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  1. Penelope McMillan

    Misrepresentation of ME/CFS in Media Images: A Picture Tells a 1,000 Words. What Story Are We Telling?, 2021, McMillan et al [and 2022 update]

    Getting good photos is a challenge, for sure. That's partly what prompted our interest in images: our experience trying to find photos for our new website (https://mecfssa.org.au/) One thing that has really helped is the improved quality of the cameras built into smart phones. People's home...
  2. Penelope McMillan

    Independent advisory group for the full update of the Cochrane review on exercise therapy and ME/CFS (2020), led by Hilda Bastian

    I have been severe in the past. The reason there are three of us as a team from ME/CFS Australia is that I am still mostly bedbound and have limited capacity. I do my advocacy work as part of a team with Penelope Del Fante, who has been very severely ill in the past, and is currently mostly...
  3. Penelope McMillan

    The circuit of symbolic violence in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) (I): A preliminary study, 2021, Gimeno Torrent

    It's available as a PDF via Xavier's website: https://www.xaviergimeno.net/files/CFS_symbolic_violence_1en.pdf
  4. Penelope McMillan

    Gut dysbiosis in severe mental illness and chronic fatigue: a novel trans-diagnostic construct? A systematic review and meta-analysis, Safadi, 2021

    I have Ulcerative Colitis and when that is flaring, I have massive, debilitating fatigue. It is nothing like ME 'fatigue' at all. It's a pure fatigue, not complicated by other symptoms. In fact, when I do nothing because of my UC fatigue, my ME symptoms reduce, due to the extra resting. So on a...
  5. Penelope McMillan

    Independent advisory group for the full update of the Cochrane review on exercise therapy and ME/CFS (2020), led by Hilda Bastian

    I have been involved in a Cochrane review that was rejected and will be published outside Cochrane. It is certainly possible to use the structure of a Cochrane review and publish independently.
  6. Penelope McMillan

    Human Herpesvirus-6 Reactivation, Mitochondrial Fragmentation, and the Coordination of Antiviral and Metabolic Phenotypes in ME/CFS - 2020 - Schreiner

    I agree with those who describe the paper as incoherent and appearing to have been written to support a pre-existing theory. (Maybe I just agree that it was not clearly written because I found it hard to follow, but I do suspect that my failure to follow the line of argument wasn't entirely due...
  7. Penelope McMillan

    Altered muscle membrane potential and redox status differentiates two subgroups of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome: Jammes et al Apr 2020

    I am a little lost here. Is there any information on differences between the two groups other than the muscle membrane excitability grouping? Some ME studies have indicated that differences found tended to correlate with length of illness or with comorbid fibromyalgia or some other identifiable...
  8. Penelope McMillan

    Altered muscle membrane potential and redox status differentiates two subgroups of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome: Jammes et al Apr 2020

    I can't claim to understand the software they used, but if you simply look at the data points, there is a rough alignment with the direction of the solid lines. There are plenty of data points outside the 95% confidence dashed lines, but the bottom left and top right corners of the plots are...
  9. Penelope McMillan

    Left out (Norwegian documentary on ME)

    It is worrying that the "placebo" was not recognised as a treatment. Many people with ME report significant relief from saline infusions. The study appears to have made no allowance for the treatment effect of the so-called placebo? That does not detract from the tremendous integrity...
  10. Penelope McMillan

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation

    Yes, I get the same PEM as if I had struggled to do whatever I have done, in terms of when it hits, how severe the PEM is, and how long it takes to resolve. So yesterday I made the same mistake, too much standing around at an event instead of always sitting with my feet up (I carry a footstool...
  11. Penelope McMillan

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation

    Placebo in other conditions has been carried out by placing the clip on the ear lobe rather than the tragus, which assumes that the trial participant is unaware of correct clip placement. As TVNS becomes better known, this placebo approach may no longer be workable, which will complicate...
  12. Penelope McMillan

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation

    Not that I am aware of. The problem, as far as I can tell from the web, it that both Nemos and Vitos are preset for specifically epilepsy and migraine. They are at 25Hz and 1Hz. We are using 20Hz. With the Parasym, I can use a variety of settings. For example, the tinnitus setting is very...
  13. Penelope McMillan

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation

    It's worth noting that the Parasym is not available everywhere. So it will be helpful if the TENS approach can be sorted out. In the UK you can only get a Parasym with a prescription, which I doubt includes use for ME. The price structure for a prescribed Parasym in the UK is different, too. And...
  14. Penelope McMillan

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation

    Regardless of the hypothesis, those of us using TVNS love it. I have just had a phone call from someone wanting help to set up her new device, after dropping her original one down the loo. She was very keen to describe to me those symptoms that had become worse again during her two weeks...
  15. Penelope McMillan

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation

    Thanks for that. I have emailed Katlyn. Many of us with ME have POTS and I have certainly noticed changes since using the Parasym. My heart rate escalates more slowly and my safe upright time is longer. It is extremely unlikely that they plan to trial the three hours a day that I have found to...
  16. Penelope McMillan

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation

    We have yet to get a researcher interested in supervising a formal trial. We are working on it! In the meantime, our experiences should be very useful in study design, as researchers need to select settings and doses for trial.
  17. Penelope McMillan

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation

    It's a personal anecdote. Right now, the increasingly large group of local people who are experimenting with TVNS (Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation) are working on use of TENS machines for the same purpose, at a hugely smaller cost. It is a pitch for TVNS, not for the Parasym. There are...
  18. Penelope McMillan

    Australia’s National Health & Medical Research Council’s ME/CFS Advisory Committee’s final report released

    It was wonderful to identify the impact of the patient submissions. One of my friends was able to quickly identify a sentence that she proposed, which was pulled out of those 250 submissions!
  19. Penelope McMillan

    Australia’s National Health & Medical Research Council’s ME/CFS Advisory Committee’s final report released

    Please, when a member of the Committee, who has had ongoing access to confidential information about the Report process and the work done before the Report's release, says a fact is exactly that, a fact, you might consider that she knows what she's talking about. Fact: There have been two...
  20. Penelope McMillan

    (not a recommendation) What if exercise makes you worse?

    Thanks! I have asked our web person to take the article down. He has been very unwell and it may take a day or two.
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