. The gist of the article is that PACE was pretty bad, and that...

I also actively want my body to be used for research, assuming knowledge about ME is still scarce once I die.

Very deep and interesting read. Summary of what I read so far: Microglia aren't either resting or activated as many assume. They're constantly active, but play different roles at different times. They are highly receptive to their chemical environment, so subtle signals can change their...

Develop the nanoneedle into a commercially available test for ME or prove conclusively it doesn't work. If we succeed, we'd make ME easily diagnosable and prove it's physical. We'd also have a platform for in vitro research--we could try different drugs on the blood of pwME and see if it makes...

Overstating their findings and potential undisclosed conflicts of interest? Very disappointing to see when our lives hang in the balance.

True. I experienced PEM for three years before I heard the term "post-exertional malaise."

We seem to have missed the fact that this paper is a milestone: It's the first completed, rigorous trial of a long Covid treatment I know of.

It's very mixed, a little over half of commenters leaning towards biological and the rest towards psychological. Insightful excerpts from the biomedical comments: A reply to a comment discussing how pwME are angry at BPS ideology: The most insightful one recognizes both the biological nature...

I'm sure there's way more pieces to this puzzle than levels of chemicals.

Why research the pathology of a disease when you can just say that music therapy works and declare victory? heh

They found something new in a small study...that a whopping two people with ME have elevated levels of ATG13 and that microglia don't like it. This is a brainstorm, not a real hope. While their research appears novel, all scientists should present their findings realistically, especially if...

The main problem was that they tried too hard to represent "both sides." They also called it "chronic fatigue", only mentioned PEM once, and covered the BPS model in details while not giving any of the evidence it's biomedical--just that doctors believe it is, not the actual findings. And they...

Kudos to the authors. They interpreted their answers honestly instead of trying to puff them up. It's not a positive answer...but I will welcome any solid answer in this disease, because even "no's" get us closer to the truth.

This. When scientists on my side publish bad research, I'm going to call them out as vigorously as when Trudy Chalder does it. Using such a control group doesn't entirely invalidate their research, as we know that being at 66% physical function is still a lot lower than age-matched healthy...

Also...my mental issues will probably lead me down a road of pretty extreme self-harm (e.g. GET or self-help GET) if I ever "lose faith" in the idea I'm actually sick. Really it's not the CPET I want...I need some sort of absolute proof I'm suffering from an actual illness. Is there a more...

What if it affects how my mental health is managed? I'm sorry, I simply cannot go on without incontrovertible evidence I'm sick. I don't even care if it doesn't discriminate between diseases. I just need as much information on this as possible. This is the best thing I can do besides seeing an...

This is also very deeply entwined with my mental health issues. Every time I try to get this test, and something stops me, I begin spiraling emotionally. I feel extremely powerless and dysphoric with a strong sense of (for lack of a better term) moral injury.

I understand anyone with the right equipment can to a 2-day CPET. I think the problem is lack of someone to interpret the results. What I personally want is a data file of the breath-by-breath data so I can see it myself, but I also need a professional to write a report saying something like...