Remission when ill with other infections?

+1

So far only seems to work with colds, I have the flu or something now (hard to sort out what’s new and what’s the ME/PEM) and did not feel better before and definitely not during.

 

My 'yes' was to the first question. Excuse brevity - I hadn't yet read the other responses.

 

I get a brake from ME initially if I catch a virus, but then I get significantly worse for a long time. I suffer the flu much longer than a healthy person. And afterwards ME gets worse and stays that way for a long time.

 

I don’t feel any better if I have an infection. I feel worse. Antibiotics only treat the bacterial infection, they don’t impact on my ME symptoms...
The only time I was improved temporarily was when I was hyperthyroid - and not too hyperthyroid.... going hypo then crashed me big time.
This year I had a stinker of an upper respiratory tract infection. Took me about 5 weeks to get over it. Horrible.

 

I feel normal for a day, much more like my old self. It feels great and when it happened the first time I thought I was getting a reprieve. It only happens if I am getting the flu,and then I am back to hell again. I've had sore throats kidney infection and other things but they come without the reprieve. I'm wondering about getting flu Jab this year. I'm afraid to get it and afraid of not getting it because I have asthma. I hear there is a turbo Jab this year for the over 65s!!!. That sounds exciting. Sorry for going off track.

 

Sadly the 'viral reprieve' experience is not universal. I have only caught a single virus since falling ill, not sure if it was a bad cold or a mild flu. Anyway, it didn't make me feel any better and, worse, it tripped me from very mild to moderate-severe. Now avoiding sniffling and coughing people like the plague. Especially since a friend of mine went from mild-moderate to very severe after a bad flu.

 

Thanks all. Lots of helpful replies and, as suspected, heterogeneity in experience (like absolutely everything else with ME/CFS...)

From what I know of the 'fever effect', it's relatively controversial: as it is based on the behavioural reports of parents with children with severe autism, it could just be an artefact of the child being tired from the illness.

I've heard this from other people before as well. What would be trickier to tease out is whether ME/CFS sufferers are less likely to catch colds given exposure to them (e.g. due to immune system activation) or because they get less exposure because they are out of the house less/not at all and don't have as much interpersonal contact.

 

I am sure it is controversial. What it comes down to is whether one believes the witnesses and, if one does not, what are the reasons for the disbelief.

 

Worth noting is also that Ron Davis has observed the "fever effect" on ME/CFS cells in the lab, or more specifically, he thinks it's not the fever itself but the infection that makes ME/CFS cells behave closer to normal (reference to video).

I have experienced this remission as well, the two times I got sick with a cold or bug in the last five years, both times all my symptoms improved.

 

Could be. I’ve recently had the flu and felt awful, but not awful in the same way as I do every other day from ME. Now it has passed, and I’m back to my normal symptom load. It’s the same level of awful, but slightly different presentation.

 

There is also an age based effect, depending on what someone was exposed to prior to ME - I became ill when young, initially I didn't get out much but when I started to go out, I caught whatever was going around. Older people may already have been exposed to most common pathogens and therefore get ill less frequently due to acquired immunity.

 

Me too. I also have a history of autoimmune illness going back to young childhood. However, when I catch a cold or flu I get very mild symptoms of it for a day or so, no relief from ME symptoms and then I crash really badly, while all the cold and flu symptoms completely disappear.

Sometimes the initial cold/flu symptoms are mild enough that I dismiss them, or put them down to allergies, so the crash comes as an unpleasant surprise. Then I think back, confer with my husband, and realize he brought some bug home with him. Thanks love!

Sadly, for me, no. I have severe ME (started out moderate) and as far as I can see, no matter how bad you think it is, it can always get worse.

 

This sounds like me, I think, and I rarely catch anything, at least until this year.

 

I have wondered about this for years - after having several viruses every year in childhood and adulthood, when I finally came down with ME, when older, 5-6 years ago, I never never got a sniffle. And I was often exposed, via friends.

BUT this year I moved to the UK, and moved in with a toddler grandchild, and had some heavy surgery; and now have just had a massive cold/cough of the kind I used to have, every year since childhood. But until now, never since ME.

Probably unrelated facts!

 

There are a lot of bugs around in hospitals. I try to avoid them, but you clearly couldn't. Hope you're recovering.

 

That's a very good thought. I always thought it was just that a cold or flu raised the temperature allowing the immune system to work on the hidden (retro) bugs for once.

I think a lot of us are low-temp, though not everyone. So my own personal theory for a while has been that we never get enough of a fever to really kill everything off but your idea seems plausible to me too.

I think this type of remission has happened for others more than me though sometimes looking back I remember times when I was coming out of a cold and feeling a little bit better for a short while.