Frontiers in Pediatrics: Blood volume status in ME/CFS correlates with the presence or absence of orthostatic symptoms (2018) Van Campen et al

Frontiers in Pediatrics: Blood volume status in CFS/ME correlates with the presence or absence of orthostatic symptoms


Introduction: Conflicting data have been published on the reduction of circulating blood volume in adults with Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The aim of the present study was to compare blood volumes based on the presence or absence of orthostatic symptoms.

Conclusions: Adults with ME/CFS had a significantly lower blood volume if they had a clinical suspicion of OI compared to those without a clinical suspicion of OI, as well as a significantly lower blood volume compared to the expected value. The data suggest that accounting for symptoms of OI could enhance the detection of the subset with reduced blood volume.

 

The question I have, is the finding of low blood volume a consequence of low activity levels or directly caused by the illness?

 

Exactly the same here.
Then, after a couple of years or so, the fainting stopped and the postural orthostatic tachycardia started.
If OI and low blood volume are linked, what about POTS and low blood volume?
I'm speculating that I first got low blood volume, this lead to OI, which finally morphed into POTS as an adaptive response.

 

I think van Campen presented research @CMRC 2017 on cerebral blood flow but I haven't seen a published paper.

 

I can't think of a way low activity could lead to low blood volume. I never knew what it was, but I had OI right from the start. In those days, they spoke about the hypothalamus being affected so that temperature control and so on were bad. I don't know if that is the same as dysautonomia or a separate thing. If it is I hope it isn't lost as it is a real problem for me.

I was not deconditioned for decades, not until I became housebound.

 

Now I'm curious how that relates to findings of reduced liver volume.

It seems to follow that with lower blood volume, the liver would shrink since it doesn't need to filter as much. Does that make sense?

 

I’m not sure.

I do know fasting affects liver size, and seeing as how the metabolics of PwME can look similar to that what you see in healthy people during prolonged fasting there might be a connection there, possibly the liver is a good temporary fuel source for the body?

 

Tagging @mariovitali

 

Looking through the Liver Perspective, although i am not sure this is directly related :

 

What makes you think of linking the 2? I haven’t heard of blood volume being tied to physical conditioning before

 

Well its anecdotally a well known trait with ME that a bad patch is associated with peeing a lot. Also a high ESR reading (erythrocyte sedimentation rate: so long time is thick blood) is associated with low blood volume, Dr Paul Cheney documented this years ago.

This may be because kidney filtration is based on reuptake which is an active process requiring metabolic energy input. It stands to reason that if your kidneys have less energy they become less effective and your water leaks out but proving the association with OI and ME empirically is another matter and deserves to be done properly I feel sure.

At first before diagnosis I was susceptible to OI and on one occasion fainted because of it and knocked myself cold in the process and was mildly concussed. Since then I have been very careful standing up and since diagnosis (ten years later) I treat it by making an effort to drink plenty of fluid and minerals.

Nevertheless I read a story of one guy with ME being told by doctors that he was making himself ill because he was drinking too much and giving himself hyponatremia. I was tested for that myself on one occasion but it was normal.

 

But without the deconditioning narrative, how can we blame the patients?