Do you believe that “viral persistence” is the cause of ongoing MECFS and LC?

If immune tolerance is at play, odds are nothing would.

 

Sorry, what does this mean?

 

Back in the early 1950's the Nobel Prize went to a couple of guys who demonstrated that a fetus can inherit from its mother an immunological unresponsiveness toward an antigen or group of antigens.

But some veterinarians had been purportedly toying with the concept before that, and well after. In this frame of reference, as I understand it, immune tolerance can be looked at as a state where there is little to no inflammation or antibody response to certain antigens that might typically cause such responses. It happens when elements of the immune system are effectively muted or suppressed.

So - in theory - you could have active infections and not test positive for them.

 

But doesn't this imply that while you might not be able to test for antibodies, or some other aspect of the body's response, you should be able test for the virus directly with PCR, maybe even more easily, since it's not being suppressed?

 

You have to know where to look, and what you're looking for.

 

"not on his list" surely a completely unknow genetic fingerprint/organism would stick out like a sore thumb?
DecodeME will hopefully provide clues in the near future, but I think Jonathan's take (common pathogen but aberrant immune response) is better fit at this point.

 

A few references on immunoparalysis.

The Calm after the Storm: Implications of Sepsis Immunoparalysis on Host Immunity (2023, The Journal of Immunology)

Broad defects in the energy metabolism of leukocytes underlie immunoparalysis in sepsis (2016, Nature Immunology)

Monocytes and Macrophages, Targets of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2: The Clue for Coronavirus Disease 2019 Immunoparalysis (2021, The Journal of Infectious Diseases)

The Itaconate Pathway Is a Central Regulatory Node Linking Innate Immune Tolerance and Trained Immunity (2018, Cell Metabolism)

Resolving sepsis-induced immunoparalysis via trained immunity by targeting interleukin-4 to myeloid cells (2023, Nature Biomedical Engineering)

Sepsis and septic shock (2016, Nature Reviews Disease Primers)

Prolonged Reactive Oxygen Species Production following Septic Insult (2021, ImmunoHorizons)

 

Interesting. Don't know how widespread such experiences are; it's something I've never heard of till now. Such rapid fatigue could be secondary rather than directly from infection. In fact, it could be a true PEM rather than a fatigue from the infection. He could have developed post-viral syndrome while he was still in-viral and whatever exertion he did may have triggered PEM. It would be interesting to follow up on him and see if he still has the same fatigue episode after the virus was gone. On the face, however, it opens up the possibility of viral reactivation causing rapid PEM-like fatigue.

 

One of the things that occurs to me, e.g. from Jonathan's comments above, is that the underlying cause of ME/CFS and Lyme are likely the same --- thinking of Nath's reference to solve ME/CFS, Lyme or Long COVID - you'll solve the all!