Article in Patient: Why is ME/CFS research key to understanding long COVID?

Sly Saint · Dec 12, 2021

Authored by Amberley Davis · Reviewed by Dr Sarah Jarvis MBE11-Dec-21 · 7 mins read

ME/CFS is not a newly recognised condition and affects millions worldwide. Yet people with ME/CFS are historically misunderstood. There remain many gaps in clinical knowledge regarding causes and treatments for ME/CFS.

This said, it has long been theorised that ME/CFS - like long COVID - is a post-viral condition, meaning that it may be caused by an initial viral infection which triggers long-term symptoms that remain after the virus is gone. The existing research on ME/CFS is now being studied and revisited through the lens of long COVID.
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By building on ME/CFS research and theorising connections, experts hope to avoid 'reinventing the wheel' and instead build a better understanding of both diseases and ultimately find effective treatments: "I think the tools we've applied to study ME/CFS can now easily be applied to long COVID as well. And vice versa," says Dr. Avindra Nath, clinical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).
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Long COVID and ME/CFS shared symptoms
A significant amount of people infected with COVID-19 who develop long COVID are dealing with fatigue that's so debilitating that it warrants an ME/CFS diagnosis. Some studies suggest this figure is 40%, and figures from the Office for National Statistics show that fatigue is the most common symptom experienced by people with long COVID, affecting 54% of people with the condition.

According to research, the most frequent shared symptoms of people with long COVID and people with ME/CFS are fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and post-exertional malaise (PEM).
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https://patient.info/news-and-features/why-is-mecfs-research-key-to-understanding-long-covid

drsarahjarvis is on twitter as is @patient.
could someone maybe ask why ,as pointed out in the new NICE guidelines, and mentioned in this and many other articles, that PEM is a required symptom for a diagnosis of ME/CFS it is not mentioned on the NHS England main website.

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Article in Patient: Why is ME/CFS research key to understanding long COVID?

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Article in Patient: Why is ME/CFS research key to understanding long COVID?

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