Sore throats swollen glands

Good question. I've always assumed - based on no evidence whatsoever - that the sore throat is part of the general sickness response symptom cluster. Like when you're coming down with a cold or flu. Confused immune system attacking ghosts or something. But really I've no idea.

A quick google didn't find much, sore throat is listed as a symptom often enough but nobody seems to have looked into it further. I did find this general paper on non-infectious sore throats (not in ME). Seems they're not well understood even before we add ME to the mix. From the conclusion:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3439613/

And I found this (beware: it leads down the rabbit hole of HPV vaccine):

https://www.meresearch.org.uk/nose-and-throat-inflammation/

 

I never get the PEM sore throat without swollen lymph nodes. Someone once explained that they swell because they've recruited additional blood cells to come and fight an infection, and because of this I assume there's some kind of immune component to PEM.

If the PEM is mild, my swollen nodes usually go down within a couple of hours; I treat it as a useful warning that I need to cut back on everything except necessary activities for a little while. If it's severe, they'll stay that way for days.

I'd like to know what triggers this response, and how it gets subdued again, sometimes very quickly.

 

My lymph nodes have been permanently swollen for years now, I think. They used to go down, but not any more.

 

I wonder if this has anything useful to say about people who worsen permanently after activity that takes them beyond the PEM threshold, or after another illness?

 

I had this for years after onset and assumed it was probably connected to the sore throat feeling, although I could have them independent of each other. The kind of odd thing was that when I told others that my voice was hoarse, even members of my immediate family said it sounded normal to them. I was dumbfounded that it wasn't noticeable to them. I could certainly feel the rasp in my throat and could hear it in my ears but others could not. Maybe it was because my voice is normally quite deep. The hoarseness might have been more apparent to others if my voice were normally of a higher pitch.

 

Moved posts

Lymph nodes are supplied with nerves and fed with hormones controlled by the brain, like cortisol. I have never been that impressed by the claims that the brain has an important impact on immunity but it has an impact.

One thing that might be worth looking at is actual lymph node size. We now have ultrasound probes that can visualise superficial nodes quite well. There is no actual documentation of increase lymph node size in ME and if there was it would be the simplest of all ways to show that it is 'biomedical'. Maybe there should be a push for a study.

There is of course the alternative that lymph nodes are tender because of mediators under neural control without any structural change. And of course some people with ME will have swollen lymph nodes for one reason or another - so we need some facts.

 

I've been trying to find ways to argue this for years, but was hampered by not really knowing whether it would be considered a meaningful sign.

It would also be useful to understand whether it's common for there to be a pattern of swelling. For instance, I've known my throat glands become visibly swollen during the course of a day because of a developing cold, but not due to PEM. That's a morning phenomenon, and if it persists right through to the evening I've really overdone it. Usually most of the visible swelling has faded by the afternoon and won't reappear until the following morning.

 

This is brilliant. Do swollen lymph nodes usually happen during PEM? (Sorry, I don't have this symptom.) Then you can do a study with healthy controls and pwME doing a CPET and seeing how much their lymph nodes swell.

 

I think that is a bit pessimistic. Not all people with TB have swollen lymph nodes but swollen lymph nodes are a very good indicator of what is going on in TB!

 

I never knew there were so many lymph glands - I associated them with the throat/ neck .

My daughter can be a dot to dot of lymph s when they are problematic , literally from head down.

 

research is looking at proteomics, metabolomics and entire lymphocyte populations before and after exercise. This is where we will get answers.

 

Agreed. Some like me have sore lymph nodes, but not significantly swollen enough for a physician to be alarmed or even noticing

 

My neck lymph nodes were swollen at times in early ME, but now they are swollen all the time.

 

That's good to know. I didn't know because I don't get lymph node swelling or tenderness as an ME symptom. I have experienced sore lymph nodes at times, but only when a healthy person likely would as well. For example, if I get a cut in my mouth (presumably my immune system is reacting to the bacteria in my mouth) or if I get a vaccine (which is totally normal).

 

Mine too but when I mentioned it to my GP she dismissed it saying it's probably my salivary glands. I'm not sure how much better it would be but looking at pictures of swollen lymph nodes it seems spot on. Mine are almost always pretty hard and tender.

I don't think this information is often correctly recorded, given my N=1 experience. The reflex to dismiss is strong.

 

re probably salivary glands, that's a joke. As a teen I had stones in my salivary glands, which were severely acting up every time I ate acidic food- not the same thing and not the same location. (My salivary glands were removed).

 

Is it possible to get biopsies from lymph nodes? Or is this too invasive and dangerous to do? Do you think there would be much to be gained from histology, flow cytometry or comparative omics of these tissues, or would it just confirm that yes there are tons of b cells in there without providing any useful information?