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(Edit - thanks Rvallee for posting about the BPS Bulletin) Wow, I kept on wanting to share paragraphs of that article by Louise Kenward with you. That is quite a shift, getting an article like that in the BPS Covid-19 Bulletin. Louise talks about how illnesses similar to Long Covid have long...

Absolutely not meant in a jokey way, quite the opposite. The therapy is called 'Pain Reprocessing Therapy'. The abstract says that it is a 'psychological treatment focused on changing beliefs about the causes and threat value of primary chronic back pain'.

Re the use of GRADE by the Cochrane exercise therapy review authors: I'm not sure if what you have written is correct. There's this paper, that seems very sensible to me, although perhaps Malmivarra's understanding of GRADE differs to that of others, or I'm not understanding Malmivarra...

Signed

Yes, the results for the treatment don't look very exciting. And the authors suggest that maybe they need to dose at a higher rate, which could also be a way of scratching around for an excuse for not getting any results in this experiment. Perhaps they will find something with that treatment...

Some more discussion here: Over which physiological abnormalities in ME/CFS is there a scientific consensus about?

Interesting re the placebo effect on subjective endpoints:

I thought this paper was interesting given the discussions we have had about whether there might be a spectrum of post-viral conditions ranging across ME/CFS, fibromyalgia and overt arthritis resulting from chikungunya. It's also interesting to see Australian virologist Lara Herrero as an...

Abstract Background Alphaviruses, such as Ross River (RRV) and chikungunya virus (CHIKV), cause significant global morbidity, with outbreaks of crippling joint inflammation and pain, leaving patients incapacitated for months to years. With no available vaccine or specific therapeutic for any...

@Wyva posted about an interesting article here:Possibility of ME or PVFS after COVID-19, Long Covid Here's a direct link to the article...

Very sorry to hear that the improvements in your health haven't lasted. Thanks for keeping us updated.

I find it disappointing that a researcher that we are hoping will contribute to improving the understanding of ME/CFS thinks that this trial is 'very encouraging'. It's not that hard to look at the evidence properly.

Sure, the sample size is a problem, and the selection may well have been one too. But look how much variation there is in the CFS controls, and how different the fibromyalgia controls look to the CFS controls. The ranges encompassed by the healthy controls is quite wide. And there's absolutely...

This paper was mentioned over on PR recently. The sample size is small ( 8 or 9 women per group), and the criteria for CFS diagnosis was the old CDC Holmes criteria. It's interesting though, because it provides no evidence for abnormal cortisol or low melatonin in fibromyalgia or ME/CFS. They...

An old paper Korszun, A., L. Sackett-Lundeen, E. Papadopoulos, C. Brucksch, L. Masterson, N. C. Engelberg, E. Haus, M. A. Demitrack, and L. Crofford. “Melatonin Levels in Women with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.” The Journal of Rheumatology 26, no. 12 (December 1999): 2675–80...

I think the 'mind-body theory', or psychosomatic medicine is a result of a number of problems including: a natural human inclination to fill gaps in knowledge with whatever comes readily to hand e.g. superstition, and the attractiveness of ideas that make the believer feel that illness is...

I agree with Michiel. I'd go further to say that this study is a bit of a mess and could be quoted against people with ME/CFS, even thought the data doesn't support much in the way of conclusions. It's pretty disappointing.

Why would they go with PENE? PEM is the standard term. We don't know that it is neuroimmune exhaustion. And it's ridiculous to say that PENE is not relieved by rest. That makes it sound as though it doesn't matter whether you lie down or keep walking about, in terms of how quickly PENE...

This is by the Griffith NCNED team. We've, I think reasonably, criticised them for making their research seem more important and more conclusive than it is. However, they have advocated for the medical nature of ME/CFS, and have strongly advocated against GET. I think, without having read the...

A while back, I suggested to Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council (the government organisation that distributes funds for medical research) that they require that every research proposal be endorsed by a patient advocacy group. Each endorsement should set out why the research...