Chronic Fatigue: New Concepts in Understanding this Disease
The medical diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is complex due to its similarity to other ill-defined disorders including fibromyalgia, Gulf War Syndrome, and Sjogren’s Syndrome. There’s a significant overlap between the symptoms associated with each of these conditions.
CFS is considered by medicine today to be a subclass of chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue is characterized by the lack of defining symptoms that allow for a medical diagnosis. The pathology and causes of CFS and of chronic fatigue are unknown.
Chronic fatigue is a less severe form of chronic fatigue syndrome but both conditions have similar symptom pictures characterized by variations in symptom intensity:
* headaches
* disabling fatigue
* disabling fatigue
Additional symptoms include:
* psychiatric problems
* sleep disturbances
* skeletal muscle pain
* feverishness
* sore throats
* skeletal muscle pain
Due to these complaints, people often face social problems, loss of jobs, and the break-up of marriages. Although these symptoms are often less severe in one with chronic fatigue (no diagnosis), the complications of living with this condition are similar to CFS (diagnosed).
The Interesting Feature of the Causes of Chronic Fatigue is that They are Multi-Factorial — Many Symptoms at the Same Time.
Scientists and medical doctors are desperately trying to unravel the mysteries of these conditions which disrupt the lives of so many millions of people. Chronic fatigue is one of the major conditions suffered by the vast majority of the population.
When researchers began to look more deeply into the Gulf War Syndrome, they uncovered the fact that vaccines may have contributed to the condition. This goes against the prevailing belief system. The idea is that a vaccine will stimulate the immune system, but if it turns-on, it must turn-off again and if it doesn’t, then it begins to do harm.
The argument that vaccines are involved in the cause of disease is a heated one. It’s being hotly debated all over the world. The medical and scientific community will hear none of it and trot out their “research” to kill any argument. Research, however, can be used to support any argument, but if you’ve got the power broker upper hand, then it’s your research that’s paid attention to.
Maybe taking a page out of non-medical treatments for autism, including the use of immune system builders such as colostrum, may be a good move. This points the way to the use of many unapproved-by-medicine treatments that rely on stimulating the body’s natural healing response rather than the current over-reliance on prescription medicines.
It’s well understood that people with chronic fatigue and CFS have an imbalance in their immune system. In some of the immune system functional markers, they show some abnormalities:
* macrophages
* NK cells
* macrophages
It’s been difficult to identify if there is an association between immune system markers and CFS — the picture isn’t clear at all. Because this work has gone on for more than one hundred years with no final resolution, it’s clear that another approach that differs from the one taken by mainstream medicine may be the best option to look at now.
