https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2428896/ Abstract Many post-infectious syndromes have been recognized in the last 50 years, some following viral infections and others closely related to bacterial disease. The occurrence of prolonged fatigue following an apparent viral illness of varying severity is also well documented. The lack of a recognizable precipitating cause and the tendency for epidemic fatigue to occur among hospital staff led many to believe that the illness may be psychogenic in origin. However, there is serological evidence that some cases may follow enterovirus infections or occasionally delayed convalescence from infectious mononucleosis. Much interesting work is currently in progress relating fatigue to persisting immunological abnormalities, and the development of molecular immunology makes this a most exciting field of research. This paper reviews the evidence for and against a definitive post-viral fatigue syndrome and examines the results of research carried out in the last 50 years. I was googling and this came up. In case you missed it from the title, this paper was written in 1988. It demonstrates what little progress has been made in over 30 years.
Wow. The author, Dr Bannister, was my consultant at Royal Free Hospital in the 1980s after I got severe ME in 1983. My GP had referred me to Dr Melvin Ramsay there, under the impression he was still working, but he had retired and it was Dr Bannister who took the case. She was the only doctor I saw back then who was very knowledgeable about ME (IIRC, she had worked under Dr Ramsay). All previous doctors I'd seen had trotted out the usual BS about my condition being anxiety or depression or both and that I should just get out and exercise. She was the first who understood that what I had was a valid physical condition, and the only one who was familiar with exactly the type of symptoms and difficulties I was having. So much so, that I asked her if she'd had ME herself, to which she replied she'd had not ME but something similar. So finally, a doctor who understood what it was like from their own experience as well. I didn't know she wrote papers, I searched on her at the above link and also on Google and she has written quite a few! (I also discovered she'd been given an MBE for her services to public health in 2013 - a well-deserved award unlike some other recipients we could mention...) Her papers on ME could be well worth a read, if only to indeed see how little progress (retrogress, really) has been made since the psychs barged in and took over.
Uh, hmmm, yeah... Yes, it rained, yes, there is water on the ground, but who knows if the 2 are connected? Could be astral projection, I guess? Maybe spontaneous liquefication. Who knows? Could even be ghosts! You hear hoofs? Think howling monkeys, of course. This thing where not having the complete answer before working on a problem is super bizarre and entirely unique to medicine. Of course the reason here is psychosomatic ideology forcing people to dance around the basic facts. Which is also super annoying, and devastating, and deadly, and so on... But this is self-inflicted stagnation. On this issue, medicine is basically what the Catholic church was to Galileo.
all research B.A. Bannister https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/B-A-Bannister-38388955 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Bannister BA[Author]&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=3074289
